28 years of prodding, and in 3 days it all happened. Part 3

My eyes opened right at 4:00 am with the sound of diesel engines. I jumped up quickly to peer out of the shades and we were in the middle of a sea of 18 wheelers. I was relieved. You see, I was fearful of a knock at my door in the middle of the night. Move on sir!! You are not allowed to stay here. Or maybe even something worse. Not only had I never driven a motor home, I have never slept in one. Were we safe? I had gone through it in my head over and over, Ok, they would have to come through the front door which meant I had 37 feet of time to grab my 9mm. I’m good with that, we will be fine, I think.

I made some instant coffee, started going through a makeshift checklist that was in my mind and once I thought we were good, I turned the engine on and turned the generator off. The huge diesel engine sits under our Queen size bed, so Jill was up in an instant. 😉 I pulled the curtains back from around the front windows and immediately my second driving test was ahead of me. I had an 18 wheeler on both sides, maybe 5 feet away, we were angled towards a very small exit path with a curb on the far side. It was pitch dark and I couldn’t see the rear of my rig and I couldn’t see the front of the 18 wheeler. Not to mention the sound of the rain was deafening. What do I do? Well, I logically deduced that if I drive straight out to the curb, cut the wheel as sharply as possible, then the rear should clear the 18 wheeler. Maybe. Hopefully. I inched out as blind as I could be. I was shaking like a leaf and I remember it vividly as my body was so sore from the night before that it was painful just to shake. I got to the curb, cut the wheel and pressed the gas. My eyes may as well have been closed. I didn’t know if I would even feel it if I swiped the big truck, would I?

Once it was daylight I pulled over to check the tires, the oil etc and glanced at the rear right side of the coach, just in case I had clipped the truck and didn’t know it. The hair stood up on the back of my neck! Right there where it probably would have happened was a long 3 foot scratch. It wasn’t bad, It hadn’t even broken through the paint. I hadn’t noticed it when we picked it up the day before, but it was there now. Did I swipe that truck? I still don’t know today. It took me hours to get that out of my mind. Was I going to have a rogue 18 wheeler ram me from behind or try to run me off the road for sideswiping him? LOL My how the mind works.

I had put together a plan from the beginning and looking back at it today it was rather extreme. 😉 Fly out on Thursday and pick up the rig. Get home on Sunday night or Monday morning. Have a garage sale on Tuesday and move anything remaining into storage on Wednesday. Clean the house and pack the motor home on Thursday and Friday and on the road by Saturday. 10 days from the time we left Texas we were done and living in the coach. My reason for telling you our timeline is so you will understand why we had to drive at least 600 miles per day. We were already very behind so I took advantage of the adrenalin. However, I had no idea  what we were in for. The storm was bearing down on the coast.

The rain had not stopped even for a second since we landed. Not only had it not stopped, it was torrential. I love weather, and I love hard rains, but I was learning very quickly that I didn’t love it right now and it was getting very annoying. Several hours into the day I realized that I could handle the rig at 50 mph, so we were starting to make a little bit of headway despite the weather. Having never driven through Oregon, I had no clue of its mountainous terrain along the interstate. We began to go up in elevation, and with that rise so came the wind.

Jill kept asking me why I was jerking the rig around while I was driving, I smiled and said it’s not me baby its the wind. It was actually interfering with the capabilities of the windshield wipers by that point and along with the rain it was becoming very hazardous. We did not know that just a few miles up the road was  the worst winter storm of the year slamming into Mount Shasta, the very mountain we were climbing. The higher we drove the more intense the wind became. The more intense the wind became the more difficult it was for me to keep it on the road. Jill kept saying to me that we need to pull over, but at that point I had to keep the nose in the wind and keep driving or we might actually be in a worse situation. Not to mention I had 600 miles to drive. 😉

The rain began to turn into snow and sleet near the top of the mountain, at that point I was estimating the winds at a sustained 50 mph with higher gusts. Fortunately for us, it was for the most part a head wind. We were about 8 hours into the day, along with the weather of course was the elevation, so we had only been able to get 200 miles down the road. I was really becoming concerned. I didn’t know how much longer I could take this beating. Was it ever going to clear up?

Prior to our trip I had scheduled two stops. One in Reno to see our business partners and the other in Phoenix for a business dinner. We had decided to turn the radio on to get weather information and the first thing we heard was the road to Reno was closed due to fallen trees. That road was just 15 miles in front of us. I wasn’t as concerned about not making it to Reno as I was with how bad the wind was about to get, and what about that sign that we just passed under that said no admittance to 18 wheelers or Rv’s? What? I couldn’t stop? What was I going to do just sit out here like a sitting duck? It would have been nice to know before we got on top of the mountain??

The rain and sleet started becoming more and more intense, the wind picked up sharply and I was estimating it at that point at 80 mph and the rig was rocking so badly that things began to fall off the walls. Not only that, but the wind evidently cracked the seal on our skylight and water then began to pour in. Thankfully, the skylight is above the bathtub, so most of it fell inside, however a lot of it drained down the walls and into the carpeting. Everything seemed as if it was falling apart all around me!! FINALLY we made it through the pass and the sleet and snow turned back into pure rain, the wind was still howling, but not as badly and the stress on the engine was taken away as we began to drive downhill. Ahh, maybe it was over.

The downhill run was very long and treacherous. We had made a slight directional change and the head winds turned into a slight sidewind. Definitely had calmed a bit, but the direction change made it seem worse. I had to keep the speed down without ruining my brakes while holding the rig on the road. Fortunately most had listened to the warnings and found shelter so there weren’t many vehicles on the road to avoid. All in all, we made it 400 miles in 14 hours that day. The rain had subsided for an hour or two about the time we stopped outside of Sacramento but the radar was giving us a clue as to what was coming for the night.

To be continued