It was Thursday morning and we needed to hit the road. We really weren’t too anxious as we hadn’t even really started securing things down to have an early departure. The weather forcast was calling for heavy rain in KS and snow in Denver. We studied the map and weather predictions and decided to take a southern route through OK, TX, and NM.
Between doing some things for work and getting the coach ready for travel, we were ready to pull out of Springfield at about 2:30 p.m. We were in need of a dump station and wanted to fill up with fuel before we got too far, so we decided to stop in Joplin, MO. I needed to finish up some loose ends for work, so we hung out at the Flying J for a couple of hours until I could get the immediate tasks complete.
We got back on the road to make our way through OK. We tried to get some sleep on the west side of Tulsa at about 9p.m., but couldn’t sleep so we thought we’d press on. We finally pulled over at a truck stop in El Reno, OK for the night at about midnight. Just after we stopped and let the dogs out, the rain came pouring down.
We had a wonderful night’s rest and left the truck stop Friday morning at about 8. Before we left, we made sure to take a walk around the coach and to make sure everything was fine for travel. It turned out the wind was so swift the night before that the awning above our living room slide out was wrinkled. We extended the slide out to re-roll the awning and nothing seemed damaged.
We made sure to take our time, not speeding and stopping whenever we felt we wanted to. We kept watch of the weather systems on our phones. What wonderful technology. We knew when we we may be hitting any weather and we could decide if we wanted to press forward or simply stay put until it passed. Mostly we kept watch of what the weather was in CO as they appeared to be getting pummeled with snow. Ideally I wanted to be at the office on Monday morning, but we decided that we weren’t going to push it, if we needed to stay a day somewhere to let the system pass, we would do that. It was only Friday, so we felt we had plenty of time.
We rolled into NM at about 2p.m. and stopped by Russell’s Travel Center in San Jon. Cute little place with an antique car museum. The owner has quite the collection of cars and memoribela. What a nice break.
- Russell’s Truck Stop, St. Jon NM
We stayed on I40 until we were past Santa Rosa, NM then connected with HWY 84 N. We connected with I25 in Las Vegas, NM and decided to call it an evening. Even though it was about 6p.m. and we really weren’t that tired, we decided it would be best to just pull over and not risk traveling after dark just in case we would encounter snow or ice. We thought it would be better to see what we were getting into.
That night was COLD! We woke up to 13 degree temeratures with wind chill -1. Our little Florida doggies weren’t used to that at all. After I fixed us some eggs and toast for breakfast, we were back on the road by 7a.m. According to the weather forecasts, all the snow hit the Denver area on Friday. Since it was Saturday and we were still in NM, we really felt by the time we got there, the road crews would have cleared off the major roads anyway. We looked up the road conditions on the web and they didn’t seem that bad, but still we decided, if we needed to pull over we would. Afterall it is just Saturday, we still had plenty of time before our arrival time goal of Sunday evening.
Travel on I25 was fine for the most part. Once we crossed into CO, there were some warnings to go slow. We traveled about 25mph through those mountains like the semi trucks were. The roads were clear, with just a few slick spots. We didn’t want to risk it going down such steep grades. Once we were out of the mountain pass, the roads seemed dry and clear for most of the way. We ended up getting to the Denver area by 1:30ish. The roads were wet, but cleared off. We were delighted to pull into St. Vrain State Park near Longmont at about 2:30p.m. We made it and could get comfortable and have all day Sunday to unwind before I needed to get into the office on Monday morning.
The miles may have been longer going the southern route vs. going through KS, but we certainly thought it was worth it to avoid the severe weather they had. We also met our goal of not having to call CoachNet because we were broken down somewhere. That was a wonderful feeling.
