The trip so far had been going smoothly, but I guess all good things must come to an end. We were traveling along I-64 in IL, and the winds were awful with occasional high gusts. About 45 miles from the MO state line a huge gust caught the topper that goes over the full wall slide causing it to billow out as we’re driving 55 mph down the highwa
y! (For those who don’t know, this topper is about 30 ft. long, and when the slide is brought in, the topper rolls up along an aluminum rod and is pretty well anchored by a center bracket and stabilizers on the ends.) It rolled back in but then rolled out again, almost acting like a sail, and the center bracket evidently broke. Russ had managed to pull over but we ended up 
in a ditch leaning precariously to the passenger’s side. He went outside to check on things while I stayed inside, kneeling on the floor, and hanging on with all my might to a terrified Abby who wanted nothing more than to get outside! That aluminum rod with the topper still attached was banging repeatedly on the top of the roof with every wind gust, and with ev
ery gust I was feeling as though the entire RV would tip over any minute! We contacted a tow truck driver who arrived fairly quickly and was able to get us out of that ditch (by this time we had tied the dogs up to a fence outside). Gary’s shop (Gary’s Tire Center) was at the next exit, but we knew there was no way we could continue driving down the road with the topper sailing out. So Russ went up on th
e roof to cut it off, and bless his heart, Gary followed him up. The wind was blowing so hard they couldn’t even stand up, and when they let go of the rod after cutting it off, the whole thing flew about 30 – 40 ft. landing near the fence. The state trooper, who was keeping the traffic from the lane next to us, said to just leave it there. That’s good because I don’t know where we would have put it! Gary has 3 shops so if you ever find yourself near Okawville, Nashville, or New Baden in Illinois and are need of service, give Gary a call.
We made it the rest of the way to St. Louis with no more problems, arriving about 1pm, and our friends showed up about 1:30. We got to relax a little with a couple of drinks, some Imo’s pizza, Cardinals baseball on TV, and good friends. We presented Steve and Patty with a little gift…a framed poster
of Busch Stadium II that has been in our storage unit and used to hang in our home. The guys helped Russ remove the remaining 12" of the topper, and we simply enjoyed a nice ending to a very long and miserable day.
The winds were still whipping the next day, and we only made it as far as Hays, KS, where we stayed in a Wal-Mart parking lot. We went in to finish our stock up shopping (mainly cold stuff), but when checking out, our credit card was declined. We swiped it again...declined. Say what?! There is no way that should have happened! Turns out the credit card company was simply doing a security check to make sure the charge wasn't fraudulent since the card had been used in several different states over the previous couple of days. It took about half an hour to get this resolved, and the people at Wal-Mart were very nice, but it was now 8pm, our cold food was getting warm, the warm food we bought for dinner was cold, and we were tired and hungry.
Tues. shortly after leaving Hays, we spotted a sign saying that part of I-70 in CO (a 28 mile section) was closed from 9-5 that day for emergency rock blasting and removal of some boulders that were perched above the highway (didn't find this article at right till later that night). As we got closer we kept calling 511 for updates, and the suggested detours were each 100 miles. (Good grief…what next?!!) We r
eached the start of the closure about 3pm and decided to pull off at the next exit and wait for the 5pm re-opening instead going so far out of the way. Then while "going around the block" in this little town we had to unhook the car so Russ wouldn't scrape the side of the car on the telephone pole at the corner! The highway actually re-opened at 4:30 and we were finally on our way…again. Russ wanted to get up over the pass before nightfall as the temperatures were dropping, and we were afraid of more snow up there.
About 60 miles west of Denver, we passed through the Eisenhower Tunnel section of the Eisenhower-Edwin C. Johnson Memorial Tunnel that takes I-70 under the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. Completed in 1973, it is the longest mountain t
unnel and highest point on the highway system, that took us to a new elevation of 11,158 ft. We passed lots of snow, drove past the town of Vail (wasn’t as impressive as I had imagined), and saw waterfalls that seemed to have frozen in mid-stream.
We stayed the night in a really nice little rest area in Eagle, CO, and finally made it to Capitol Reef NP Wed. afternoon about 2pm (a little later than we had planned but the ranger was ok with it). We settled into our site, met our neighbors and co-hosts, and were ready to begin training the next day.
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