This morning I had a suspicion that it was going to be cold today, so I put long johns on under my clothes. When we opened the blinds, my suspicions were confirmed when we saw a light dusting of snow on the picnic tables and the leaves on the ground. The ground itself was warm enough that the snow hadn’t stuck.
We had to do a longer de-camping this morning because we had put the slide-out out for our extended stay in Strasburg. We got some more propane at the park to make up for what we lost on the road our first day. Then our steps started making a racket, so Mark had to pull the plug on them which makes our first step a doozy!
We drove to Aurora, a suburb in the southern part of Denver, and had Les Schwab change all six of our RV tires. We maxed out our credit limit and still had several hundred dollars to pay above that. That’s the kind of thing we’ve been saving for the whole time in Oklahoma; it wasn’t too painful.
We didn’t leave Les Schwab till about 1:30 this afternoon, so we knew we wouldn’t arrive before sunset tonight. We made as few stops as possible to help make up the time.
We drove north to Cheyenne, WY and then turned west on I-80. We couldn’t get the dash heater to put out enough heat. Besides my long johns, I was also wearing my hoody and gloves. Mark put his on too, but we were still cold. We went across the lower Rockies in the daylight, but we crossed the higher Rockies after dark. We hit snow and fog, and when I looked over at Mark I could see he was white-knuckling it. I was chilled to the bone. I got up and put on one of those hats that has the fuzzy ear flaps, and I fastened the flaps under my chin. I pulled a lap quilt I’d made for Mark out from under the bed and put it over my legs. We stopped once so Mark could wash the dirty slush off our windshield and he bought me a hot chocolate. I even put my slipper boots on, and Dobby must have gotten cold under the bed because he braved coming out and curling up on my lap. All that helped, but my face – which was the only exposed skin I had at that time – was still cold.
As soon as we turned onto I-80, I was in somewhat familiar territory. Some years ago I had driven from Chicago to Portland along I-80, and I was glad that we were crossing much of Wyoming in the dark this time. My recollection of southern Wyoming was that it was populated by oil refineries and trashy trailer parks. Very depressing!
We arrived at our campground around 8:45 pm. There is a section of this KOA where regulars appear to live, and then there’s a bare area for campers. We are in the middle of the camping area with no one around. It feels kind of exposed. The first thing Mark did was plug us in so we could turn the heat on. I fixed black beans and rice so we’d have something hot to eat. It took a little time after we started eating dinner before I was finally able to unfasten my hat and take it off. Heat is a good thing!