2005/03 Deep South trip - Watkins Woolen Mill |
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March 2005
Dear All,
We’re on the road again, headed down to South Carolina mainly to get some warranty work done on the camper, but also to escape from Minnesota’s miserable March weather. Minnesota has some lovely days in January and February, with crisp and dry snow and sunshine, but Minnesota’s March is rather like England’s January, cold and damp enough to be nasty outside, but not cold enough for reliable winter sports.
So, we set off on Tuesday March 1st with the objective of getting as far south as we could on the first day. However, the decorating of the spare room wasn’t finished completely until the day before, and then the kids wanted help with their tax returns, as we wouldn’t be back until after tax filing day. So, it was a case of bed at 1 am and up at 6 to finish the packing. I’d found out the night before that it looked like we were low on propane, so we first drove around trying to get the tank filled. The excuses ranged from “the one that knows how to do it isn’t here” to “we’ve lost the keys”, but the end result was that we set off an hour late without filling the propane tank.
It was 9F when I got up but had warmed up to 11 by the time we left. This, of course meant that we couldn’t fill up with water, and we took off with antifreeze in the tanks. This isn’t the same antifreeze that goes into car engines, as that’s deadly, really poisonous. In a motorhome you use the pink stuff. It’s not really antifreeze, but it has the advantage that it shrinks as it gets cold, unlike water, which expands as it freezes. The net result is that the mixture of water and pink stuff stays the same size as it freezes, so the pipes and joints don’t burst. So it’s a great solution, except that the pink stuff tastes bad, and even a trace of it makes really rotten tea!
The driving was easy, straight south on I-35, and boring. Even in summer, two hundred miles of corn fields are unexciting, but in winter, corn stalks covered with snow just look like snow. By the time we crossed into Iowa the temperature had soared to 19F and we crossed the rest of the state in the heat of the day. By Des Moines we were above freezing and the snow had gone, leaving just a bare brown landscape. By now though we had some bird life, eagles and hawks, presumably doing well as there’s no ground cover for the mice and gophers to hide in.
We crossed into Missouri and headed through rolling farm country as the sun was setting to Watkins Woolen Mill state park, squeezing through the gate a few minutes before it closed for the night. We were the only people in the park and the camp site, though we’d been watched by an owl and lots of squirrels and a couple of cats who seemed think they were in charge. It was a good campsite, nestled in the woods, overlooking the lake, though it was dark soon after we arrived.
Surprisingly, the propane gauge now showed that we had plenty, so maybe it’s temperature-sensitive. The ranger who came around to collect the fees asked us if we’d brought the awful-cold weather with us, as it’s supposed to be warmer than this. The campground’s total income this night was our contribution, $7. It’s probably a lot busier in the summer. We could see the lights of Kansas City on the horizon.
Wednesday March 2nd
Missouri was warmer than Minnesota, but even so the temperature dropped into the twenties. We still had ice on the hood that had stayed with us for 400 miles. In the morning we took a tour of the park and the museum. The site was originally owned by the Watkins family, who built a brick church, school, and family house as well as their mill for wool and cotton. There was a flock of wild turkeys buzzing around the house. These were much larger than our Minnesota turkeys. I thought they were peacocks when I first saw them.
Next.