As we headed into the heartland of the country, we started experiencing extreme heat. I’m not sure it was related to weather, but we passed a semi that we could see smoke coming off the rear trailer tires. I had a handheld CB in the van, but it seems truckers don’t use CBs anymore, so I had no way to let the driver know. We pulled off for a gas break shortly after and filled up before rejoining the interstate. Not much later, we spotted black smoke up ahead so thick, you couldn’t see what it was coming from. It turned out to be the same semi, now with the back end of the trailer on fire. A fire truck was already there.
I found us a spot on a lake well off the interstate. The road getting in was a bit sketchy – dry rutted dirt. Most of the sites looked intended for lifted 4×4 vehicles, but we found a spot at the top of a small hill. We walked down to the lake to wade in it and let Riley cool off. The generator is super loud, so we didn’t run it at all, including for AC, but probably should have. We did have enough battery power to run the ceiling MaxxAir fan with all the windows open. It wasn’t too bad after the sun went down, but bad enough that we were going to find a place with power the next night.
We were mauled by relentless biting flies. Ouch. Deployed the pop-up tent for some relief.
