Damage Control

I finally worked my way to my brother's house in Midland, MI.  It's been a fairly eventful last three days.  Tuesday night I stayed at the Missouri Welcome Center on US 57 just across the Arkansas border and endured a huge thunder storm with winds so powerful the Tank was "rolling" back and forth through about a 20 degree arc.  I couldn't help but think about Oklahoma and wonder if these winds were the lead-in to something catastrophic but they eventually died out, resulting in about a 20 degree dip in the temperature.

Wednesday I drove up through Southern Illinois till I hit I-70 and headed east.  Right before Terra Haute, IN, with one of two lanes of I-70 down for road work there was a huge fatality accident with a chemical spill.  They completely shut down I-70 for over 6 hours, diverting traffic through the city streets of Terra Haute in a mind numbing gridlock.

Miles and miles of 18 wheelers.

It took 3 hours to get through Terra Haute....usually it takes less than 10 minutes.

Unfortunately, many of the trees on the tree-lined streets of Terra Haute hadn't had their limbs trimmed back for some time and one of them whacked the Tank's refrigerator vent pretty hard which necessitates damage control and (hopefully) finding a local source for a drop-in replacement.

At least the tree didn't take out a solar panel!

After fixing the refrigerator vent I'm targeting Houghton Lake State Park for some Sunday through Wednesday camping where I can try out my never-been-used collapsible fishing rod.  With daytime temperatures here in the low-seventies it's hard to believe I'm in the same country having come from sweltering Texas to a Michigan with 46 degree nights!  I can get used to this!

Thanks for reading!

Hope

I'm slowly working my way to Michigan to surprise my Dad on Father's Day (it's OK, he doesn't follow the blog) and stopped in Hope, AR at Fair Park, a city park that doubles as a RV park (water and electric hookups) for a nightly fee of $15, which is pretty cheap.  About 50 feet from my back door is an American Legion baseball field where they played a double header last evening.

Hope nobody goes Miguel Cabrera on my back window!

I'm not really not trying to set any land speed record in to getting to Michigan so if it takes a few extra days so be it.  The goal is to get far enough north to not need to run the Tank's AC thus not needing to pay for hookups.  Arkansas is getting 90 degree weather so onwards and upwards (north).

They actually let you park on perfectly mowed grass.

Thanks for reading!

Anchors Away!

Readers of this blog know I encountered "a little" difficulty in selling my home in preparation for assuming a mobile life.  I'll document that battle in a separate post later, the good news is I closed on the sale yesterday!  YAY!

 

Good-bye little house, it was a good run!

So readers with a nautical background may have noted in the title of this entry I misspelled "aweigh" which indicates in naval terms that a ship's anchor has been lifted off the seabed allowing a ship to get under way.   I used "away" intentionally because my anchors (possessions) have really gone "away".  For the last three months I have sold or given away (mostly given away) all my "stuff" that won't be accompanying me in the Tank - which is what I have named my pickup/camper RV.  If it weighs like a...drives like a...gets the same MPG as a...then it's a Tank.  Anyway, I really wondered if anyone would want some of my bigger possessions like a 25 year old sleeper sofa. 

400 pounds of moving agony!

Or how the heck do you get rid of a home gym?

Talk about an "anchor", try pulling this!

Surprisingly, though, it's true how the saying goes:  "One man's trash is another man's treasure."  I should have photographed the happiness on the strangers from Freecycle faces as they cheerfully wrestled my surplus possessions into their pickups and SUV's for just a photo post on this blog.  Several times it occurred to me to ask if this home gym or heavy couch wouldn't become an "anchor" in the happy new owner's life but I held my tongue, if possessions (very large ones) make people happy it's no place of mine to rain my outlook down on them.

My sister asked me if it didn't make me a little sad to part with all my stuff.  I really believe I was being honest when I said it was a feeling of relief more than anything else.

Thanks for reading!