Friday, February 18th, 2006 - Snowed in at Merriwether Lewis Campground.

Our foreboding turned out to be unfortunately accurate. After a stormy night, the morning found us covered by a half an inch or so of frozen ice plus a dusting of snow. The forecast was for drastically falling temperatures and that raised the problem of how we would get through another long, really cold night. The two basic essentials were propane to light the furnace and battery power to circulate the hot air, and we were low on both, a worrisome situation. So I removed the empty propane tank and we drove into Hohenwald. Asking local folks we found a gas station that purported to refill propane tanks, but only if the official "propane refill man" would deign to stop by sometime during the day and do it! Since things were beginning to look more and more "iffy", I also picked up some RV antifreeze to winterize the trailer just in case all our efforts to keep the trailer heated failed and the temperature dropped into the teens as forecast.

We returned to the trailer for lunch, but perhaps affected by the steadily falling temperatures the battery was already starting to give signs of inadequate charge. That gave us real concerns about lasting the following night, so we tried to not use the heat at all during the day. That dropped the temperatures inside the trailer down to 40 degrees unless we ran the truck to provide enough juice to run the furnace, and we knew we couldn't keep that up for the rest of the day and the night. To combat the falling temperatures, we both piled on 3 layers of clothes plus an unzipped sleeping bag and tried to read for a while. I was doing all right except my hands were getting a little cold and stiff, but Monika started to shiver uncontrollably and we had to give up on camping and retreat to a hotel. I winterized the trailer before we left, trying to make sure nothing would freeze and burst when the temps fell into the teens. Monika took her Valentine's Day rose plant with us so it wouldn't freeze and we packed an overnight bag for the hotel we hoped we would find in town. On our way out we visited the grave of Merriwether Lewis, and that gave me a chance to connect with the last chapter of Lewis & Clark's epic 1803 journey as we also ended Wanderung 11.

We put up for the night at the Embassy Inn in Hohenwald. Since "propane man" had never made an appearance at the gas station, I ruefully retrieved our still-empty propane cylinder and had the disturbing thought that we might have run out of propane even if we figured out how to handle the battery problem. With a temperature around 20 degrees and the wind kicking up, it was noticeably bitter as we drove off for dinner. Back in our hotel room we finished "The Twisted Root", which had Perry's usual surprise ending, and then watched the winter Olympic games on TV until it was time for bed. Back at the campsite, of course, the trailer got very cold indeed as the temperatures dropped to around 11 degrees Fahrenheit. The trailer survived it with no discernable ill effects when we picked it up the next morning, except that the wastewater tanks were frozen solid and we could not drain them for the trip home.