On The Road again

I'm writing this from Brownsburg, IN, just west of Indianapolis.  We are on our way to the Burke house in Charlotte, NC!  We were able to leave home Monday about 1PM.  The whole process of getting the truck and trailer ready to roll is still a learning experience for us.  We had 4 camping weekends last summer, so we were feeling somewhat confident about getting all the steps checked off our list to be ready to go.  However, doing that in below zero weather is a different beast!  Bob had to remove snow from the top of the trailer twice.  He had to use the hair dryer twice to open frozen access panels.  The batteries had been stored inside, so had to be re-installed in their compartment that sits on the hitch of the trailer.  It's a confined space, and there are about a dozen little wires and posts and connections that have to be secured.  Thank goodness he had taken a good picture of the hook-ups before he removed the batteries last fall.  We found out that the batteries had not been holding a charge as intended, Bob had used a trickle charger on them in the basement.  So we didn't have enough battery power, and, of course, no 50watt power source in our driveway.  So we couldn't run the furnace.  That left the interior of the trailer still below freezing.  So we had to be selective in our packing, placing the things in the trailer or truck bed that wouldn't suffer from the cold.  Anything else had to be packed in the back seat of the truck.  It was, and still is, a disorganized way to leave home, which really sets my organized mind on end!  Marie Kondo (organization queen) would not be happy!

I don't have much for pictures to share yet, I think I've kind of been in a daze from the fact that we actually are setting out to do what we have wished to do for a long time!  Now that we are both fully retired, we have this adjustment in thinking to process.  No more work shifts, no more schedules to juggle, no more commuting on a routine basis, no more "work clothes" needed, no more lunches to pack, and no more paychecks!  Well, our paychecks are going to be coming in a different way now!

So we have escaped the nasty winter weather in Minnesota, and I mean nasty!  The day and night before we left, there was a bad blizzard that closed the interstates in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.  So we had to do a little route research on road conditions before we could leave.  That's another reason we weren't rushing to leave, waiting for the snowplows and road crews to do their thing.  We did end up going east on I-94 across Wisconsin to Madison.  There were a few sketchy areas on the road, but everyone was driving moderately and in the one lane that was most clear.
From Madison, we continued south into Illinois.  A good sign to see!  And we ended up in Indiana yesterday, so another milestone reached!  I'll try to capture more pictures now!

Sunshine and NO SNOW!