Category: Personal

Day 2766

Another day, another hour closer!

Happy Wednesday April 30th, and the time change is messing with me big time, it’s 4:20 am MDST and I went to bed at 8:30 pm MST, but I couldn’t sleep any more but I kind of feel like I should have, but because our TV streaming service is based out of Phoenix all the times for our shows are all in all very confusing. And if that is not crazy enough by this afternoon we will be in Central Daylight Saving Time, yes when we cross into the Texas panhandle we can rechange all the clocks again, not a big deal for the clock but it is proving harder on me. Mister Sam is loving it because it means his dinner is an hour earlier and so far the change does not seem to be affecting his sleep, at least not as much as our travelling.

Well on the good side the overnight temperature doesn’t seem to have been as low as forecast, and the forecast is mainly sunny for today, and the last time we were in this area was last November and there was a snow cover from the storm that pinned us down for a couple of days. And again I’m up way too early this morning as it will take a few days to become accustom to all the time changes, I worked on my laptop for a couple of hours, until Miss Laurie & Mister Sam joined me at around six o’clock. A cup of coffee with a wee Irish blessing and my day seemed to make a little more sense, our departure time will hopefully be nine o’clock with an estimated four hours of drive time.

But first some breakfast a toasted bacon sandwich makes for a good start to the day, today we will start our downward trend as we will descend from 6600 ft (2011 meters) to 3500 ft (1066 meters) in Amarillo this afternoon. I need to go shopping this morning before we depart, I’m looking for a green chili pepper chip dip that I found on my first trip through New Mexico way back in the spring of 2017, and as luck would have it they had some on the shelf, so 2 tubs of chip dip and 18 eggs wand we are on the road again. This was a reasonably quiet stay for a Walmart, I like the stores that close overnight a lot less traffic but a noticeable noise increase at opening time.

Today’s drive will be reasonably uneventful with no major cities and a spread our as Amarillo is other than some sporadic road work it was pretty much a cruise control day. We will travel only I-40 today and other than a lunch break after crossing into Texas it was set the cruise at 64 mph (101 kmph) and just enjoy the view, as we leave the mountains and start into the rolling hills as we roll into Texas.

On todays schedule is a quick bath for Thunder & Ruby at the Blue Beacon Truck Wash, top off our tanks at the new Buc-ee’s then settle into the Welcome Centre parking lot on the east side of Amarillo. As luck seems to be on myside today there was no line up at the truck stop so we pulled right in and $68.40 ($94.74 Cdn) while not the best wash job we have rinsed off most of the Arizona desert dust. Buc-ee’s was busy but we managed to squeeze 49.134 gallons (185.99 Liters) of diesel into the tank.

Dinner was a smoked brisket sandwich that we picked up at a gas station, and desert was some peanut butter caramel popcorn from the same gas station. If you have never stopped at a Buc-ee’s on your travels it is an extraordinary adventure and one that every person should experience at least once. This particular store is one of the smaller ones but it is still an adventure, because of a technical issue at a pump we will return tomorrow to top off Ruby’s fuel tank before we head out.

So here are today’s numbers: 263.4 miles (423.9 kilometers) 4:25 hours of drive time, we averaged 59 mph (95 kmph), consumed 26.8 gallons (101.4 Liters) of fuel or 9.8 mpg (24 liters/100 km) and the solar array harvested 5 kilowatts of power topping off our battery bank again today.

Day 2765

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.