Sunday. Last part of Texas (5/4/2014)

Sunday.  Well apparently I must have deleted yesterday's blog that I spent quite a long time on last night.  I haven't decided yet whether I'm going to try to create it again.  I keep hoping it will show up.  I've sent my blog expert, Cathy, a message asking for her help in resurrecting it, but it may be gone forever.

Last night we camped at Ft. Stockton, Texas, at a very nice campground.  We thought they served breakfast so we walked over to the cafe, but found out they didn't have a cook, so no breakfast was available.  We went back to the RV and got ready to leave -- Joe decided he had to wash the windshield again so that took a little while.  But by the time we fueled and got our McDonalds breakfast sandwiches, it was 9:20. 

Unfortunately, we had a bit of bad luck.  About 38 miles down I-10, we blew a tire -- the inside back tire on the passenger side.  But fortunately, Joe was able to change it himself (with a very little help from me).  Over time, we have bought everything we need for just such an emergency, and today, we needed it.  I should have taken a picture of all the stuff strewn alongside the RV.  It took about 1 1/2 hours, but the last time we call roadside assistance, it was 5 hours before they showed up, and that  was in Phoenix/Scottsdale, right on the freeway there, so Joe didn't want to risk that long wait today. 

There  was a frontage road right beside the freeway, so after Joe stopped and surveyed the problem, he limped over to the medium between the freeway and frontage road to work on it.  Which was fine, except there were lots of stickers in the grass, and we kept stepping on them.  They would go all the way through the soles of our shoes, and once I even drew blood on my foot.  So I had to do a little clean up just so we could walk around.

Just as I got back in the car to hook it back up after Joe finished, I heard a semi blow a tire on the other side of the freeway.  And later on, a semi in front of us blew a tire.  That apparently is a rough section -- as evidenced by all the tire "alligators" we saw.  We passed another semi that was limping along with a flat tire too.  I think he was trying to make the next exit.

By the time we stopped for lunch at a rest stop, we had only made 119 miles.  Joe kept his speed right at 60 mph all day since we were driving on a 15-year old spare, and didn't have another spare with us.  We left Texas at 3:50, changed time zones, and just kept on going.  We had a strong side wind all day, so Joe didn't make me drive, even though I did offer.  We had a long day, he drove all the way to Lordsburg, NM -- 407 miles.  We pulled into the campground at 6:50 (5:50 local time), which made a 10 hour day.  Yesterday was 10 1/2 hours on the road.  This is way past our comfort zone, on many levels!

It's heating up, was 92 in the afternoon.  Since we had our tire trouble pretty early, it wasn't too bad during all that work -- still in the mid-80s.  The price of gas here is $3.339 so we are going to top off our tank before we hit Arizona -- where we know it is higher. Looking forward to getting home, hopefully tomorrow if we don't have any problems.  Then guess what -- we get to go tire shopping.