It was 41º south of San Antonio when we got up this morning. A gentle rain through some of the night... that meant all the utilities that were out were cold and wet. I put on a jacket and went after it.
We were rolling by 9:00. The traffic going through San Antonio on a Saturday morning was... easy. For the record, San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the US; we have been through here a lot, so we have our system. And, going through SA on a weekend seems to work for us. It is a "spaghetti bowl" of turns and lane changes to get from I-37 to I-10 West; working together, we threaded the "train" through.
We did get to see one bit of driving expertise when a guy driving a Mercedes passed us (on the left), then proceeded to make an abrupt right across our nose and 4 other lanes of traffic, to just barely make the exit! That maneuver, by the way, IS on the Texas State Driving Test. I would give him an A-, because he had to brake hard, then accelerate to cut in front of the car that was in the proper lane for the exit. Extra credit for style points, however.
The weather weasels got it right with the west wind - right on our nose. Not much at first, building to the mid-teens.
Once through San Antonio, we pulled off at a picnic area to do a "walk around" and check all the tires and electrical connections. All good. I didn't see any picnic tables...
That's OK - it was 44º out. Too cold for ants, so we passed on the picnic. I consider everything west of San Antonio to be "West Texas." Starting at about Mile Marker 565 or so. That's a lot of West Texas. I won't do my usual rant about it; let's just go with ruggedly desolate...
A lot of up and down terrain, which makes the cruise control work too hard on this rig. To add to the fun...
Right on cue, the wind changed to a quartering headwind and increased. The Aspect has plenty of power for the load, but the wind and hills dropped our fuel mileage average; instead of getting around 8 miles per gallon, we were burning around 8 gallons per mile. Yeah, I'm kidding. A little. They make up for it with higher gas prices in this area. Yeah, the area where they pull the gas/oil out of the ground.
You may have seen me write about the 2/2/2 Rule of traveling 200 miles or less per day, pull off the road by 2:00, and stay two days. Or, if you are just passing through, have two drinks. I am now going with the 3-30 Rule: try to keep the travel to 330 miles or less per day, pull off the road by 3:30, just have one drink, but three pieces of pizza and 30 chocolate covered peanuts. I'm making this up as we go... could be: three drinks, then 30 minutes peeing.
More of West Texas...
In the spirit of Yosemite Sam...
... I am now the meanest hombre west of the Pecos.
We are down for the night in an RV park we haven't stayed in before. And we have covered this stretch of highway a time or 50. They said they have a site to accommodate our length - they gave us two sites for the price of one...
It is a gravel lot. All we need is a place to park, hopefully quiet. It is going to be 33º tonight, so I am glad to not have a hose out. No cable TV, no TV channels to be had on the antenna; I offered to put out the satellite qube, but Joan is happy streaming movies... we have faster internet with my phone as a hot spot than the park's wifi.
When we first started RVing (almost 30 years ago), finding a park with cable TV was a big deal. Seems that many of them have dumped cable and gone with wifi... but it is rare that they have the speed necessary for streaming. Yep, a first world problem.
And little Izzy? She does fine traveling. She comes out of her house for lunch, then goes back to it. When we got down for the day, she wanted the door open so she could look out... "It is 50º out there - I'm not leaving the door open." She decided to lay by her Momma...
Now, I need to find some chocolate covered peanuts. ;-)
--------------------
On edit: Little Izzy wanted to go for a walk. The lady at the campground office said there would be a pretty sunset tonight, so I took my camera in my coat pocket. No clouds, so not a lot besides the sun above the horizon line...
Izzy's fur looks like it is glowing in the last rays of the day...
One last look before we went back inside...
On the way in, Izzy looked at me and said, "Why is it so cold here? We aren't staying here are we?"
Just tonight.
No comments:
Post a Comment