How Not to Escape

          Ah, Texas, the warm breezes and abundant sunshine make this place the perfect setting to spend the Winter in. Our days are filled with outdoor activities dressed in shorts and tee-shirts, with plenty of sunscreen to ward off those wonderfully evil rays of warmth!

          NOT!

          It seems that my old motto of, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,” is rearing its ugly head one more time.

          And it involves the infamous Interstate Route 10 in Southwest Texas. You regular readers are quite familiar with this roadway from former posts. It seems that this road has a personality, a mean streak as it were, that makes it very hard to establish a good relationship with and the worst part is that I don’t think it cares one bit about how I feel towards it.

          Once again we decided to abandon the warm, sunny forecast of snow and record low temperatures and do our best to get out of Dodge. We thought that we could squeak out in the weather window of opportunity that availed itself to us.

          Destination, Palm Springs, California!

          Frank, Joey, Sammy, Peter, and Dino were going to be in town. Frank gave me a call and said that us New Jersey guys needed to stick together, so he invited us out for a few days.

          All we had to do was bring the Taylor Ham and hard rolls.

          We left central Texas early Saturday morning hoping to arrive in Palm Springs midday Monday. The temps were in the high 20’s but unfortunately there was just enough moisture in the air to get things a little slippery, but still drivable. It takes us about 4 hours to get to I-10 from Brenham under normal circumstances. This time it took almost 6 hours to accomplish the same route.

          All would have been good.

          We could almost taste the westward advances that awaited us.

           If we finally entered the highway.

          NOT!

          “But what to our wondering eyes should appear, but massive dash warning lights that started to leer,”

          Yup, just like Apollo 13, the bells and klaxons started their audible shouts as the appropriate indicator lights on the dash began their psychedelic dance in front of us.

          “Uh, Houston, we have a problem.”

          Actually, I wish we were in Houston because there aren’t any weather-related issues there!

          It is now Monday morning and we are now entering Day #3 of our….

“Polar Roadside Breakdown Adventure”

          I guess that if you are going to breakdown basically in the middle of nowhere with low temperatures that have broken a 66-year-old record, then being in a motorhome is the way to go. We really do have all the comforts of home because……  we are HOME!

          But, depending on how long this lasts, the logistics may get a little dicey.

           Even though we can’t run the big engine, we are ok because the house part of the motorhome can be run independently from the chassis. We have electricity (generator), water, heat , food, puzzles, books, and movies, but all of these are in limited supply until we can get going again. And that is the gazillion dollar question.

          They don’t do Winter very well around here and who can blame them? Why waste tax dollars on an event that happens so infrequently. That’s why there is one snowplow for the entire state and their salt/sand distribution force is a retired guy with a Scotts Fertilizer Spreader that he fills with sand and rock salt.

          Manny, the tow guy that we’ve been in contact with, admitted that they are not good when the weather gets like this because……              The weather never gets like this, hence no snow/ice driving experience!

          So here we sit.

          Have you ever sat for over 40 consecutive hours listening to your Hazard Flashers do there incessant ding – ding – ding – ding? Even though we are on a relatively low-use road, it would be suicide to NOT have the little bastards doing their jobs. I wish that there were a silence mode for these guys!

          As I write this, the wind is buffeting us around, it is still dark outside, the temperature is 4 degrees, and the wind chill is at -17 degrees. Maybe today will be our lucky day and the non – Ice Road Truckers will be able to venture out and perform a rescue attempt. Where are the Reality TV people when you need them!

          Stay tuned!