Battling High Winds and Wildfires on a Southbound Winter RV Journey

[Mark77]

So, on your annual sojourn south from ND for our winter break, we decided to make an extra day or two of travel vs last years 600 and 700 mile days. We also left a little later as we did not plan Quartzsite this time around so we may have a little warmer travel.

That worked great (weather) from Fargo to York, NE but kind of went downhill after that. Stayed a night in a truck stop in Sioux Falls, SD and then at York Camground in York the second night. Got an early start the third morning heading for Liberal, KS and about half way through that 400 mile day we got into some strong winds hitting us in the front left corner. Truck handled OK, but I was sure burning fuel.

30 miles from Dodge City the winds really go serious! I slowed to about 50 MPH for safety and got into the Love's in Dodge City, fueled and parked between 2 dry freight vans to block some of the wind and decided to wait it out for a few hours until the winds went down that evening. During that time the manager of 7 Winds Campground in Liberal, KS (about an hour away) where we had reservations called to advise me her campground was being evacuated because of the wildfires in the area and in the Oklahoma panhandle. She advised us to stay where we were until morning.

I was not comfortable taking up space for a commercial driver so I looked for other campgrounds using both Passport America and RV Life's tool and ended up finding a spot in a city park in Fowler, KS using RV Life's tool about 30 miles to our south. Took off for there and maxed out at about 50 MPH because of the 40 MPH side winds and got in there about 5 PM and settled in for the night. Later we learned that we were about 10 miles from the north edge of the Stevens Wildfire.

More later about the rest of the trip south.

 

[twindman]

I stayed in Dodge City one summer for a few nights. Wife and I went for a walk around the park and were about 50 yards from back to our rig and the wind really picked up. I think we even pulled in some of the slides as it was rocking and rolling. On the 10 o'clock news we heard the interstate about 40 miles to the north had high winds - I think maybe 70 mph. Numerous semis were tipped over (I think at least 15-20) on the highway. So it can be really bad for anything tall and solid sides.

 

[Mark77]

So it can be really bad for anything tall and solid sides.

I drove high profile vehicles all of my adult life but I when I have to really "drive" the truck it takes any enjoyment out of the trip away for sure.

We leave Fowler, KS in beautiful, sunny, calm weather the early next morning. The first couple of hours west on I40 were pretty un-eventful. We got to see much of the burned up ground from the wildfires, and remnants of at least one accident where a car was rear-ended, I assume from stopping in a bad spot because of visibility from the smoke. The plan was to stay in Albuquerque, NM for the night, but by the time we got to Moriarty, 40 miles east of Albuquerque I was again played out because of wind. Pulled into a truck stop early afternoon, wife and I watched TV for about 5 hours until the wind started to subside and got back on the road.

Since I felt pretty good, we decided to get fuel in Albuquerque and try to get to Holbrook, AZ yet that night. That would make for an easy 175 mile drive to Mesa the on our last day. The first 90 miles west of Albuquerque went great! The last 10 we drove it started snowing, and the final 5 miles I drove that night the interstate turned into glare ice. I retired to get away from this kind of crap! I drove thousands and thousands of miles on bad roads over my 3.5 million mile career, but I'm retired!!! I should not have to do this anymore! Traffic was bad and all I could think about was that many of these other drivers were not used to these conditions (being this far south) and I was more worried about what someone else would do than my own ability to stay out of trouble. I needed to get off of than interstate and I did not care where. The last 2 miles before my exit were at 15 MPH with the truck in 4WD to try to keep from spinning out.

As it ended up, I took the ramp into Thoreau, NM while others continued on. We watched trucks losing traction and sliding all over the road trying to get up to the bridge over that interchange, and when we got off the ramp headed north into Thoreau we saw a truck jackknifed right across the bridge blocking at least the left lane. Crazy dangerous out there!

We got to a Speedway convenience store with lots of parking, went it and asked if it was OK if we stayed the night and were told it would be no problem... got the furnace going and settled in once again to wait it out.

More later.

 

[DutchmenSport]

Seems this has been a challenging winter all across the USA. About the time it looks like weather conditions are turning more positive, "Mom" ... you know (Mother Nature) throws another whammy at us all!

May the remainder of your journey be safe. Continue to drive for safety ... not for speed and you'll eventually reach all your destinations.

 

[Mark77]

Likely nothing everyone who moves around a lot doesn't experience often, but I like to tell stories!

 

[1wayhighway]

We left early from Michigan this year to avoid the pending ice and snow getting ready to tear through Tennessee. There were no other weather systems predicted for that day and thought we would be good to go....Did I say we live in Michigan.....we made it about 40 minutes across 69 and hit a complete white out due to lake effect snow. That lasted about an hour and then the wind really picked up hitting us squarely on the passenger side along with a layer of wind polished black ice. Scariest tow I have ever had. The wind got the rig sliding at one point and I honestly thought we were going to loose it, I said out loud to the DW "that's that", but PTL it managed to get some bite and didn't come around. Needless to say I don't ever want to do that again.

 

[Mark77]

Done doing tourist stuff for the day, so on with the story.

After finally settling my nerves and getting warm and to sleep about 11:00 PM, I woke up at about 2:30 and glanced at my phone, which in effect becomes a clock radio (iPhone landscape mode) at night. The right side of the screen shows the outside temp for my current location and to my (almost) horror it showed 17˚! To say I was concerned was a wild understatement! I had 25 gallons of fresh water in the tank when I left home 2 days prior in 35˚ weather and that didn't concern me too much but what did was the fact that I decided it would be OK to turn on the pump and de-winterize in Sioux Falls, SD 250 miles from home after a relatively warm night and forecast 35˚ lows for the next few nights of our travels!

I had set the thermostat at 60˚ before bed, and the furnace was running, and indeed it was 60˚ in the RV but the furnace was not cycling. It had all it could do to maintain that temperature. Thankfully there was no wind to remove the heat faster than I could make it!

I got out of bed, ran the kitchen slide out just far enough to get the under sink cabinet doors open and the water heater access door flipped up and then pulled that the slide back in. Hydraulic slide was pretty sluggish in that weather. I checked my newly installed lithium battery setup (Victron) and I still had 80% of my 400 AH of batteries left so I was comfortable with that. I had left with 2 full LP tanks and the one I was using was down to 60% (Mopeka) so I was using LP fast but I didn't care about that too much at that point.

I did not sleep well the rest of the night. Furnace kept running but I have never had the rig in that kind of weather all watered up. If I had the pink stuff, I may have drained it an winterized it again, but I did not so that was not an option.

I awoke the second time at about 7:30 AM. Temperature was now 15˚! DW was already up. Water still ran in the bath area and I reached over the counter and confirmed water still ran in the kitchen. Pump shut off as soon as we closed the faucet so I assumed all was OK. Later I confirmed that the plumbing came through unscathed, both fresh and waste water systems.

We had a small breakfast and I decided there were going to be 2 things that had to happen before we headed west. First, the interstate had to improve. When I was trucking I always used Google Traffic to monitor road conditions. It is way more accurate than any state web sites as it monitors traffic speeds of cell users in real time. The 50 miles from where we were to Gallup were a lot of yellow and red's, with a lot of red "X"s where there were crashes. I was waiting for a lot more green roads before I left.

The second thing I needed was warmer temps. I didn't need any of the cold wind generated from cruising down the road removing heat from the belly of my Montana! As it was, the road conditions improved dramatically as the temperature was rising and road crews had time to get the highway sorted out. We left at 11:00 AM with 30˚ temps with weather apps showing the temp at 36˚ in Gallup, an hour west.

Driving was good, but the carnage on the side of the road, especially for the first 30 miles sure made it clear that we made a smart decision the night before. I've seen a lot of wrecks after bad weather over the years, but nothing like I saw that morning. Seems people, mostly truck drivers were not slowing down on that ice! Is that a "southern environment" thing? I have no idea, but when it gets slippery you need to slow the heck down!

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. Got some fuel in Holbrook, AZ and got off of I40 headed for Mesa via Payson. Beautiful drive, albeit hard on fuel but at that point I was just happy for no wind, warmer temps, dry roads and sunshine! We pulled into Mesa about 4:30... so happy to me in one spot for a week!

1680 miles, 184 gallons ($570) of fuel and 4 days of travel later! Hopefully we are rewarded with better weather onward and back home in a few weeks!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Mark77]

Well... Back home in ND again.

We did a lot of tourist stuff everywhere we went except Mesa. Spent my time there mostly working on my DC-DC charging system that I had not had time to finish before we left on our trip. We did get up to Tortilla Flats (we had been there before) visited good friends and relatives there and saw a few other sites along the way, but the real goal was to get to Yuma for our gathering with friends who winter there and they set up a "Rollag gathering" attended by a group of us from the Western Minnesota Steam Threshers Reunion in Rollag, MN. All age ranges from 20's to late 80's... like minded people who have become good friends over the many years we have all been members there. Some drive in from the Phoenix area and other areas down south and a few folks even flew in from up here in the frozen tundra so they would not miss out! Like the RV enthusiasts, it is all about friendship and community!

From there is was on to Pahrump to visit my wife's brother and his family for a week. We did a lot of day trips from there. Into Death Valley for the "super bloom" (I did not think that was really impressive) but maybe I don't know the desert or flower stuff! On our way back to Pahrump my BIL thought I should see the Alien Stop (cannot remember exactly the name) so we did that. Pretty corny, but I was completely taken aback by what the back part of that glorified convenience store housed... the Alien Cathouse! And it was real! Guess my innocent old eyes never imagined those kinds of places actually existed, right out in the open! I know that is a legal "profession" there. I got in trouble with my bride for daring to take a picture of the sign! Hey... I have to be able to show all of my innocent ND friends

Did a day trip to Red Rock Canyon and climbed like little kids and somehow managed not to get hurt or killed! I could not believe the young kids who were dancing around from rock to rock 50' off the ground! If it were my Grandkids I would have been crazy nervous! Guess I'm getting old!

The highlight of the Pahrump leg was our visit to Hoover Dam. Probably the highlight of my whole trip! Not knowing if I would ever get back there, I bought a round of $40 tour tickets (best available that day for us) and soaked it all in. What an engineering masterpiece, especially for those times. I was fascinated by every detail of that facility. Must have spent 5 hours there!

Eventually we left Pahrump and headed north through Vegas toward Salt Lake City. We stayed at a small campground for the night in Heber City. Drove in there in the dark and we were really surprised the next morning what the terrain was like when we saw it in the daylight! There is something to be said for sure about parking before it gets dark so you can actually see what you otherwise miss, but my anxious to get home mindset just won't let me quit driving before I get to where I planned to be for the day!

The next couple few days coming home lead into more WX and tie ups, but we made the most of it and actually used the equipment I have worked so hard and spent $$ to make this rig ready for dry comping for the most part! More on that another day!