The plunge southward...

I would hate to have people think that Lorraine and I hate winter or that our search for Spring is more literal than metaphorical. We really do love winter — that’s why we live where we do. We both agree that if there needs to be winter then we want it to be real winter with white snow, and drifts and the stunning light that changes through the day and cold doesn’t bother me much and when its too cold Lorraine stays inside mostly.
So, it was with almost regret that we left this morning — the day was beautiful, cold and clear. Sure -19c made it tough to push the 20amp electric wire back inside the trailer — it isn’t very flexible at that temperature so it was a real workout.  And the roads had a skiff of snow on them that made pulling the trailer a little dicey for the first 90km or so. But it was really beautiful — sunny with just a trace of ice-fog in Round Lake Centre without a breath of wind. Bracing certainly, as we did the final prep to leave at 6:30 this morning just as the sun was coming up. We were on the road by 7 headed down highway 60 to Ottawa and then on to the US border at Alexandria Bay just east of Kingston.
 The ice fog that had just touched the trees in our yard was heavy over Eganville and Renfrew and had frosted most of the trees along highway 60 with ice shining in the bright morning sun. It was one of those odd days where the sunlight was strong enough that we had to turn the heater way down in the truck until our feet got cold and we had to bounce back and forth. It was a shame we were in a hurry — the farm country between Renfrew and Eganville would have made wonder photo opportunities.
 Travel was quick and traffic was on our side for almost the entire day — the target was only to make it to Scranton to give us a good shot at making Richmond by tomorrow where we are hoping to have dinner with some friends and de-winterized the trailer. We made it across the border by 11:30, made Scranton by 2pm and Allentown, PA by 4:30 and have ended up sitting behind the Cabela’s in
Newark, Delaware about 920km and 10 hours of driving time from our starting point. Driving to Richmond shouldn’t take us 3-4 hours tomorrow!
We had beautiful views the whole way. The further south we went the more the effects of the ice frost changed to just snow in the trees. A major winter storm had swept through most of the North East on Sunday and left as much as 30cm of Snow in some of the areas we travelled today. We threaded the needle to get as far south as we could behind the storm and ahead of the polar freeze that will follow us down. -19c will seem warm in Round Lake by tomorrow and even where we are today will see about -10. Richmond should be just warm enough tomorrow for us to run the anti-freeze out, run the hot-water pump and try the fridge out.
The funniest part of the day was in the suburbs of Philadelphia as I was getting a little tired I looked in the little screen that carries the picture from the rear-view camera on the trailer and thought to myself, “hey?! Where’s the trailer? Did I lose it?” Before realizing that I’m a bit of an idiot as the camera projects what is behind the trailer... When I mentioned this to Lorraine she looked at the picture and said “Oh my god, it’s gone” or words to that effect before realizing that we were both idiots. The rear-view mirror still showed the trailer very much with us; It’s good that after 9 hours or so of driving at that point we could laugh about it.
Rough camping behind the Cabela’s has the advantage of being free — and surveilled by video cameras. But we don’t have water or an electric hookup so we’re just hopeful that the battery output in cool temperatures can keep the heater running all night and my CPAP machine going; this is pretty much urban camping at it’s least refined. We don’t even have food porn for those of you who read these posts for that purpose... Dinner was guacamole and salsa with havarti cheese and a piece of left over pie from Target — we haven’t been grocery shopping yet and the weather has been to cold to operate the fridge at home. So we’re down to snack food and bottled water tonight!
I think Lorraine will be happy to have a real trailer site tomorrow, a short drive that should be done by noon and a nice dinner with friends