Thursday, November 30th: We finally were ready to leave Denver. Carl had survived the night, even made it up the ladder to the bed. We later learned from Matt that the temperatures were down to -7 or -8 degrees that night. And we had nice hot water in the morning for showers.

Carl drove us out of town, keeping the Roamer in 4WD through the city until we got on the main highway. What a way to start out with a new vehicle--the worst driving conditions possible.

We thought everything had been checked out pretty thoroughly, but guess what??!? On the way out of Denver, the roads were really dirty and slushy. The other cars and trucks were throwing up lots and lots of mud onto the windshield. When we tried to clean the windshield, we discovered the windshield wiper fluid didn't work!!! The window got all smeary while we were going down the road at 65 mph!!! It was really scary!!! We finally found a place to pull over and clean the windshield. We had a jug of water that we had put in the truck cab. Can you believe that the water had frozen overnight in the cab of the truck while we stayed toasty warm in the camper!! There is a "plug" and a curtain that insulates the cab from the camper. Amazing insulation!

Anyway, it didn't take long for the windshield to get really bad again, so we stopped at a gas station and checked the fluid. There was fluid, but we bought some more anyway and filled the reservoir up to the very top. It started working, so we took off. Again, the windshield got really bad and when Carl tried to clean it, the fluid didn't work again!!!

We gradually made our way down the road, stopping frequently to clean our windshield. This was quite a chore because I can't even reach the windshield without opening the door and climbing into the truck!! This is a monster!!

We got some pictures at one rest stop with icicles and snow on the truck.