Posted on

At first

 We thought this would make a good exhibit about how not to level your RV.Really, it’s not a good idea to hang your wheels in the air. But when we talked to the guy we found out his jacks had gone wild.  He pushed the button to level the trailer and the jacks all went to full extension.  It took him hours to get it back down to the ground.  Thunderstorms last night.  It was still raining this morning.  When the rain let up and we were packed up to leave, we thought to check the weather to the east; the direction we were headed.  The band of thunderstorms that had passed by us had not dissipated.  It was headed east through San Antonio carrying along severe weather and tornado warnings.  We decided to stay where we were for a while; like an airplane on the tarmac waiting for clearance, or maybe a train on a siding, waiting for a turn on the main line.  The tornado warning in San Antonio expired at noon.  We were two hours from San Antonio, so we declared clearance at 10am and headed east. Our calculations worked, because we never caught up with the storm.  By the time we got to San Antonio, the storm was pounding Dallas and threatening Shreveport.  We drove on to Mustang Island State Park. return trip map We’ll park it here for a few days. 
Posted on

The earth is about 25,000 miles in circumference at the equator

 That almost divides perfectly into 24 time zones of 1,000 miles each.  Allow for a smaller circle around the earth at our northern latitude, and maybe we’ve got 750 miles in a time zone.  At our current pace of 250 miles a day, Judy and I should cross into a new time zone about once every three days. Since Arizona doesn’t observe daylight savings, we were effectively in the Pacific daylight time zone when we were there.  When we drove out of Arizona into New Mexico, we stayed in the same time zone, but now observed daylight savings time.  We turned the clocks forward an hour.  The next day, we drove from Mountain daylight time to Central daylight time.  Another time zone.  Two time zones in two days!  That’s like driving 1,500 miles!  That’s like driving for six days!  And we accomplished it in only two… Meanwhile, we continue to head east and south in search of humidity. return trip map We arrived at Balmorhea to 91 degrees and 5% humidity.  That’s a little dry for us.  We have the humidifier blowing full blast in an attempt to make the air habitable. We’ve got it up to 16 percent so far.  
Posted on

Driving back across Southeastern Arizona on Interstate 10

 …got me to thinking about the dust storms that closed the freeway on our trip out.  We’ve seen dust storms here before, with reduced visibility, but never with zero visibility, requiring the freeway to be completely closed. Of course there are dust storms across the interstate.  The topography in Southern Arizona consists of north/south mountain ranges with wide flat sparsely vegetated valleys, and even dry lakebeds, between them.  When they built the interstate, instead of wandering through the forested foothills, like the detour route we followed when the interstate was closed, they picked the smoothest, most direct route across the state.  That took the road across these flat plains, and dry lake beds. We talked to some locals.  They agree that the dust storms have always been an issue, but they’re worse since the pecan groves went in; miles and miles of pecan groves right next to the freeway.  Perfectly flat groves of trees with the ground beneath groomed perfectly nude; nothing alive to stabilize the soil.  Of course it’s worse now.  Our day’s drive was a success.  We’ve finally made it out of Arizona and are at Hacienda RV Resort, a familiar stopover, in Las Cruces, New Mexico.   return trip map Tomorrow, and every day after that for the remainder of the trip, and the foreseeable future, Texas. 
Posted on

Arizona Radiator and Muffler shop

 It’s not very big.But then, what muffler shop is? They have a side-yard to do their work. It wasn’t a straight shot to get the bus in there. They worked on the fix.  The problem is that a weld that held the exhaust pipe to the intake manifold had broken.  The emergency road service guy put a clamp over it and squeezed the joint together until we could get a more permanent fix.  The people that could do the permanent fix looked at the field-fix and decided that was the best approach.  With the engine running, they listened with a stethoscope, found a slight exhaust leak, tightened the clamp down a little harder, then put some lock nuts on so it won’t come loose.  Again, with the stethoscope, they determined the exhaust to be leak-free, and released us back out into the world. Well, after I paid the bill. Sixty dollars later, we were good to go.  Yes; there can be RV repairs that don’t require commas! Good weather.  Good company.  Good home-cooking. Arizona trip map Tomorrow, we mean to resume our way east.