Hell Day on the Road

We woke in Rolla, MO to rain and high winds. The weather then got worse! For the rest of the day we fought terrible crosswinds and torrential rains. We even were hearing tornado warnings on the radio! Our faithful Georgie Boy is a handful in the winds, but with the trailer attached it is four hands full. Glad we decided on the electric brakes for the trailer, since we used them a lot to straighten out each time we got hit with a huge wind gust. Mike's arms and shoulders got a good workout today.

We took an international detour, and filled up with gas in Lebanon (Missouri that is)! Burned a lot of gas on the next leg, due to winds and the Ozark mountains (which are big hills). We were in need of propane, and to empty our sewer holding tanks, so we stopped at a Flying J truck stop in Joplin, Missouri. Just as we arrived, so did a thunder storm. No propane can be pumped during an electrical storm. Oh well, Marlene made lunch, and we settled down to wait. But... another RV from Texas pulled in behind us, and when he learned he couldn't get propane immediately, he wanted to leave. He couldn't back up his rig, so we kindly moved out of his way, manoeuvring our 60' long rig around for him. Since we had to move anyway, we decided to take that time to dump the tanks. Of course, that is when the rain REALLY hit. Mike was standing outside in a lake, in a huge rainstorm, doing the nasty business of tank dumping. He looked like a drowned rat!

We finally got our propane, and hit the road, only to find our Texas travellers stopped 5 miles up the way, so we actually made time on them, and we accomplished all our tasks too. After Joplin, we hit the Oklahoma state line, and the first of 3 toll-roads. We ended up spending a total of $23.30 in tolls in only 2 hours! We saw more police cars in 3 hours in Oklahoma than in our whole trip to date. They raise money for their poor state by tolls, tickets, fines, etc. The difference between Missouri and Oklahoma is striking. The homes in Missouri are large, beautiful, well kept houses. In Oklahoma it's shacks, sheds, and ratty mobile homes. We heard a joke on the Oklahoma radio station about people living a double wide lifestyle on a single wide budget. If you don't understand, it's mobile home humour.

Finally, we arrived at the Walmart Supercenter in Oklahoma city. First thing we noticed is we lost the temporary Indiana license plate on the trailer, probably because it was made of paper. Lucky we have our Alberta plate from the tow dolly. Armageddon survived the stormy drive just fine. We, however, were so stressed, we decided to forgo our usual Thursday night tradition of pasta night, and Marlene is treating us to perogies and kubasa that we carefully packed in Edmonton. Large glasses of bourbon are also called for.

Since we are a day ahead of schedule, we decided to change our itinerary and shorten our daily mileage. We are now re-jigging our route, and will try to stop more often and smell the roses! Stay tuned...