2 RV's to El Cajon CA

... spending the night at Gallup NM

(this was written up a day late because the website was off line again. I am trying to keep close to current in moving the stories to my personal website so I do not loose massive amounts of info if the site gets completely shut down)

Breakfast - none - we wanted to leave out earl to beat the winds later in the day.

I wiped all the grease off of BB's front wheel to see if it was still leaking when we got 20 miles down the road.

1st stop was for fuel at Love's in Texhoma. No new grease. It looked more like a black spider web. It was not greasy to wipe off.

Most towns along this highway do not change much from trip to trip. Sometimes they clear a city block and put something new in. Other times the same cars/trucks have sat in the same spot as the building falls down around it.

There is a new La Quinta hotel in Dalhart, it is the only one I know of that is more than one block from a train track in that down. We might have to try it. :) That is our main reason for not staying in Dalhart. Train noise.

At the NM scale we display our permit and sail on past. Before our next stop there is a semi that catches up to BB and at times tries to pass but there is always a hill or an on coming car and they pull back in behind BB. But when there isn't any oncoming traffic they don't pull out ???

2nd stop is at a Valero in Logan where we stop to use the rest room and buy some liquids.

:) just about 24 hours from when my check engine light came on, it goes off. Things are good, no reason to call dispatch or get delayed finding a dealer.

They finally have the new bridge done just south of town.

Coming into Tucumcarri we have to slow to 25 mph way before town, I look at the signs for those leaving town and those signs say 45 mph. I think someone forgot to take their signs down.

Finally back on the freeway. I-40.

3rd stop is for fuel at the Loves in Santa Rosa. BB had thought be might keep going to say ahead of the wind but she is getting hungry. So Carl's Jr (Hardee's) it is. My burger does not have any onions on it so I go back up. They are out of onions? BB ordered so I don't know if they said that before she ordered or not.

4th stop is the Flying J in ABQ for the rest room. Some farmer has his horse trailer parked all the way across the front of the drive thru RV parking spots so everyone has to back out. It looks like he is selling saddles out of the trailer. It looks like there are now four food trucks within a block of the Flying J entrance.

5th stop - BB pulls out to pass me and when she gets closer I can almost hear a horn ... she is waving me over. As I slow down I can hear the noise and when I look in my mirror I can see that my awning is flapping in the wind. 1st we stop on the road and then we pull ahead a mile to park on the exit ramp.

We are at the middle exit for Grants/Milan. I call dispatch and they want me to get to a 'sheltered area.' Good luck. We do go across the almost mile long RR bridge and park near a McDonalds. BB parks so she is trying to break the wind so I can run the awning in and out to try to tighten it up.

That seems to work so we take the back roads to our fuel stop.

6th stop - Loves in Milan.

When we head out from Milan I am watching my awning. I do not have a good feeling about it so I pull off at the next exit 10+ miles down the road.

7th stop is a parking lot near Buewater. BB says she thought she had seen the awning come loose once but it could have been just reflections. But everything looks good so after talking about it and not finding a place that would be out of the wind, I decide not to run the awning again.

But as I am heading down the ramp to get back on the freeway the wind catches the awning again. Both BB and I back up the on ramp and go back to the parking lot. We are trying to figure out what to do when dispatch calls me to see how things are going. Winds are now up to 40 mph and gusting.

They give us a new wind website we haven't used before

https://www.ventusky.com

Now we have 10 miles back to Grants or another 50 miles forward to Gallup where our hotel is. We got ahead of ourselves today. Usually we either wait until our last stop before we shut down or once we are in the parking lot of the hotel to make a reservation.

We decide to go forward.

We go forward at 45-50 mph on a highway where the speed limit is 75 mph. We run with our flashers on.

Only once did the awning puff up and that was when a semi passed. We made it. LONG hour driving.

8th and final stop is the Comfort Inn in Gallup. In the past we have either stayed at the Quality Inn or Comfort Inn in town. This one is closer to the train tracks but I didn't hear anything all night. Tonight this was the cheaper hotel.

I-40 is listed as the Purple Heart Highway and this hotel has a lot of displays with Purple Heart photo's and stories.

Our choice tonight is either Dickey's BBQ or Denny's. We go with Dickey's, BB did not care for her food but my pulled pork sandwich was good. We both liked the cookie.

Ibce we were at the hotel I planned on running the awning in and out one more time to tighten it up. But first I forgot to turn on all of the switches and then forgot that I had jammed stuff in to try to stop the slide-out from moving. But I had remembered to set the parking break, which I now can not get to release. I leave it for tomorrow.

Load board

US - 588

IA - 337/334

LOG

7:00 - Guymon OK - Quality Inn - leave hotel

7:45 - Texhoma OK - Loves - fuel

10:00 - Logan NM - Valero - rest break

11:45 - Santa Rosa NM - Loves - fuel

12;00 - Santa Rosa NM - Loves/Carl's Jr

2:15 - Albuquerque NM - Flying J - break

3:30 - Grants NM - issues

4:15 - Milan NM - Loves - fuel

4:45 - Bluewater NM - issues

6:30 - Gallup NM - Comfort Inn

7:00 - Gallup NM - Dickey's BBQ