With a membership in some RV clubs, discounts at campgrounds and RV parks are available. That's how we ended up at AOK Camper Park just east of Amarillo, after our 2 nights hunkered down at the Flying J during the ice and sleet storm and a day of driving and celebrating each ascending degree the thermometer revealed.

So—3am seems to be our crisis head out time. That Wednesday morning we were fortunate to make it through Oklahoma City on a well-lit and not too icy highway; about an hour beyond, we slept until after sunrise by the Cherokee Restaurant, Art Gallery, Gas Station, etc.

We awoke to a brilliant flat landscape of sun on ice, ate the best hash browns yet at the Cherokee, enjoyed what must have been a performance by our fascinating septuagenarian waitress, and returned to the highway which gradually became dry.

We paused for the night at the AOK. Outskirts. Convenience store across the highway. $12. with membership, including electricity!!! Water, warmth, sun and moon, open spaces—red and blue Southwest Airlines small jets coming in for a landing directly over us. The perfect combination of peace and thrills.

Yet through all of this gratefully enjoyed sunshine and warmth, there was also the disturbing fact that the ice storm had in fact hit Fayetteville, and far beyond. Jeanie and Bob were losing power just as we were beginning to have it, and warmth and sun. Trees and branches fell all over their yard and blocked the street. Bob had the generator going so they were more fortunate than others. But trees down everywhere were only part of the damage to their home, street, town, state. The miles between us increase, but our connection holds and we find them still without power, Jeanie back to work, Bob able to get to Lincoln and back to feed his horses and get gas for the generator.

As we were leaving the AOK Thursday morning, I ran across to the convenience store to buy milk; the raw milk we'd brought with us from Hager's farm in Colrain was finally gone. I hurried past coolers of coke and beer, soda and beer, juice and beer. No milk. I left the dark store with its television tuned to a Chinese-speaking station and ran back to the motor home, slammed the door shut, locked it, and Andre accelerated onto I-40, toward Albuquerque.