Daylight...

 

Usually a good thing... you know: it's always darkest before the dawn.  "Day-O; daylight come and me wanna go home"... "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine"... well, you get the gist.  Daylight is not good when your skylite is covered solid with Gorilla Tape and FlexTape: it should be solid dark and no wind noise.  So, when we saw daylight through that big opening and heard the wind whooshing - well, that's a problem.

We were about 700 miles into the trip when, in the words of the cast of the Broadway musical Hair: "Let the sunshine..."  To add to the fun, we had just passed a rest area.  On I-135 in Kansas.  I slowed us down, concerned it would all come loose and go crashing off the roof and into the pretty new windshield on the Honda.  I turned off at the first exit we came to, and a mile in we found a graveled area by an intersection big enough for our length.

We got out the ladder and I climbed on top to see what had happened.  The "weakest link" of the repair was an area where there was no structure left from what had been the frame around the skylite.  Joan handed me up supplies and I went to work on it; doing a small bit of surgery and making a "bridge" out of Gorilla Tape to get some structure on that side.  I was pretty confident it would hold, when Joan popped her head up on the ladder and suggested I add some tape to the side that held.  Being the dutiful husband I am, I did as she requested... pretty sure that this addition would be the new "weakest link."

I used almost all the tape of each kind we had, and we pressed on.  Another hour and we heard something rattling at the skylite... the "enclosure" held fine, but that tape on the side couldn't withstand the wind.  Fortunately, we got slowed down before it pulled the rest of Mt Tapemore off the roof.  We were close by an exit - I pulled off while Joan checked: "This small town has a Walmart!  We can get more tape."

Two miles off the Interstate, I pulled into the parking lot of the very small Walmart.  Joan went in to get both kinds of tape (and they had 'em), while I went back up on the roof for more surgery, then more tape.  Of course, we were still heading into a headwind, so I kept our speed to 55 to test out this new application.  It seemed to be holding.  We were now an hour and a half behind what the GPS said would be our arrival time when we first shoved off this morning. 

We were now in "making miles" mode.  Joan got us a bite to eat while we were rolling.  I pulled into a rest area to get Rufus his lunch and a potty break for me.  Back on the road.  30 miles or so of heavy traffic as we went through the Oklahoma City area.  And then: a 5 mile traffic jam caused by the need to merge two lanes into one.  Absolute stop and go.  Mostly stop.  That pushed back our arrival time at tonight's stop another half hour or so.

But the really fun part: another 5 mile backup for another construction merge.  Really, what is so hard about merging that you can't keep going, albeit a bit slower??  Why the need to stop... miles before the actual merge??

Temperatures were in the mid-90s, so Joan turned on the generator when we were about 20 miles out from our stop for the night... and that second traffic jam happened about 9 miles out from our stop.  At least we could run the coach air conditioning so it would be cool throughout when we got there.

We will spend two nights at this stop.  Because we need to.  I proposed we bust up the last part of our trip home with two stops instead of one.  We aren't on a schedule, and these 8 to 9 hour days of driving are wearing on all of us.  Yes, we want to get home and get the coach in our storage unit, but a day or two difference isn't a big deal.  Instead of two 300 to 350 mile days, we'll do three 200 mile days.  And a good portion of that will be city traffic through Ft Worth, Austin, and San Antonio.

Nine hours on the road today.  Yeah, I need a day off.

On the bright side, the last repair held for the remainder of today's trek.  Well, for full disclosure, a good portion of that time was at 5 miles per hour in the traffic jams.  At that rate, we should get home just in time to take the coach to Winnebago in December.

Yeah, that's a joke.  I hope.

You wanna see tired?  This was a new way of laying for Rufus today...

The boy was tuckered out.  I know how he feels.

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After we all had a chance to kick back, Ruf wanted to go for a walk.  Joan put his harness on him, I hooked up his leash, and he and I headed out.  This RV park has nice grass between the over-size sites, and Rufus loves being in the grass.  We walked around for a bit...

And then Rufus asked, "What is that?"

Look under the speed limit sign... I said, "That is a rooster."

"Cool!  What's a rooster?"

I explained that a rooster is a male chicken.  He said, "Chicken?  Like what I eat?"

"Well, that is the animal, but we're not going to eat that.  He is probably someone's pet."  He wasn't so sure about that, but we continued our walk.  Yep, I think this may have been this guy's pet...

As we walked around, Rufus and I visited... "Can we get a chicken?  Or a rooster?"

I told him, "No, they are messy and they like to get up early and make a lot of noise."

"Oh, we wouldn't like that."

He watched a lady get into the swimming pool.  On her way into the pool area, she commented about Rufus walking on a leash.  He likes that.  I told him, "Let's give this lady some privacy while she swims."  We walked over to the next block; the boy walked like a champ.  We came across a couple people walking dogs, and I steered Rufus wide around them; both of them commented about "that cat on a leash."  That would make a good book title.  ;-)

When we got back from our walk, Joan had supper ready.  She had taken the photos of Ruf and I walking, and the rooster.  Joan even commented about how good Rufus was walking; then she said, "Maybe we should spend an extra day here so Rufus can have some more walking time?"  I'm sure it wasn't so she could have more time at the casino that this RV park is a part of.  When I was done eating, I walked to the office and got us another day here (3 nights total)... we can all use some kick-back time... and checking weather for home, this should put us in after a couple days of rain there.  Timing.  We aren't on a schedule, I'm just looking to avoid any potentially nasty weather on this motorhome.