Hitting the Road after COVID

 

May 10, 2021 - Monday

Finally, it’s US! After our year+ absence from traveling ,we are finally on the road again. We see all kinds of campers here on our streets every day going someplace and have been awaiting our turn. Today was the day.

Here is Joe beside his new pride and joy -- his new (1999) Jeep, so he can drive all the dirt roads we pass by.

We got a good start, left the house right after 7:00 a.m., after a hard week of packing and loading, both inside and outside. We were blessed to have nieces Dana and Stacey come for a visit the weekend before, and they cleaned the inside of the RV from top to bottom. They will never know how helpful that was, and how much we appreciated it.

Our breakfast plan was to stop in Payson at the casino just to eat, but when we got there, the entrance we always use, next to the big parking lot, was closed. Driving back in front of the hotel, we missed the turn-in for that parking lot and the only other driveway was exit only (and I got ticketed once before for entering that one), so we left there and headed on into Payson. We knew there were fast food places (McDonalds and Jack in the Box) on large parking lots, but we were hoping for something better. Well, that didn’t work—we ran out of choices, so we ended up having breakfast sandwiches at Circle K just outside of Heber about 9:45 (and they were not wonderful). But it made for a quick stop (fuel and breakfast), and we got to I-40 in Holbrook just after 11:00 a.m.

 We hit the New Mexico state line at 12:15, stopped at a Cracker Barrel at the Gallop exit about 12:40 for lunch, and continued across the state. The only scenic picture I took today was of this pot on the exit ramp in Gallop. 

 It was very windy, and when Joe would hit open air, he had to fight the wheel to keep us on the road. (Good thing he replaced that power steering pump last week). Depending on timing, we thought we might stay in Albuquerque (I had found a Cabela’s that allowed overnight parking), or try to get a few miles further north if it wasn’t too late and if we could find a campground. We stopped again for fuel just at the western edge of Albuquerque about 3:50, with time change, that was 4:50. When we pulled out of there, Joe went the wrong way so we had to find a place to turn around to get back to I-40, but no big deal. So we were in 5:00 traffic now, and just as we got to the I-40/I-25 split, and were actually on the merge ramp (single lane for each direction), the 3 cars in front of us wrecked. Just in front of us. I didn't scream, but I did yell Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!  And Joe got us Whoa'ed.  (Too many horse people in our family.)    The lead car was behind a truck and she said it was wobbling all over the road in front of her, so she stopped. But the two cars behind her did not stop. While the demolition derby was taking place in front of us, Old Truck Driver Joe somehow got us stopped. . My Hero! He stomped on the brakes and managed to get us stopped before we added to the carnage in front of us. But he blew the brake line on the right front tire on the RV. The wrecked cars were blocking the road, since it was a single lane and they were not able to drive their vehicles. We sat there for several minutes, got out and assessed our situation to make sure we didn’t have any damage (and we didn’t, except for brake fluid and a busted brake line). Then a semi turned onto our merge ramp, I kept trying to wave him over to the merge ramp going south, but he wouldn’t go there. He stopped, again in the middle of the road, and told one of the drivers he needed to move his car over so he wasn’t blocking traffic. Well, that guy was limping (he has said he was ok, but he wasn’t), but his car wouldn’t move. So the semi driver and Joe pushed that car over to the right side, in front of the other wrecked car, which also wouldn’t move. Now a wrecker shows up, has to park behind the semi, and comes looking for the semi driver, who is pushing the wrecked car. Then the cops show up, park behind and beside the wrecker. However, since they had been able to push one of the wrecked cars over to the side, as the cops were walking up, Joe said, “let’s get out of here before they want to talk to us, we will be here all night.” So we pulled out. The wreck cost us about an hour.  And a new brake line.

But, with our blown brake line, now we basically had no brakes except the emergency brake. We limped onto I-25 and headed north, looking for some kind of garage or gas station to pull into, but there wasn’t anything. So I pulled up the directions to the Cabela’ s, and we literally limped along on I-25, maybe 5 miles, to our exit. Again, we turned the wrong way (the GPS was too slow in giving directions and Joe couldn’t make quick adjustments), had to turn onto a side street and limp through a parking lot to get turned back around, then back onto the highway, across the interstate overpass and down that ramp to the parking lot where the Cabela’s was located. Boy, were we glad to get there! Joe parked, crawled under the RV, determined he didn’t have the right tools, and called a mobile RV service. So we are spending the night on the Cabela’s parking lot, and have an 11:00 appointment tomorrow with a mobile repair service guy. Hopefully, he will get us moving again. I’m sure it won’t be cheap.

We are parked practically in the shadow of the beautiful Sandia Mountain Range so at least we have some scenery.  The temperature is great, and we are camping free, so things could be worse.

So, on our first day, we drove 405 miles, were basically on the road from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 (6:00 p.m. NM time). It was in the 70s all day, and sunny. And we had more excitement that we wanted. Hopefully day 2 will be much smoother.