Well that wasn’t a problem this trip. Happy New Year! Last night was New Year’s Eve. We stayed up late, slept late, and left late. We got a good weather forecast(picture). Looks just right for driving out east, then south to the Texas coast.
This is our first long relaxed trip in the freeway flyer. It is very comfortable and quiet at 70mph on smooth roads. It’s comfortable at 65mph on two lane highways as well. It is a little noisier inside though. I fear this rig would not survive the no-rattle standards of my brother Bill. I can hear the side-door screen. I hear a rattle from a little handle above my head, and I get a squeaking noise from the weather-stripping on the living-room slide. Judy taped the little handle shut and it got quiet. Then we crossed back onto smooth road and all the noises went away.
Stopped at a small city park in Hugo Colorado for lunch(picture). I like this town. Very small. Nice neighborhood. Empty wide streets. Neat yards. Chicken coops. And I ran past a very tame flock of wild turkeys. Fourteen of them. I got within twenty yards of the elusive wild turkey, and they never spooked. They just clucked and chuckled and opened a path for me. Marooned on the other side of the Burlington Northern rail line splitting the town, I stood and felt the rhythm as a hundred-car coal train rumbled past a few feet in front of me. Coal goes from west to east here. It doesn’t slow down for Hugo Colorado.
Annie jumped up into my lap today while I was driving! That’s the first time she has done that since the great air-horn honking incident in Michigan. I was careful to protect the horn button so she couldn’t hit it with her butt again while changing positions. Then, off we went through the old west. It had to be the old west by the names of the towns: Kit Carson, Cheyenne Wells, and Wild Horse.
Rags went though the usual cat-drugging for the first day out. He doesn’t get car sick if we do that. He laid on the rocker/recliner like he usually does, then Judy decided he should ride in his crate for awhile. He had disappeared from the chair behind us, so Judy went to look for him. She found him asleep in the cat box. Maybe he should stay confined until he is a little more coherent.
This is our first two-computer trip. We have Judy’s new GPS navigation system loaded on our newest fastest laptop computer. I’m still writing on the same laptop I have been using for the last two years. The navigator guided us flawlessly down highway 287, and out the bottom right corner of Colorado.
Drove a nice 300 mile day. Stopped in Boise City Oklahoma. Chili-dogs at the Dairy Queen at the edge of town for dinner. Huge parking lot. They offered us overnight parking. We went for it.
Here is the plan. We’ll drive south tomorrow to San Angelo, spend a couple days there exploring, then pop over to Sea Rim State Park, at the north end of the Texas gulf coast, right by Lousisiana. From there, we’ll work our way south along the coast to wherever we end up.
Great start to our trip.