North Carolina to St Louis- Best Winter route

[Teamubr]

Figured I'd update this one last time.

We took the "northern" route home from NC. (I-40 up to I-77 to I-64) I'm glad we did. It was great. Beautiful. There was snow covering once we were in Virginia and most of the way in WV until we were close to Charlottesville. I have never driven that part of the country. I really liked the mountain views and the snow made it all the prettier. There were a few decent climbs, but nothing that slowed us. Overall, it was less steep than Monteagle on I-24, but more of it.

It was a little concerning when we stopped for lunch around the Va, WV border and there were "Winter Storm Warnings" on the highway signs and at the truck stop. When I looked it up, it wasn't forecast to start until 12 hours after we were there.

We drove straight through. All 15 hours and 980 miles of it. About the same as coming home from the Fort. We generally do that straight through too. We left Swansboro, NC at exactly 7am EST. That was my goal. I estimated that would get me home about 9pm CST accounting for a few stops. We stopped a couple of more times than I intended. I was starting to get concerned that DW wanted to check out the rest areas in every state we were going through. Luckily we did skip Indiana and Illinois. We pulled into the drive at 9:20pm CST, in the pouring rain. It had been raining at home all day and things were soaked. We grabbed our pillows and went to bed.

Spent today unpacking a month's worth of clothes, food, stuff for 3 cats, 2 offices worth of computers, 4 monitors, printers, scanners and network equipment. It was dry this morning, but started sleeting/heavy snow flurries around noon. I cleaned up the camper a bit and re-winterized. Laundry has been started and the camper is sitting in the driveway until towels, sheets and quilts are clean and ready to go back in.

I'll probably take the camper back to storage in a day or two depending on weather. Hopefully it will stay dry long enough to get the cover back on so it can stay in hibernation until April.

j

 

[bama_ed]

Welcome home, Jim and Donna. Ed

 

[Teamubr]

Welcome home, Jim and Donna. Ed

Thanks Ed!

I wish we could have stayed another month. It's funny, but when we left yesterday morning, it was 22 degrees. That was the coldest morning they have had all Winter. It was supposed to be close to 60 today though. The cold doesn't last long there. I checked the forecast for home... Lows coming up next weekend are single digits (5 I think). The high Sunday is going to be all the way up to 10. I think I spent the wrong month in NC. Home had highs in the 30s and 40s most of January while we were gone.

We had a great month and got to see a part of the country we haven't been to. We did learn that NC is probably not the place we want to retire to. It still gets a little too cold for us. Good news is DW was already looking for someplace a little further South to try it again next Winter. She had GSP pulled up and said it was only a little more than we just paid for a month. The Luxury (that really isn't) RV Park on 59 in GS across from Scoops says it is $895/month. That is about $150 more than we just paid. We'll have to see what else is available on the gulf coast. I should be back in the office by then, so I'd have to work out something with my boss. Good news is, we know it works out.

j

 

[jbrostek]

I am glad the route worked well and good to note as we are looking at where we want to camp and explore.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

Nice. Glad the route worked out.

I landed in Charlotte for work the other day. It was around 36. The rental car company had to flip a car for me so it took a few minutes. The lady at the counter told me to wait inside because it's SOOOOO cold out there. I didn't have the heart to tell her that I left KS with snow on the ground and it was in the teens with windchill and that 36 sounded glorious. The South is cute in the winter.

 

[Teamubr]

The lady at the counter told me to wait inside because it's SOOOOO cold out there. The South is cute in the winter.

The local news (Wilmington) used the word "Frigid" if the high was below 50. I cracked up. The week before we came home, the northern counties in the broadcast area were going to have snow flurries early in the morning. They delayed the start of school for 2 hours because of it.

And then I come home where the high Sunday may not break 10.

j