Friday morning, early, saw us packing up the truck and heading south. The afternoon before I started the truck up just to make sure everything was OK. It wasn’t! The truck refused to start. 48 hours of -20 and below temperatures had thickened the oil and weakened the battery, so out came the battery charger and on went the block heater. For those across the pond that may not be familiar with a block heater, it is a small device similar to an electric kettle element that sits in the the middle of the engine and heats the water that normally is used for cooling, this in turn heats the oil which thins it.
Truck started fine Friday morning, and as a bonus because the engine water was warm, it heated up quickly! First stop was Kemptville about 20 minutes south for a hearty breakfast then on to the 1000 Islands to cross over into the USA. Recently we have had friendly border guards, but this one was from the old school totally humourless and unable to speak words of more than one syllable, but despite him, we were allowed to cross into hallowed territory. From then on it was non stop driving until lunch time in Goldberg Pennsylvania. After lunch we left Pennsylvania, crossed through Maryland and West Virginia into Virginia where we spent the night at Winchester. We hit no bad weather, although blowing snow off the fields reduced visibility and made the roads slippery at times. A little experimenting with the toys on board the truck showed 65mph / 105kmh gave a reasonable 21.2 mpg. We arrived at the hotel 11 hours after leaving home.
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