On my way to cross the Rockies

I was up around 0600 this morning checking the weather with my eyes and various online sources. The frozen rain that beat down most of yesterday morning and afternoon had finally let up and just froze in place.

When I fueled yesterday I weighed adding some anti-gel additive just in case. The forecast had it only down in the low 20's overnight for OKC so I decided against it. I awoke to a chilly 10 degrees, but my primary fuel filter wasn't gelled up and the truck started normally.

Heading out the roads were lightly traveled and mostly free of snow and ice. I accidentally triggered my wipers and sat astonished as they very slowly started sweeping then stopped in the upright position. Oops.

I had cleaned them off carefully before I departed and I was using the defroster and maximum heat to burn through the patches of ice left on my windshield. The blades themselves weren't stuck, so I figured there was a problem with the swinging mechanism. I phoned our shop to see if there was a good way to push them back down (turns out, you just push them back down) then exited at the next rest area. It seems there is kind of a tray area under the wipers that allowed a good two inches of snow and freezing rain to accumulate from yesterday then freeze solid, and the icepack was preventing the bottom of the wiper arms from completing their arc. I broke out the scraper and went at it for a few minutes until everything was clear then was happy to find the wipers wanted to work again without a hiccup.

After stopping in Salina, Kansas to carefully wash my windshield and take a shower I headed west along I-70, coming to a stop in Colby, Kansas. The "Oasis of the Plains" if you believe the billboards. All I know is, I had a decent meal at the nearby Village Inn and am tucked in for the night.

Tomorrow should be fun as I head into Denver for a 10 AM drop then west over the I-70 Eisenhower summit to Grand Juction before nightfall for the second drop.