Monday, Sept. 2, 2019 – Labor Day, Windy, OMG and Are You Kidding Me!

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I pulled out of Mitchell about 11:00am to a nice but very windy day.  It was windy all across South Dakota and south down to Missouri.  Terrible gas mileage.  I finished my 2nd audio book of the trip.

So it was pretty uneventful except for the wind most of the trip.  Drive, stop for gas, bathroom break, Dr Pepper and repeat.

I crossed the Missouri river just about sunset and it was lovely.   All was good until I passed Exit 3 and topped the hill at 55 miles an hour to traffic dead stopped in my middle lane…..OMG!!!  It is amazing how fast your mind starts going thru the options in your head in split seconds:

  • Can I stop in time?
  • If I get stopped in time, will the car behind me get stopped?
  • If I try a hard stop, will the trailer fishtail?
  • Do I have room to move to the left or right lane?
  • Can I see traffic coming over the hill well enough to move to the left or right?

So I decided on the hard stop and safely stopped in time and no one rear ended me thankfully.  Then we had to drive thru glass and car parts that were all over the road from the accident that had caused the back up.

So I safely survived that and continued the 60 miles left to get home.  I stopped 25 miles from home to get gas at $2.06 per gallon.  It is always cheaper than at home.  It is now dark and about 8:00pm.  I have been driving for 470 miles today and I am ready to get home.

Ten minutes later when I am 15 miles from home, I see red and blue flashing lights in my side mirror directly behind me.  Are you kidding me?  With the trailer I don’t see anything in my rear view mirror.  So I slowed down and pulled over.  I was driving less than 65 mph in a 70 so no problem there but my right headlight keeps blowing out and it was out again so the small town Archie police pulled me over.  He was nice and I was nice and he ran everything and then gave me a verbal warning.

I continued the last 15 miles and stopped at Mom’s and spent a little time with her.  I pulled in to my drive at 9:15pm.  I had set my mileage trip meter when I left the campground on Sunday in Sturgis.  In my drive the trip meter said exactly 800.0 miles.  306 miles on Sunday and 494 miles on Monday.  It was very warm and humid and in the 20 minutes I spent unhitching and taking some stuff inside I was dripping with sweat.

Home Sweet Home

South

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