We left the Lost Alaskan RV Park in Alpine and started heading north east. There is still a lot of Texas to go through and we drove through Fort Stockton to the Odessa Meteor Crater, an anticlimactic crater if we ever saw one.  The crater is of one of several impact sites in the area and according to the signage, the second largest in the US.  Over the years, and with the aid of shifting sand and desert wind, the crater filled up almost to the top making it less than spectacular.  At the time of impact about 60,000 years ago ts was apparently 100 feet deep and 550 feet in diameter.  To make up for the lack of dramatic contour, the museum is informative as is the short hike around the crater.  It is close to the highway, so a nice quick break from the reality of heading north.

Our toilet stopped working a couple of times – turns out that if you disconnected batteries and reset them it will restart, but for some reason the foot pedal remains in an upright position now.  Looks like it will need to be serviced when we get back.

A new arctic cold system threatens our route home.  We had to make quick plans for winterizing as the temperatures were dropping below freezing and will only get colder.  We didn’t know where we will stay for the night and whether there will be a place to dump, so we made a quick decision to winterize in stages.  We started by releasing the little bit of fresh water that we had and emptied the hot water tank just in case.

We made it to Horseshoe RV Park in Ranger, Texas and finished winterizing that night.  Our black/grey tank was pretty much empty, so we didn’t need to dump, we just poured antifreeze into the system and made sure that it traveled through all of the pipes.  It went very quickly this time around.  Practice makes perfect…

As we drove through Ranger the next morning we couldn’t help but notice that the town – or at least the part that we drove though – seemed derelict and abandoned,

but the cats seem to be doing okay in Ranger.

It’s all about priorities!

Onward to Wichita Falls and a Texas style breakfast from a random diner.  We wish we could say that it was amazing, but it was just okay.

And just like that, we say goodbye to the ‘praying mantis’ and the functionally ornate ranch gates.  We plan to be back.

Our drive took us through Tulsa to Springfield, MO, where we stopped at our last RV Park – Cooks RV.  We got there at night; it was freezing and there was snow and ice on the ground, so we huddled inside and sort of watched the super-red-wolf lunar eclipse.  It was way too cold to go outside to take pictures, so we took a few bad ones through the window with the camera pointing up.   You’ve seen better pictures by now so we’ll spare you.

From Springfield we drove straight home without stopping for the night.  It was extremely cold outside and we didn’t want to stop for more than a few minutes.  We had the heating in the van on full blast, our winter jackets on,  and we were covered with blankets (yes, the electric one as well) during the drive.  We blamed the construction of sliding door and several other innocent features in the van only to find out at one of the stops that the window on the sliding door was not latched properly and was basically open.  Yup, that would explain the cold draft.  The drive was a lot more comfortable after we closed the window, but Emma kept the electric blanket on.

Making a run for it ended up to be a prophetic decision as you will see later on.  Another day on the road could have ended in a big mess at home.

We stopped at Troy for one last Mexican meal, drove through Dwight, Battle Creek, and Sarnia, stopping only for for gas and bathroom breaks, watching in horror the whole time as the temperatures plunge below -20C.  We were now almost 50 degrees Celsius away from that beautiful, sunny day in Boquillas a couple of days ago.

At this point we just wanted to get home, take a hot shower and go to sleep, so we pushed on.

We made it home at 3:30 in the morning after a 19-hour drive .  The temperature was -24C (or -11.2F), and we had no water in the house.  One of the pipes in the basement froze.

We weren’t careless. We left heat on in the house, especially in the more sensitive areas, we also had someone come in and check on the house, but one of the heating elements in the basement malfunctioned and with the extreme cold, the pipes started freezing.

We had to fix it and see if any of the pipes burst, so we fixed the heating, cut the ceiling open, started blowing heat into the opening, and were able to free the frozen blockage without any pipe damage.  We were very relieved since the outcome could have been different if we took our time coming back.

So now that we had water and heat it was time to take a much-needed shower and go to sleep, right?  Nope.  Apparently a month away will dry up your drain and it will get clogged.  That’s just great.  We spent some time unclogging the drain and finally, cleaned up and went to sleep.  the temperature was down to -26C.

Strange.  It was starting to feel like being at home was the adventure.

Needless to say that Emma just went to sleep as soon as we got home.  The life of a dog…

The next day the van was covered in snow as if we never went away.

Our troubles are not over yet.  In our next post we will summarize the trip’s costs and takeaway and you can find out what else went wrong.  A 6 month ‘vanivarsary’ soul-searching review is also coming down the pipes (yup, we said pipes), so stay tuned!

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Since Valentine’s Day is around the corner, we would like to hand all of you a virtual rose.  Thank you for your support!

❤️                                                                                                                                                          ❤️

BY THE NUMBERS:

 

• Cost: CAD$508 (US$368) (gas, food, RV Parks, and tolls)
• Distance: 3,123 KM (1,945 miles)
• Fuel Average: 6.7 km/l (16.7mpg)

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