Tag: life

Day 2772

Ninth travel day.

Tuesday morning on the sixth of May and todays travel should only be around two hours, so far we have traveled 1766 miles (2842 kilometers), and today will add another 140 miles today, and our destination today is a Walmart parking lot in Bowling Green OH, as we plan a visit with Miss Betty and her family later today.

5:45 was wake up time this morning, and I woke to a thunder storm, although it appears to be letting up, but everything just feels cold and damp, I guess that is the price of a winter of warm dry in the desert. Our overnight spot was without interruption, but a steady drone of the interstate, and a delivery truck at the restaurant at six o’clock this morning. Now we get to order breakfast from Cracker Barrel, it will to go so I can enjoy my perked coffee in the coach will watching the morning news. And yes there will be a wee Irish blessing.

As i walked around the building to pick up our breakfast it amazes me that as much as all the Cracker Barrels look pretty much the same, and we have stayed at a number of them, but the atmosphere can be so different, and the old saying that you only get one chance to make a first impression. And before I have even got my order because the cashier was wandering around the store and almost seemed put out that I would bother her, but I got my order and walked back to the coach where we enjoyed breakfast with a cup of fresh perked coffee. Miss Laurie had pecan pancakes, and I had ham and eggs with biscuits & gravy, and yes there was an Irish blessing in our coffee this morning.

We are only planning of travelling 140 miles (225 kilometers), and every weather app is indicating rain, so to avoid loosing a whole day we will make our way to Bowling Green OH, we pull out at nine o’clock and head north on I-69 toward Fort Wayne IN, where we hook up with I-469 to US-24 as we turn east toward Ohio. The rain is gaining in intensity and the wipers are now on the quickest intermittent speed, again Indiana your road condition in horrendous, and as we cross into Ohio it becomes even more apparent, we ate east bound toward Toledo, but will hook up with US-6 for the last few miles into Bowling Green. The rain is brutal and just wont let up as we find a spot in the Walmart parking lot we are a long way from the store, Miss Laurie needs some items for snacks today so I suggest taking Ruby so I go to unattached Ruby and come back well dampened.

I stayed at the coach while Miss Laurie went shopping, because of the rain I started the generator and ran it for almost an hour and a half, part of the last half hour was to operate the air-fryer while Miss Laurie made bacon wrapped cheese stuffed dates, always a hit where ever she takes them. We are ready to head to Pemberville shortly after two, we have not visited Betty since last October and she has had a new house built since then, so lots to catch up on as she prepares her present home to be shown this weekend. After a couple of hours we drove past the new home, we will tour it when it is complete this fall. our next stop was Brian & Linsi’s home where they had prepared a big pot of potato soup, the perfect answer to this cold damp weather.

Needless to say we were late getting back to the coach and just couldn’t talk myself into finishing off this blog, in fact I was the first to crawl into bed, I even turned on the mattress warmer as I crawled in between the sheets. To say I was tired would be an understatement it is tiring driving in the rain, it just takes so much concentration that it beats you up mentally as much as it does physically.

Today’s numbers: 2:54 run time, 139.5 miles (224.5 kilometers) we consumed 17.3 gallons (65.5 liters) of diesel fuel, we only averaged 47 mph (75.6 km/hr), and averaged 8.0 mpg (29.4 liters per 100 km). The speed was so low because we hit three sections of road construction on I-69 and a accident on I-469 that had some stop and go traffic, the rest of the numbers look good

Day 2771

Rain, Rain, Rain

After going months without rain in Arizona we have had more that enough, and from Saturday and Sunday driving in the rain is just not something I enjoy or want to do. And only because we had commitments did we drive in the heavy rain on Saturday. I woke at 6:20 this morning and lets just say it wasn’t because the sun was shinning in my eyes, cloudy, misty, overcast absolutely nothing to make one want to get out of bed. But we need to push on down the road today to make our next commitment on Tuesday. Yesterday was a short day and today will be a longer day as we position ourselves for Tuesday.

A quick check of our house batteries has then at 38% not an issue but it is not looking like a good solar day, after a few treats for Mister Sam we had some bonding time before he left for the big bed, todays destination is a Cracker Barrel in Marion Indiana on I-69, but to get there we have Indianapolis on our route. Indianapolis is constantly under construction and I have transverse the city multiple ways, and all I know for sure is that it is always a horses back side. When Miss Laurie gets up and apparently I slept through a noisy truck right beside us at two o’clock this morning, which just goes to prove if you are tired enough you can sleep just about through anything.

Breakfast this morning was fried eggs, salsa and sour dough toast, and yes there was a wee bit of Irish blessing in my fresh perked coffee this morning. I want to transverse Indianapolis around the lunch hour today to have lighter traffic and because we need fuel today we need to be on the road around 9 am. We also enter our last time zone today so we will spring ahead that final hour into Eastern Daylight Saving Time. so just one more trip through the clock reset, every time we go through this process I look at atomic clocks that automatically adjust to the time changes but I’m never sure whether they would work for travelling or just if stationary.

As we start today’s journey we drive into some light rain, and there is the hope of some clear skies ahead but there again we have all been lied to before, we rumble down I-70 east bound and it is rough but as we cross the State line into Indiana it takes a turn for the worse, why does a state with some of the highest fuel prices also have some of the worst highways? I’m not thinking this road is great and a country with a self inflicted recession looming it won’t be great for a long time. Today’s fuel stop is at a Speedway with a pump price of $3.599 and after our discount will still be $3.115, we took on 50.656 gallons (191.75 liters), we will have one more top off before crossing the border.

We reached Indianapolis around 12:30 EDST and we followed I-465 southern bypass around the city, there are a number if Interstate highways that pas through the city I-70, I-69, I-65, I-74 plus US-36, US-31, US-40, US-52, so a never ending collection of interchanges then add to never ending construction it makes for about 25 miles (40 kilometers) of aggravation. Once past the bedlam of Indianapolis we are headed north east toward Fort Wayne, and Mister Sam is voicing his unhappiness with todays travel, Miss Laurie is spending some time trying to comfort him but I’m thinking he will be unhappy until we shut down for the night.

2:11 EDST and we have made it to the Marion Cracker Barrel, I have pulled into a section behind the restaurant to avoid having to disconnect Ruby, I normally don’t do this but I know most patrons wont walk any further that necessary, and we should be clear to leave in the morning. We have caught a little sunshine today but not enough to replenish the battery bank so I have ran the generator for about 45 minuets. The running of the generator does a number of things besides charging the battery bank at 90 amps, it energizes the heater for hot water and energizes the ice maker to make another tray of cubes, not a big deal but I do like my beverage with ice.

So a couple of updates from our travels so far, Starlink now attached to Thunders roof gets two thumbs up, we have been streaming music as we drive, the only blips have been when stopping for fuel under a canopy, on another note we had some buffering while parked in Arnold MO at the Cracker Barrel upon checking we had speeds of only 20 MBPS but except for a few seconds of buffering no other issues. Our storage tanks are all in great shape and the Garnet “SEE LEVEL” tank gauges are working out well, with me now checking it regularly and getting accurate reading we have gone from lights indicating 1/4 tank graduations to reading in percentages, the difference is mind boggling and as I look back I should have done this eight years ago.

Miss Laurie made us some grilled cheese for lunch and I haven’t asked whether we are having dinner or breakfast at this Cracker Barrel, the only thing I know for sure is that it will be take-out so that we can enjoy the meal in the coach either with a beverage of a bless coffee in the morning. Mister Sam is on the dash in his bed, Miss Laurie is having a nap or watching videos and I’m laying out the last few days of our trek to Ontario, our projected border cross day looks like Thursday. Miss Laurie has decided on Breakfast so is preparing Quesada’s for dinner, I watched the Canadian News and we caught up on some recorded shows, it’s just 10 o’clock and I’m going to call it a night as tomorrow will be a short drive day but a busy day with friends.

Today’s numbers: run time of 3:45 covering a distance of 221 miles (355.6 kilometers) consuming 27.7 gallons (104.8 liters) averaging 58 mph (93.3 km per hr) and fuel mileage of 7.9 mpg (29.7 liters / 100 km),