One Hour Closer

Well we have moved one hour closer to Ontario today in more ways than one as we have crossed the state line into New Mexico and have moved from Mountain Standard Time to Mountain Daylight Saving Time. One more reason we like Arizona is that they don’t do the whole time change thing in spring and fall, but it does cause issues when dealing with things outside of the state.

Well I was out of bed way too early this morning, but I was able to complete yesterdays blog and get it published, and I did score some valuable lap time with Mister Sam before he took over my spot on the big bed, it is now 5:45 and the sun is hitting the back of Thunder as we are facing west here in the Walmart parking lot. I’m hoping for a better travel day as we continue our trek north on AZ-77 toward I-40 when we will be heading east toward New Mexico, we are not in the valley any more and the temperature this morning was only 39ºF (3.8ºC) a long way from our 60ºF (15.5ºC) temperature we have enjoyed for the last few weeks.

Breakfast this morning consisted of fried eggs, toast, salsa (we ran out of French’s ketchup and Miss Laurie won’t buy Heinz) and of course a cup of fresh perked coffee with a wee blessing of Irish cream. We have watched some American news just to see what stupidity has been hatched today, of course barely a mention of the Canadian election with more emphasis placed on the anniversary of William & Kates first meeting than anything Canadian. Miss Laurie headed off to Walmart to pick up some supplies, an advantage of sleeping in the parking lot. We have no set departure time today but I’m hoping to cover more ground today than we did yesterday. While Miss Laurie was shopping I reconnected Ruby to the back of Thunder.

We fired Thunder at 9:15 and after a few moments of warm up we pulled our into traffic and headed due north, we are approximately 40 miles (64 kilometers) south of Interstate 40 which will have us turning east toward New Mexico, I-40 will take us through the Painted Desert & Petrified Forest National Park. I have a fuel stop planned for over the state line as fuel is less expensive in New Mexico, I have picked a small Love’s Truck Stop that with our “OPEN ROADS” membership will reduce the fuel price from $3.339 to $3.025 more than 10¢ a gallon cheaper that Arizona of course the next fill up will be cheaper in Texas. Traffic was light in AZ-77 and we rolled along at 60 mph (96 kmph) and on I-40 with a speed limit of 75 mph (120 kmph) I set the cruise at 65 mph (105 kmph) and sat in the right lane and let the traffic fly by.

I had picked another Walmart for todays destination near the town of Edgewood which is about half an hour east of Albuquerque so tomorrow we can make a push into Texas where if the weather looks good we may get Thunder a bath, check out the new Buc-ee’s to top off the fuel in both Thunder and Ruby. We finished off today with travelling through Albuquerque at 3 o’clock which is a busier time than I would have preferred but the traffic seemed light and we rolled through with little issue while maintaining most of the speed limit, and we made our destination by 3:30 pm Mountain Daylight Saving Time.

Today’s weather was sunny with some clouds to the west this morning but as we got closer to Albuquerque we had some rain clouds with some strong gusts of wind from the south, we experienced a few drops of rain but not enough to require the windshield wipers. It is cooler at elevation but the drive today was comfortable although it appears to be another cool evening with overnights similar to yesterday. Miss Laurie prepared tacos for dinner (taco-Tuesday) and we had some ice cream for desert, tomorrow should be a shorter day I’m expecting less than four hours.

So what are todays numbers look like lets have a quick look: from Thunder’s on board computer operating time five hours, we covered 290 miles (467 kilometers), we averaged 58 mph (93 kmph), and consumed fuel at 8.3 mpg (28 Liters/100 km) drastically different numbers from yesterday but limited construction, and interstate travel even with elevation changes similar to yesterday. We took on fuel today 61.798 gallons (233.9 Liters) $206.34 ($285.31 Cdn) before our discount which should be an email tomorrow.

Solar: Of course we pickup some power from the alternator on Thunder but the solar array harvested 4.2 kilowatts of power and our battery bank was fully charged when we stopped this afternoon. The reason I dismiss the power from the alternator on the coach is because the voltage regulator is set low enough that as soon as the solar controllers start harvesting power the charge voltage on the lithium batteries is too high for the coach voltage regulator to trigger a charge from the alternator.

Departure Day Spring 2025

Ontario bound

Monday morning and another sunny start to the day here in Superior Arizona, I am up before sunrise this morning. I wouldn’t call it excitement as much as just an earning to get on the road again, and today has so many elements that will take us from the highest highs to some of the lowest lows. We are saying goodbye to our volunteering family at the arboretum and will spend the afternoon with Tom & Kathleen some of our RV family that we have became very close to and in between them is a hundred miles of some white knuckle highway.

This morning we took advantage of our full hook ups at the arboretum, topped of the new fresh water tank, dumped the black and grey tanks after showers and breakfast. the only thing left to pack away were the rat lights (in the Arizona desert we always run a string of lights under the coach to deter pack rats from finding a home) and packing our connection hoses and power cord. We fired up Thunder by twenty to nine and proceeded to build air pressure and warm up the big diesel while retracting the jacks, with the final task being the retracting of the slide. Every thing went as planned, and we were backing out of our spot a few moments to nine.

It is always difficult to say so long after extended stays, and today will be a difficult one we have volunteered with some of these people for four years, enough time to grow very attached. So there would be tears as we were greeted by much of the staff as we attach Ruby to Thunder in the parking lot, and our departure time is pushed back till a quarter to ten, not a big deal as todays destination is only a few hours up the highway, and I use the term up because we will be moving from 2400 feet (730 meters) of elevation to 6000 feet (1820 meters) and driving the switchbacks of the Salt River canyon.

Lets just say the drive did not go as smoothly as planned but we pulled into the Walmart parking lot at Taylor Arizona just before one o’clock none the worse for the wear, this a reasonable newer Walmart and a bit on the smaller side. We were able to find a spot away from the store near the entrance where we unhooked Ruby and headed off to visit with Tom, Kathleen & Lucy (their puppy), they have settled into a park model unit in a year round RV resort and eight months in it seems to be agreeing with them, they have a nice unit on a large lot and back onto a grassed common area which is a hit with Lucy.

They met us at the gate in their golf cart to get us through the security gate, and we had a great afternoon catching up on the latest details of their new adventures. We were treated to burgers, corn on the cob, and blueberry crumble for desert. They had just completed a bathroom renovation removing old fixtures and replacing them with updated ones like a walk in shower instead of a tub, and other that some painting the job looks complete. It amazes me how fast an afternoon can slip away when friends are involved and as we headed back to the coach the sun was setting on the end of day 2764.

We arrived at the coach to an unhappy Mister Sam who’s dinner was three hours late and who had been left in the coach unattended in a Walmart parking lot, Mister Sam is never pleased when we are travelling, and does not like noisy trucks at any time and a Walmart parking lot is not a quiet place at the best of times, But is is seven o’clock on a Monday evening and Miss Laurie enjoys watching the Voice on NBC. And I wanted to check up on the Canadian election on CBC, I have to mention here that this is our first real test of our version 3 Starlink, that we have mounted on the roof of Thunder and so fat it seems to be working well. The election back in Canada seemed to be unfolding as I expected with the usual East / West divide, we turned in for the night shortly after the Voice.

So lets look at the drive today which was close to one of the worst, it started to go bad in the first three miles as we found ourselves stopped on US-60 in the town of Superior, the previous US administration was committed to infrastructure repair and the replacing of a bridge and widening of US-60 was some of the work and three days a week US-60 is closed for six hours to all traffic the rest of the time the traffic is restricted to one alternating lane during construction hours. So our travel today was interrupted by multiple construction hold ups along with some of the prettiest and difficult canyon driving in the country but here are todays numbers.

The above is direct from Thunders computer just over 3 hours of run time, covering only 132.3 miles (212.9 kilometers) at an average speed of 42 mph (67.6 kmh) and a horrible 6.0 mpg (39.2 Liters/100km) consuming 21.7 gallons (82.1 liters) of diesel fuel, not the best start to our 2400 mile (3800 kilometer) adventure. Today we travelled east on US-60 from Boyce Thompson Arboretum to Show Low Arizona then swung north on AZ-77 to Taylor Arizona.