Tag: Travel

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),

Day 2770

Over the river!

Sunday, the seventh day of travel on our trek back to Ontario and after yesterdays long wet day we will be taking today slower hoping this rain will clear our of our way. We will cross the Mississippi river first thing today which means that we will also be in another state, the state of Illinois and while we don’t have fond memories of the states highways. we are hoping for good weather.

Breakfast this morning is with Nick & Emily at the Cracker Barrel, they live approximately one mile away, we have known Emily since the fall of 2021 when she was the volunteer coordinator at the Arboretum. And if you have ever had the pleasure of working with this young lady, she is so committed to what ever she takes on it is easy to give what ever you can to help her succeed. Since the last visit in the spring of 2024 Nick has proposed and a wedding has been planned for the near future, they will make a beautiful couple and we will try to visit when ever possible.

So breakfast was great but they did not have any blessing for my coffee, but the company made up for it, we tied up a table for a couple of hours and it was great to catch up. The parking lot is busy with restaurant patrons so we need to get a move on to maneuver out of our parking spot and find a spot to reattach Ruby and get on the road. By 10:30 we were headed toward tonight destination just a Walmart parking lot a couple of hours away, after yesterdays five hour drive in the rain everyone needed a break. We are pushing a rain storm that just doesn’t seem to want let go and move on, so weather cooperating tomorrow we will get through Indianapolis around noon and will celebrate with another stop at a cracker barrel east of the city.

Todays drive was not without it’s challenges, as we traveled north on I-55 to the I-255 bypass which keeps us out of St Louis and its bad roads, a few mile down the highway all three lanes are closed for construction sending us onto secondary roads and me scrambling for some GPS guidance from Navi. I had started the day without the GPS system thinking I knew the route without any electronic help, and without the road closure I would have been fine, but detours are difficult with 65 feet of vehicles and are hard on fuel mileage. But we made it to I-70 east bound toward Indianapolis the next large metro area we will transverse tomorrow to our Walmart parking spot for the night.

So lets talk about solar in the rain, even on rainy days our solar array will harvest some power, the issue is that it will not bring in as much power as we have used, the last couple of days we have not quite got our battery bank to 100%, oh we got close 90 some percent and because of cloud cover today we were loosing a lot of power. To compensate I decided to run our generator for an hour to help with recharging of the battery bank, so at 12:30 our batteries were at 64% and after an hour of generator time we are now at 84%. And while not really solar the use of lithium batteries is what allows that kind of replenishment, lead-acid batteries would never accept power that quickly, and being a mechanic who only ever thought of a battery as being anything other that a necessary evil to start a vehicle, I have a whole new respect. So as much as I love our solar array a BoonDocker can survive quite well with generator and lithium batteries.

Today’s numbers: 119.2 miles (191.8 kilometers) 2:04 drive time, consumed 15.9 gallons (60.1 liters), average speed 57 mph (91.7 km/h), with fuel mileage of 7.4 mpg (31.8 liter per 100 km)