Day 2386

Monday April 15th, 2024

Day 7 of our trek north

Dear Journal:

The clock radio in the bedroom reads 3:14 which sounds like a terrible time to get up until you add the three hours of time zone changes last week, then it seems like a more reasonable time to get up. The clock radio is the only clock that hasn’t been changed yet, that is because it is the biggest pain in the butt to change, in fact I could be having a wee internal battle about changing it at all. Miss Laurie has been updating the microwave clock time as needed and I have been updating the main clock that we use when traveling. I mean how bad is it when you look a purchasing a clock that one of the things that I check is how easy is it to change the time?

And speaking of time changes why is it that my iPhone updates with in moments of crossing a time zone and my iPad takes days? And don’t get me started on this laptop!

The coffee is ready now and being that is Monday morning there will be no Irish blessing for me this morning, I had to start weaning of the blessing sometime, and a Monday morning seem like a good time. Because today will be a shorter travel day we are just ordering breakfast now, Biscuits and Gravy with bacon for me and Miss Laurie is having the pecan pancakes. Our departure time today is ten o’clock and our destination is a Walmart in Bowling Green, Ohio,

Breakfast was good as usual. and I do like the order ahead and pick it up option, as we get to watch the news while enjoying breakfast. This Cracker Barrel had a lot of traffic noise last night, but I was so tired that I slept through most of it, in fact I did not even hear the waste removal truck this morning that apparently Miss Laurie did. Our departure time is near nine o’clock and our estimated time of arrival is near one o’clock this afternoon, a short day just under 200 miles (320 kilometers). We traveled northeast on Interstate I-69 to Fort Wayne Indiana the took the by-pass I-469 eastward to US-24 which ran us to the Ohio State line.

US-24 turned out to be a four lane freeway, a larger highway than I was expecting. There is a lot of standing water here in northwest Ohio, I seen people trying to mow their lawns around water puddles, we seen lots of daffodils as well as lots of dandelions in bloom. There are no leaves on the trees although the trees have a green hue as many are at the bud stage of spring, I did not see any farm land being tilled yet for the year and temperature is above normal right now.

This travel week has worked out almost perfect for us, with higher than normal spring time temperatures, we have been able to keep pace with clear sunny skies and have not seen any rain since last Tuesday afternoon in New Mexico. A review of the forecast shows that the next weather event is slowly catching us and this area will have rain by Wednesday, just after we have left the area. Our next highway is OH-6 a well maintained two lane highway with a double nickel speed limit, it will take us through a couple of small villages before bringing us to the Walmart in Bowling Green. This is a reasonably new Walmart and we have stayed here a number of times over the years, we picked a spot in the northwest corner of the lot near the retention pond that is full right now with a few Canadian Geese right now, we are a long way from the store but that’s ok.

The GPS says we are only 4 hours from Goderich but it will take us a couple of days to get there, as tomorrow will be a visiting day and we will only advance a few miles.

Day 7 Stats: 195 miles (314 kilometers), solar harvest 278 amp / hours $0.00 camping, no fuel purchase today