4/14/24
Woke up this morning bright and early from the aforementioned very windy night. We didn't sleep great, but it's fine. Headed out toward New Mexico with 6 hours of drive time. Or so Google said. Two hours into some beautiful Route 66 driving we still had... 6 hours to go.
Sigh.
And, as my brother said... I'd eventually end up on I40 to make some time. But, ANDY, the only reason is I was bad at planning today's drive. I have loved the 45mph lazy driving. It's slow paced and reminds me of the parkway or backroads at home.
Anywho. I spent all day on the road seeing some sites, missing some important ones (I'll get them next time when I'm not on a time table) and tootling it across the last bits of OK, through TX's hat and into NM.
The drama llama for the trip reared it's fuzzy irritating head today with a pothole from hell that swallowed a hubcap and my valve stem from the passenger front tire. I'm very glad I have the monitors in the tires because with a couple of button pushes I knew I needed the site of the road stat.
I found a roadside truck shop not far from me, gave them a call and the lovely owner of Big Rig Truck Services came right out with a new tire for me. Before I called him I set us up for some waiting time, in case it was going to take a while to get someone out to me. I used the levelers to get the pressure off the rim, started the generator and got the AC going inside the camper, and grabbed a soda. THEN, made the call to the shop. What? Comfort and pupper safety first.
When I spoke to him on the phone he let me know it'd be 30-45 mins. Leelu and I rocked with the passing trucks and waited it out. Once he arrived it was quick and painless to get the tire changed and I was back on the road, following the service guy to the shop to pay.
Note to all of you out there. Have multiple ways to pay for things if you're traveling. He wanted Zelle, which I installed while waiting for him to arrive. The issue was his company doesn't accept debit cards via Zelle... and my banks (both, neither, whatever) offered Zelle from the bank itself. He didn't have the card reading items with him and didn't have any other form of payment that'd he'd accept on the side of the road. So, I followed him to Santa Rosa to the shop to run my card. Not a huge issue at all seeing I was going to Santa Rosa anyway.
All in all an easy breakdown with a hefty price tag all thanks to the rough roads in NM and me not paying attention to potholes. I'm finding out today if I can claim the tire against my 'tire insurance' that I have through Good Sam. It'll be the first time I use them for anything. Better be worth the $$ I'm paying for insurance.
Oh, and a huge shoutout to Travlfi. That's the wifi service I'm using while traveling. They contract with all the major cellular companies so you don't have to have a hotspot for each. I have Verizon for my cell phone, which at mile marker 307 on I40 is lacking. Big time. But, with the generator running I had wifi, nice and strong probably using Sprint or something. That was the only way I could have downloaded Zelle and gotten it on my phone in time to attempt to pay on the roadside.
Once I was done with that we headed to Santa Rosa Lake State Park to enjoy some New Mexico beauty for the next two nights. We got in later than I wanted, around 6pm MST, but that was okay. It was easy finding my site and the park is well worth the wait. I told Ben I don't want to move to anyplace this dry and lacking of grass, but it absolutely gorgeous to see.
Oh, and the desert?! Is silent. No crickets, bugs, frogs, birds, owls, etc at night. I didn't even hear dogs in the distance. I had to put the sound machine on to drown out the ringing in my ears.
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