Friday, October 17, 2014

10/16/14 The sun done riz...............

The sun done riz, the sun done set, and I ain't out of Texas yet.....  I heard a song with those words years ago but never understood till now. Not for lack of trying....I put in over 600 miles today.  I left the gas station at 4:15 am, a little later than I wanted, as I wanted to be on the other side of Houston before rush hour. I made it, barely. At 6am I could already see it was a parking lot eastbound as I put Houston in the rear view mirror. I don't miss that commuting BS one bit. Around 7:30 I was feeling sleepy again as the sun rose and I pulled into a picnic area just west of Flatonia for a nap. I figured I'd sleep till it got too hot then drive till dark. I had driven 222 miles already so I was off to a great start.

I slept till 11 or so, had lunch, did some internet, and hit the road at 12:30 or so. I got to San Antonio and followed the Garmin into hell. It had me get off on this loop road 1604 which was the most frightening road I've driven in a long time. It's a BUSY road, all kind of stores, businesses, etc, with stupidly short onramps. And the speed limit is 70. Just ridiculous. I wonder how many accidents there are on  that road. I was so happy to get off that, the whole time I was saying, "I should have gone through Oklahoma! I should have gone through Oklahoma!" Unreal. I needed gas but it was just congested I kept saying, I'll get the next one. I'll stop at the next one. Then the low fuel light came on with 16 miles to go to the next one. I had never run it that low before, I guess it comes on with about 4 gal left. Now I know. And hopefully I won't cut it that close again. I was pretty happy though, with all the 65 & 70 mph driving, I was still getting 10 mpg. Later, on the 80 mph stretches, I could watch the gas gauge go down....I got less than 9 mpg when I tried being a leadfoot.  I grabbed some snacks and hit the road again. The road really opened up after Comfort, TX....lots of hills and no radio stations. Except for one. Fox News Radio. I plugged in the unactivated XM radio & listened to the preview channel. It was better than the alternative. :-) Got gas AGAIN at Ozona....I'm afraid to add up the receipts and see what today's total was.  I pulled into Fort Stockton and tried to head to a roadside RV park that was supposed to be pretty cheap & basic. But I couldn't figure out how to get to it so said screw it. Then headed to the IHOP, which supposedly had ON parking only to find out it went out of business. How does THAT happen?? So I went for the old standby....Super Wally. There's about 6 of us in our own little compound in one corner of the lot. I'm glad there is safety in numbers as I saw what appeared to be a drug deal in progress on the other side of the lot as I was walking back from the store. If I had been alone in the lot like I was in Gulfport I would have left, but since I was in a big group I didn't. I wasn't in the mood to go wandering around in the dark any more tonight. I'm about an hour and a half from the NM border and I'm off the interstate from here on out, so maybe now I'll slow down and start sightseeing. Sounds like a good portion of the park at Carlsbad Caverns was damaged in the recent flooding but at least the cavern is still accessible.

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