Dec 18

After a good night's sleep we awoke to a winter wonderland of ice encased.... everything! The main road, which was a block away from our hotel was clear as they kept the salt on it. But, the entire parking lot was road leading out of the hotel was glare ice. After scraping the windows of the truck I went up the ladder to check the roof of the RV and there was close to an inch of ice on everything up there. That meant a lot of extra weight with a very high centre of gravity. I went up and broke off as much as I could as there were places where there was snow under the ice. Other places were solid so they would have to stay put. The attached photo was my tool of choice for this operation. Sam was on guard on the ground ready to catch me if I fell.

I also discovered on this morning's circle check that the running lights on the left rear of the RV were not working, meaning we could not operate in the dark. I pulled the lens and bulb to see if they were the problem but no luck so I added this to the "temperature north of freezing" repair list. Brake and turn signal still worked so off went. Four Wheel Drive came in very handy this morning!!

We headed over to Walmart to see if we could get the trailer tire repaired as I did not like not having a spare tire should we get another flat. The way our luck was going, that was not inconceivable. Unfortunately they couldn't fix the tire because it was a heavy duty trailer tire and their patches were only good for car tires. My ace up the sleeve was that the truck spare tire, which I just bought the previous week as the original was in pretty rough shape, would fit the RV should we have another flat. Seeing as it was Sunday, there were no tire repair shops open anyway, so off we went.

The interstate was OK as it was salted but it was still a few degrees below freezing but the on/off ramps were glare ice. We saw many vehicles in ditches beside ramps so we stayed on the highway and took advantage of having enough fuel with our auxiliary tank to drive all day long if need be.

No other surprises along the way and we made it to Bowling Green Kentucky (home of the Corvette Assembly Plant) and grabbed another motel. It got cold again at night. So cold in fact that when we went out for dinner, the walk signal buttons at the intersection were so covered in ice I couldn't push them. They were frozen solid. Another wise accommodation choice according to Finn. He likes sleeping on hotel beds with us. We're also surprised he doesn't insist on his own hotel room as he is used to having his own room at home. He is also actually pretty happy travelling in the back seat of the truck. The seat is folded down so he has his bed on one side and can walk around a bit. Dodging, of course, his wardrobe of various stylish winter dog wear.