30 Nov 2018 - Day 1 Done!

30 Nov 2018
Well, day #1 is in the books!  A little recap then going to call it a day..

Yesterday we brought the fifth wheel home from the storage location and parked it in the street in front of our house, since it won't fit in the driveway due to it's length.  Luckily our street is fairly calm during the day so we were able to get it loaded and prepped without too much interference from passing vehicles. 

While Doreen worked on organizing contents, I tweaked the tire pressures, put new batteries in all the tire pressure transmitters, re-installed the water filter elements and the anode rod in the water heater.  The water system is still winterized with RV antifreeze, but we are hopeful St Louis and Memphis will be warm enough to allow us to un-winterize and use all of the water facilities.  We needed to get into the bedroom to load our clothes and other items, but to do that I needed to extend one of the bedroom slide-outs.  To extend any slide-out, the trailer must be level.  So, after unhooking I attempted to auto-level it and the left rear leveler did not cooperate!  Well, better here than out on the road somewhere.

After consulting with the factory, I performed a process called "re-homing" which basically re-establishes the home position of all four levelers.  That took care of the leveling problem, but the technician suggested I might have a look at my batteries.  Well they are originals (2013), so they are over five years old.  Time for a pair of new batteries.  Again, better here than out on the road somewhere.  Luckily we have an Interstate Battery store just a few blocks from home, so within an hour I had both batteries replaced - one more step towards having the coach ready to roll.

We continued to load both the RV and the truck, leaving anything that could freeze in the house until the morning we depart.  Later, our son Dan and his family stopped by to say farewell since we won't see them for Christmas.  Dan will be taking care of our mail and doing a walk through periodically to make sure everything is OK in the house.  Was great to see them.  That's it for the evening.

That brings us to this morning, our day of departure.  And an interesting start it was!!  Below freezing temps, severe fog and icing on the roads.  Dan called and there are accidents everywhere.  The road we had planned to take was at a standstill due to an accident.  So we delayed departure until after 0900 hrs.  By then we had no problems but southern and southeastern Iowa still had some fog.  There was snow along the roadsides from the snowstorm that came through last Sunday. 

The remainder of the trip was uneventful, longer than we normally travel on our travel days but the goal was to get as far south as we could as quickly as we could so we could un-winterize the fifth wheel.  Our trip took us past Mount Pleasant Iowa where I was born a few years ago LOL. 

We stopped there for fuel and to pee the dog and then headed on down the road towards St Louis. 

We arrived at St Charles MO, a northern suburb of St Luis where Sundermeier RV Park is located at about 1530 hrs.  The 51 degree temps here were very welcome!  Once we unhooked Doreen tackled the inside and I worked on the outside and un-winterizing.  We were both busy and tired, and did not get any pictures taken of the campground, but the spots are all paved, full hook-up pull-through's.  I would stay here again.

With the fireplace in the living room, a portable tower ceramic heater in the dining room and air conditioner heating element going in the bedroom, we are very toasty.  Satellite TV is tuned in so we just finished watching one of our favorite TV shows 'Gold Rush'.  The Internet box is working good, so catching up on emails, etc and thought I would get this posted.

Next stop tomorrow, the KOA campground at Marion AR, just west of Memphis TN!

27 Nov 2018 - Change of Plans #1

27 Nov 2018 - Change #1 !!

Departure is drawing nearer.  We have been watching the weather and road conditions closely not only here in Iowa but also Missouri and Arkansas/Tennessee, our first two stops.  If we were just driving the car we would not be so concerned, but towing a 15,000 lb trailer is a different ballgame.  The roads need to clear of ice and snow or we stay put - it is that simple.  It appears there is precipitation moving in on Saturday 1 December, so we are advancing our departure up one day, to 30 November.   We will still stay in the St Louis area just one night and we will extend our Memphis stop an extra night, so the remainder of the trip stays the same.

We are excited to get on the road and see all the sights and friends along the way.  Next update hopefully from St Charles, MO on 30 November!