Strolling Amok

More of a Guide Than a Rule

Entering the flat part of New Mexico! Before long, it begins a very gradual but steady climb.

Originally posted 10/20/2012

A guide – that’s my travel itinerary – a fallback if I get boggled and am not sure where to be, when. Looks like it’s gettin’ pretty squirmy, due to today’s realization that there’s some mighty nice places to practice “dispersed camping” right along the way to Quartzite or whatever. Well, maybe not right on I-40, but not too far off.

I started off making a couple of mistakes along the way today, and with the truck’s fuel mileage returning to a more reasonable 11 MPG, I was able to gaze upon what looked like the narrow ribbon of old Route 66 running alongside the Interstate. Made me nostalgic, even though I never rode this section of it in my younger days back in the Pliocene Age.

My first mistake was stopping at the very upscale New Mexico Welcome Center just inside the eastern border of that state. I loaded up on tourist trap pamphlets, among which was one on Tucumcari, my next stop for an overnight. They had photos of the town’s main drag, which is old 66. The images were more eclectic than tantalizing, but still I’m wanting to go see some of it. Then I’ll head west along 66 itself until I hit Cuervo, then get back onto I-40. The photos of derelict gas stations and such were what effectively prompted this time-absorbing diversion. I had been scheduled for McHood Park in Winslow tomorrow night, a heroic 7-hour drive, but some time online produced a Read more…

Headway in a Headwind

For 12 bucks including fresh water, electricity and dump station, this ain’t bad!

Originally posted 10/18/2012

Greetings from Greater Metropolitan Texola, Ooooooklahoma! Texola is Exit 1, mile 1 from the Texas border. I started out the day getting 9.4 MPG against a sidewind and accidentally underpaid an unmanned Oklahoma tollboth. I’m sure they’ll send me a nice “Welcome to Oklahoma!” letter in the mail. Boy, just west of Tulsa, they have themselves a stretch of crappy concrete. You know, the kind that makes for a choppy, rhythmic bounce. It also irked me that Oklahoma has commandeered I-44 as a tollway. With booths at every exit, it makes one feel confined in a way that the tollways in Illinois don’t. Each town along the string has signs inviting a visit and listing the unique things they offer, but the atmosphere to get there is unpleasant. Is it just me?

At any rate, the road and/or the wind shifted to almost a direct headwind, and if it was the predicted 20 MPH, I’ll eat my beret. Mileage dropped to 8.8 at 60 MPH, traumatizing my fine Read more…

A Pond of Semis

Originally posted 10/17/2012

This post is more for curious family and friends than for the average blog’s reader (both of them). I’m done for the day near Vinita, OK at a rest area. After yesterday’s post about the average beleaguered truck driver, I’m going to see if I can stay at this rest area overnight mainly because I want to stay in a free area, and I’m not aware of anywhere else that qualifies between here and my next stop in Texola, some six hours away. Hopefully, I won’t find a mob with tire irons outside my door in the middle of the night. Let’s see, I can say, “Dang, I must have fallen asleep listening to some old Merle Haggard CDs I have! I was supposed to be out of here hours ago! Dagnabbit! Thanks for gettin’ me up, boys!” I hope to be at Double D RV Park, a commercial campsite, tomorrow as a chance to recharge the CPAP battery. Me gots no generator, so without the ability to hang a solar panel, I’m having to find sources of shore power or simply hook up to a different battery pack to delay the inevitable.

Motoring down I-44, a Civil Defense “test” came over the radio, and it wasn’t a test – a violent storm was coming through the  Read more…

The Sea of Semis

By morning, my rig was in the middle of a tight Semi sandwich!

Originally posted 10/17/2012

I left Indianapolis and headed southwest through Illinois and into Missouri. By gum, I need to check whatever settings there are on my Garmin Nuvi GPS. It’s eager to avoid Interstates that will get me to my next destination more efficiently. Routed me out of Indy on a couple of minor highways with traffic signals when I-70 was calling. Stepping into St. Louis, it was going to keep me out of the city itself by routing me around the south beltway. “Keep left to stay on I-65, keep left, keep left.” Then suddenly it was directing me to “Take I-NN south, exit exit right.” I looked straight out the passenger window to see the referenced exit fly past at 60 MPH. “Golly gee!” is not what I said.

Although the GPS now warned me with what it called 20 miles of heavy traffic, it actually was very, very good rush hour traffic by Chicago standards. It kept rolling and never stopped completely in wide, smooth lanes. I was able to just stay on the right and poop along for a few miles before it opened up and we were flying. The I took an exit and after 10 miles headed south, was directed to take a two-lane that was headed southwest.

It was well worth the 15 minutes that the navigational snafu had cost me heading in. The road was glass-smooth as it snaked through some considerable Read more…

Yes! Good News!

Funny, the things that please some people. The bracing sidewind while heading south on I-65 turned to a glorious tailwind on eastbound I-70, and I was able to urge The Enterprise’s Power Module (the Ford turbodiesel) up to 65 MPH and still get an indicated 14 MPG. For a stone-stock 4×4 in that weight class, that’s happiness. When I head back in the other direction against the wind, well, maybe not so much.

Some tens of miles short of Dayton Ohio were three of Dayton’s finest on motorcycles on an exit ramp, with lights on. Just after I passed them, they swung out and blocked all three lanes behind me, then slowly got up to speed. As I went on, I noticed that police cars were blocking the various entrance ramps I passed, and the flashing light parade continued behind me. It turned out that the President of the United States was making the rounds in Ohio, and as much as I respect the personage holding that office, I was thankful that I wasn’t having to follow his motorcade. I was trying to make time, and they appeared to be doing about 55 MPH or so. Great fuel mileage and just missing a roadblock – does it get any better?

In Columbus, the traffic got pretty tight, and GPS instructed me to exit left, and that exit turned out to be closed. Just as I came alongside the barricades, the GPS calmly announced that another exit, the one on the right, was what I wanted. This was four lanes of heavy, slow traffic, mind you. For some unexplainable reason,  Read more…

Good News, Bad News

Originally posted 10/10/2012

Waking up in Wolcott, Indiana, was pleasant, though I wondered why the propane heater was only able to hold 66 degrees on its low setting. Seems that after a brief overnight rain, the wind has shifted to west-northwest at a stiff 15-25 MPH which, with the trailer positioned as it is, gets past the stove exhaust vent door. Yup, this thing has an exhaust fan over the range, and such amenities can become drawbacks under the right conditions. That cold 35 degree air leaking in is enough to dilute the heater’s output. I may eventually tear off the outside vent plate and take a look, but such things will never realistically seal very well. It’s just a flapping door.

More sinister is a slight weeping of water across the floor near the bed in the rear. I discovered that with my foot Read more…

Baptism by File

This is a small section of the view out my dinette window. That’s a defunct restaurant in the foreground.

Originally posted 10/9/2012

Because I’m first going to see relatives who kinda want to know when to begin boarding up the windows, I’ve worked out a driving schedule. It was a good thing that I’d only planned an unmanly 3-hour trip to Wolcott, Indiana because I got a late start from my overnight at Cabela’s in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Why? I couldn’t help enjoying a cup (actually, two) of brewed coffee and sitting at the dinette to compose the previous post. After that, I could tell that things inside the trailer had been trying to skootch forward during transport, so I figured I had some time to unhitch and reset the ball higher. Naturally, I repositioned it one hole higher and after remeasuring the frame then decided that one more would be more appropriate. Easier to do it while the tools are still unpacked and broken out.

You know, it always appeared to me that the camper’s frame was maybe a little droopy behind the axles. Maybe it was an optical illusion, I hoped. Turns out, it isn’t. Although it’s a pretty tall frame and a straight shot from tip to tail, it is in fact, sagging a bit as measured with a ruler. That prompted a mental note not to hop a curb with it, or store gold bars in the rear end. There’s neither anything that can be done, nor should be done. It is The Way of All Things. I’m getting a little saggy myself. It’ll hang in there awhile yet. It’s steel. It bends like the reed in the wind, Grasshopper, while the mighty oak  Read more…

Hitting the Road, Kinda.

Cabela’s, in Hoffman Estates, Illinois.

Originally posted 9/8/2012

The Enterprise has departed the “alternate construction bay” and is now officially in service. That’s a nerdy way of saying that while a few niceties remain to be addressed, all functional systems have been completed and final debugging must now take place on the road.

I pulled the Mighty Innsbruck out of the driveway I was parked in, and had the boys at General RV in Huntley IL grease the wheel bearings and look over the associated bits. I like to think of this interstate foray as an adventure, but would like to keep it as positive an adventure as possible. Dry bearings, dragging brakes or bad tires can put a serious dent in one’s touring experience. What confidence did I have that they would catch obvious problems? The Profit Motive. The more legitimate problems they can find, the more money they Read more…