As I sit here and write about the intricacies of this particular week of our life, it’s difficult to imagine it actually happened. I am currently sweating in 90* humid heat in Montana, and reminiscing on all that occurred….. so here goes my best explanation on our experience!
During our tour of the USA, we decided to spend about a month near our old neighborhood, north of Dallas in Little Elm, Texas. We were approaching our final week, when we planned to leave on Wednesday, February 17th to continue our adventuring in the Western states.
As the weekend approached, winter storm warnings began to appear. If you know Dallas, you know that “snow” is not what is usually a concern. Ice is the bigger issue. So as these warnings are appearing, so are many ice AND snow warnings. This seemed fun…. in a trailer. (!!!!)
So we began our preparations…
Of course we had the food situation. So we stocked up on some food and water jugs, but those are typical for a good winter storm. But we also had trailer prep. After much research, we opted to wrap our trailer with insulation from Home Depot. This is the pink stuff you see on homes that are being built. This protects the underbelly of the trailer. We also used some space heaters and extension cords and we placed them under the trailer – near the water lines. This was to help keep them from freezing. Many RV neighbors had “heated” water hoses, but unfortunately we checked on buying one too late and were unable to receive one in time. On the fortunate side, our trailer is equipped and markets that it is capable of withstanding these temperatures. So here we go…
Of course we filled our propane tanks and filled our water tanks. And then we waited!
The first night was, of course, exciting. So much pretty snow! Nothing “bad” was happening and it was a novel experience. Then came the cold (-2*). I mean, we have never been in cold like this – in a HOUSE let alone a trailer! We kept our propane filled and our water full, but two days in, things began to become a little more interesting.
First, our RV park ran out of propane. Ok, no big deal. We can run to the nearest Tractor Supply. But then they ran out. And then friends were reporting loss of power. No big deal, we weren’t. Until we did – our entire RV park began to experience power loss. As many know (from both experience and from news), the entire state of Texas went into a state of emergency. The power grid melted down and rolling blackouts began. The blackouts continued for nearly 4 days. This caused the water tower abilities to melt down, which led to unsafe water conditions. All water had to be boiled in order to use for eating, drinking, washing dishes, or brushing teeth, etc. The grocery stores were unable to get deliveries due to road conditions, so people were unable to purchase water bottles or drinking water. Restaurants had the same issues, so eating out was out of the question.
Believe it or not – we were solid. David is a trailer whiz, and set us up for solar power long before this moment. We had water tanks that can last us for days and with our solar power, black outs were surprisingly no problem. Our propane maintained our heat and with our “insulation skirt”, the floor of our trailer remained warm!
Our precious friends were so good about checking in with us and making sure we were good, but we truly were. I think many of our house friends had more issues than we did… they fought losing power, losing heat, losing warm water for showers, losing drinking water, etc. It also helped to have awesome RV neighbors to endure the cold with.
Our chance to leave the RV park by Wednesday, February 17th, quickly passed. We received another round of snow the night before and driving conditions were unsafe, not to mention trying to just dig ourselves out. So instead we pushed our date out three more days and played!
We built igloos, snowmen, went sledding and walked on frozen ponds. We slipped on sidewalks and froze our fingers. We felt sub zero temps (which was fascinating for this AZ born couple) and we made such joy of this crazy moment.
Saturday morning, February 20th, came quickly. We packed up the night before and were ready to pull out of Texas to make our way to Arizona. We had to make my (Kristin’s) mom’s birthday trip in Tucson, AZ by the 21st or we would miss them altogether. So we got up and started our drive.
The streets had finally melted enough to make the drive safely, but believe it or not, we saw snow all the way until we reached El Paso. We even had issues with finding gas and food since delivery trucks were still recovering.
I think one of the strangest things we saw on our drive out of Texas was multiple car accidents that had been abandoned. One was even a 10-15 car pile-up, but no one was there. We saw semis that had rolled over and been left smashed along the road. We are guessing that the rescues occurred but they had to come back later to clean up, once everything melted.
Overall, what an experience! And I can confidently say we can camp in cold temperatures. That being said, I do not love the cold and was sure happy to see some Arizona sun!
Until next time,