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During my last few days in Norman, the strangest feeling set in. I have driven this route a gazillion and a half times over the past decade. Yet I felt like I was just standing at the edge of the map about to drive off into the unknown. It’s just one of those weird things pandemic life does to you.

Arkansas: Did Someone Say Air Conditioning?

As I crossed the border from Oklahoma into Arkansas, a weird sense of relief washed over me. With a couple brief exceptions, I will be in states with mask mandates for the rest of the trip. In addition, I could finally put over 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) of Interstate 40 behind me. It felt so good to be out on the back roads and away from the semi trucks on the Interstate.

Even Mother Nature decided to throw us a bone. It felt quite deserving after the rather icy greeting she offered in New Mexico, which sent wind chills plunging to -35°F (-37°C). On the contrary, she provided blue skies and warm sunshine for the drive across northeastern Arkansas on US-67.

It didn’t take long before I actually started to feel hot. What a welcome change this was from those icy polar winds ripping down the Oklahoma prairie. Afternoon temperatures climbed to nearly 80°F (27°C). It instantly transported me back to all of those wonderful road trip memories of summers past. It was the last thing I expected on this trip, but I had to turn on the air conditioning to cool down. I was still very much dressed for winter.

Better enjoy it while it lasts, as an old foe has another rude surprise waiting in the wings.

A Meteorological Miscalculation at a Kentucky Campground

I crossed the state line from Tennessee into Kentucky right at sunset. It was still another 7 or so hour drive to reach my overnight stopover at a campground in eastern Kentucky. The drive was largely uneventful. I ran into a few light rain showers passing through Lexington. It was otherwise dry, with temperatures hovering around 60°F (16°C).

Even Without the Weather Factor, This was not a Normal Camping Trip

For those of you who are unfamiliar with some of my photography adventures, I have camped out in the truck plenty of times before. This was far from my first rodeo. However, there were a few distinct differences.

• I normally sleep in the truck bed because you can fit an air mattress or camping pad and a sleeping bag back there very comfortably. There was so much stuff in the back this trip that I was forced to sleep in the cab.
• I’m used camping in the dry, arid climates out west in the summertime. That doesn’t exactly describe eastern Kentucky in February.

Once again, I managed to fall victim to a musing misfortune of a meteorological miscalculation. Sigh.

The Weather Seemed Nice Enough

After a careful analysis of the weather models, I had concluded that the Polar Vortex had cleared out of the area. Nighttime temperatures would be plenty warm for comfortable camping, dipping only into the 50s F (10s C). In fact, in the summertime, I had camped in much colder temperatures in some of the higher elevations out west. I made reservations at the campground prior to leaving Oklahoma.

One exit west of the campground, I pulled off the freeway for fuel shortly before 1 AM. I couldn’t believe how perfect the weather was for camping. The low-level clouds were starting to break up, and you could feel the humidity dropping. The temperature sat at 58°F (14°C). You didn’t even have to put a jacket on to venture outside and pump the gas. With my weather analysis seemingly confirmed, I was really looking forward to stretching my legs and having a cowboy shower and a change of clothes at the campsite.

The Fatal Flaw in a Seemingly Sound Strategy

The second I exited the freeway to drive the couple of miles to the campground, I realized I had made a critical error in my weather analysis. While I nailed my forecast, I had failed to realize or account for the fact that this campground was about 3,000 feet straight up the side of a mountain. The Polar Vortex had cleared out of the surface layer, but it still raged up above.

Once Again, the Polar Vortex Bites Hard

I immediately found myself on a very narrow and winding road through a heavily wooded forest. Moisture hung in the air, dripping off trees and hitting my windshield like raindrops. Before even reaching a hill, the temperature had dropped to 45°F (7°C).

Things truly turned bizarre once I started up the mountain. Keep in mind, it’s after one o’clock in the morning, and I had never been here before. After starting the ascent, the road became even more narrow, winding, and heavily wooded. It didn’t take long to get back in the snowpack, either. You kept your fingers crossed that you wouldn’t meet another car coming the other direction. Just passing each other would be sketchy. And that’s before taking into account the steep drop-offs on my side of the road or the high risk of black ice further up the mountain.

About a third of the way up the mountain, weird plumes of fog began to slowly waft across the road. By now, the temperature had dropped to 34°F (1°C). All of a sudden, I rounded a very sharp corner and had to put my foot to the floor slamming on the brakes.

Back in the Twilight Zone

At this point, I felt like I was back in the twilight zone. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There were trees and limbs down all over the road. They had obviously come down very recently. Thankfully, after the initial shock wore off, the road was still passable. There was ample room to tiptoe your way through the hazard. You couldn’t help but keep thinking in the back of your mind, “gee, I hope there aren’t any more trees that come down in the middle of the night and, you know, trap me in here.” I had a saw with me, but it gave me little comfort thinking about the potential marathon cutting through that many trees.

After what felt like an eternity (it was at most 15 minutes), I reached the campsite. My campsite of choice was accessible from the pavement, but out of the way enough that I wouldn’t be disturbed should anyone drive through in the middle of the night. I pulled off the pavement and onto the snowpack to park for the night. Mother Nature threw her last curveball.

A Hidden River Under the Snow

Almost instantly, the truck fell through the snowpack’s top crust and buried itself in about 6 inches of slush and soft mud. Even with four wheel drive, it struggled mightily to move just a few feet. I inched it forward as far as I could and parked it. Hopefully, with temperatures now down to 29°F (-2°C), my tracks would freeze up enough to make getting out a little easier. Yes, it was a bit of a gamble, but it was one I was more than willing to take. Then it began to lightly rain. So much for stretching my legs and having a cowboy shower. Hard to believe that less than 12 hours ago, it was 80 degrees and I had the air conditioning on.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to sleep just yet. I still had to move some gear from the back seat to the truck bed so I could recline the seat. To add insult to injury, my heavy boots were in the truck bed, leaving me with just lightweight sneakers to take on the mud pit. I gingerly stepped out onto the crust of the snowpack, hoping that my feet wouldn’t go through it like my tires had.

Much to my amazement, the snowpack held, but I know that one misstep and I’d be ankle deep in mud. The snowpack still needed to be tested carrying the extra weight of the gear I had to move. I came very close to breaking through a few times stepping over the area where the tires had already gone through, but I got the gear moved, and could finally recline the seat and doze off.

While I Never Felt in any Sort of Danger, the Scenery was Straight Out of the Beginning of Every Horror Movie

I drifted in and out of sleep until I fully awoke just after 3 AM to pale moonlight shining through the window. I rolled over and looked out. The rain had stopped, and skies had begun to clear. A bright full moon shone through the silhouetted bare trees swaying back and forth in the icy wind. There was not a sound to be heard, just the hum of the wind blowing through the trees. A heavy chill had settled into the truck, as the wintry mountain air had slowly sucked the heat out of the cab. I started the truck and turned the heater on.

As I waited for the cab to warm back up, I watched the trees sway back and forth in the pale moonlight. Even though the campground was well-known and as safe as safe could be, it was completely and utterly deserted. I was the only one there. It was hard to shake that one nagging thought that kept prodding the back of your mind: I’m pretty sure this is how all horror movies start.

After about 10 or 15 minutes, the truck had warmed back up. I shut off the engine and tried to go back to sleep. However, you can’t unthink the thoughts about horror movies. You try to block them out as best you can, but the only sleep you can drift off into is a restless one. I managed to doze until about 4:15 AM. At that point I knew that the odds of getting back to sleep were pretty slim.

Backtracking Out of the Campground

Now comes the hard part: getting out. As I got out to move everything back into driving mode, I was relieved to see that the freezing temperatures had worked their magic and hardened up the snowpack. While it make moving the gear around much easier, backing the truck out of the campsite was a much different story.

Even with four-wheel drive, you need to be very gentle on the throttle to get a vehicle moving and keep it in control on snow and ice. The last thing you want to do is spin the tires and wind up in the ditch. I put the truck in reverse and very slowly started to depress the accelerator. The truck didn’t budge. The wheels had partially frozen in place.

There’s a Right Way and Wrong Way to Free Yourself

Thankfully, all you need is a little extra gas to break the wheels free. However, there is a right way and wrong way to do it. Give it too much throttle and the truck will go shooting across the road and into the ditch on the other side. Don’t give it enough and it won’t break free.

The secret to pulling this off successfully is to use low four wheel drive. Low four wheel drive sends extra power and torque to the wheels, at the cost of speed. You can’t drive much faster than about 20 mph. This is exactly what we want to prevent us from flying across the road when the wheels break free.

In low four-wheel drive, the wheels broke free right away and the truck walked right back up onto the road. It was a bit tricky finding the pavement under all the snow and ice, but I managed to do so without incident. It was slow-going navigating down the steep, narrow, winding mountain roads and back around all of the downed trees, black ice, and fog. I was back on the freeway before I knew it.

Making a Fool of Myself in New Jersey After 40 Plus Straight Hours in the Car

I originally planned to spend the night at our family farmhouse in New Jersey instead of the campground. The house has no electricity or running water, so you’d still very much be camping. It has a spectacular fire place and plenty of room to spread out and stretch out.

However, a monster nor’easter struck the northeast and mid-Atlantic shortly before my trip. It buried New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania under nearly 4 feet of snow. With the property completely snowed-in, I had to make other arrangements.

Even though I couldn’t spend the night there, it was the perfect place to stop and have lunch. More importantly, it was a safe place to stretch my legs after 40 some odd straight hours in the car. With the exception of quick stops to get gas, I hadn’t gotten out of the truck since I left Norman, Oklahoma the previous day.

As Graceful as a Baby Giraffe

If you’ve ever seen a newborn giraffe try to get up and walk around, that was me on the street in front of the farmhouse. My legs had all but turned to rubber. But it felt so good to be out of the truck and moving around.

I had been in the truck for about the same amount of time it would have taken to fly from Los Angeles to Bangkok and back. Interestingly, it felt both like I had been driving non-stop for days and like I had only been driving for about 5 minutes since I left Norman. That’s far from the only instance that Covid has warped the sense of time.

Unfortunately, it also warped my sense of time for how long I had stopped. By the time it felt like I had finally stopped to decompress, I looked at the clock. Much to my dismay, over 2 hours had passed since I arrived at the farmhouse. It was after 3:30 PM. There was no way I would make it through New York City before rush hour.

The Final Leg

I begrudgingly got back in the truck to drive the last segment from New Jersey to Massachusetts. When we would take family trips to see relatives in New Jersey when I was a kid, it felt like you were driving half way around the world. At the end of this pandemic odyssey, the timing felt more like driving down the street to go to the grocery store.

Thankfully, the COVID-19 pandemic still kept a significant segment of the New York workforce remote. Traffic on the New York Thruway flowed smoothly, looking much more like mid-day than rush hour. I hit a few brief slowdowns on the Merritt Parkway once I got into Connecticut. Other than that, you could travel at the speed limit on both the Merritt and on Interstate 95.

One Last Hurdle

Massachusetts is one of the states that is pretty strict about people coming in from out of state. Everyone coming from a high-risk state must fill out a travel affidavit stating that you have not been knowingly exposed to COVID-19 or have any symptoms. At the time I arrived, the only state that was not considered high risk was Hawaii. You must then quarantine for 10 days upon arrival.

Interestingly, they ask that you submit the travel form before you arrive in Massachusetts. There is no penalty if you don’t, though. I meant to fill it out during my stop in New Jersey, but got distracted laughing at myself over the baby giraffe incident. However, I had been treating state lines like crossing international borders. It dawned on me as I crossed into Rhode Island that I hadn’t yet filled out the travel form. I filled it out a rest area just inside the Rhode Island state line before continuing on to my final destination in Massachusetts.

Mandatory Quarantine

I was lucky enough to have a friend who was in Florida for the winter. They offered their summer house to do my quarantine. It was a relief not worrying about exposing my mom and dad to anything I picked up on the road. The quarantine went smoothly. I got caught up on a lot of work. However, I did find myself playing peek-a-boo with a pigeon on more than one occasion.

Up Next

Go behind the scenes next week and look at the data, modeling, and strategy sessions that kept me safe on this unique and memorable journey. All that, and much more right here next Friday at 9 AM Pacific Time. See you then.

Top Image: A Beautiful Morning Drive in the Appalachians
Morgantown, West Virginia – 25 February, 2021

The post Pioneering Peril, Part 2: Pandemic Polar Vortex Camping in Kentucky appeared first on Matthew Gove Blog.