Yep, on the road again. Eight and a half hours today, the same for tomorrow. Oh, and it's eight below zero, too cold to really even breathe. The motel we're at has a cozy warm room, but to keep it that way the heater is on - almost non-stop.
C and I traded off driving. We left later than we wanted and I really don't enjoy driving in the dark these days. These days, dark comes fast too. I suppose we could have made it in to Iowa, but there is nothing we can do until the day after tomorrow, so there is no sense in rushing.
Very little accomplished in the way of exercising. Brief walks when we stop for gas. Being on the road makes eating well challenging. It is so much easier to eat poorly.
I pre-bought some things that aren't awful, and the purchases will save some money. There won't be so much spur of the moment junk food buying. We ate breakfast before we left as well: a biscuit, eggs and sausage. Stuff people used to say would "stick to your ribs." It served us well, and cost wise it cost about five dollars compared to going to a fast food place and spending ten dollars or more.
Even when we did buy, I managed to avoid the candy bars and other sweets. So a win for me, and anyone else who manages to avoid the sweet junk that is so easy to consume when you are on the road for long hours!
We left the cold of the city recovering from an eight inch snowfall that covered everything in a pristine white that was now fading into a dismal mag chloride gray. The roads are clear despite the storm going through the entire state and there were just a couple patches of wet pavement. It's tough to tell winter storm Helena passed through.
C is driving ninety miles per hour on the plains. Outside the air is crisp, cold and exceedingly dry for a climate that is used to a fair share of humidity. My eyes water and I sniffle because of the environmental change. The car purrs across the Great Plains, and we talk about the hardiness of the settlers and what wimps we've become. How did those pioneers survive against that below zero exposure, how did they stay warm in their leaky log cabins where the heat from the fireplace only extended a short distance past the hearth?
We have a slight scare after one of our fill-up stops. C goes to put the vehicle on cruise control and the engine dies. We've been very pro-active about keeping a keen eye on the oil level and have for the most part kept the gas tank half full. We let the car sit and C checks the car manual for information on the flashing dash lights he saw and I look up stuff on my phone. A sensor is probably the culprit based on our discoveries. We restart the car and forego the cruise control. The car acts like nothing ever happened.
After four hundred eighty miles we reach our day's destination.
The scare revealed our decision making process:
1) Research
2) Discuss
3) Decide
We have a goal and a plan. We've done the fact finding, weighed the information by looking at pros and cons. We made a calculated decision. We have alternate plans to fall back on should the situation worsen. We are as prepared as we can be.
The car gets us to goal. Tomorrow we make sure all is in order. We have our plans and goals. We've still some five hundred plus miles to go in order to reach our destination. We'll develop more back-up plans.
All in all it sounds like a fine way to start off tomorrow; researched with a definitive goal, and back-up plans in place in case it doesn't go the way we anticipate.
The idea strikes me that maybe this is how I should prepare all my days.