Day 6, 24Mar2024 - Crossing Kansas

We departed our Harvest Host about 07:30 on Sunday, it was 43F and cloudy. We are crossing Kansas so it is a long boring drive. We crossed into Kansas and of course there were high wind warnings; it was a strong wind from the south west and took a full 1/4 turn on the steering wheel to stay in our lane. Of course the Mercedes ESP system bailed and even after pulling over and resetting it, it would just bail again, so it was a long drive without cruise control. 

Kansas is mostly open prairie, wind mills, tumble weeds and oil wells and it goes on forever.

   

We saw 100s of wind mills however most of them were not turning, I suspect this was due to the high winds. It is ironic that there can be too much wind for a windmill. 

We stopped in Sedalia, KS for a break. We went to Walmart for some supplies and since we are headed for colder weather, I went to Tractor Supply to fill our propane tank. 

I also needed brakes and a tube for my bicycle, we found these at a shop in Leewood, KS called the Elite Cycle Shop. The owner came out to my bike to make sure I was getting the right pads.  The people in KS seem to be very nice.

After lunch we were back on our way...more highway as far as you can see with strong cross winds, rain and lightning, it was a bumpy ride.

We intended to stay at a HH just as a stop over but after looking at the weather we decided to find a camp ground where we could fill our water tank etc.  We booked the Kansas Country Inn which has rooms and RV parking sites. For $24 we got full hookups for the night, it is just a parking spot but we are just passing through. We were happy to get off the highway about 7PM because it was raining sideways and the temp started dropping immediately.  It was a long day of driving in strong winds without cruise control, nice job Mercedes!

The forecast called for 22F by morning with wind and snow, they were right.  The van shook all night with the wind gusts and it was 22F when I got up at 5AM.  We were nice and warm in our van, Em would say ..again... "first world problem dad".

We can wait it out here or move on this morning, we will probably push on but at a pretty slow pace. 

Lithium batteries don't like the cold, and should not be charged when it is below 32F without heating them. My batteries are 100% charged at the moment and do have a low temp cut off to prevent charging when it is below 32F. None the less, I have turned off my solar and my DC-DC charger so that when we head down the road, there will be no charging. Hopefully, we will get to warmer temps before we run out of batteries.