"On the Road Again!" Tucson or bust

   Like a Willie Nelson song we’re “On the Road Again!” Yes, nine months at home flew by and with a pretty strong push by the crappy weather we left even earlier for Tucson this year.

Oklahoma!

   After Christmas Day with son Tim and daughter Elin, we quickly packed up and stored Christmas for another year and hit the road early Tuesday, Dec. 26.

   As if to give us a swift kick in the butt the real outside temperature was 0 degrees as we pulled out. The whole time we negotiated snowy roads through Ann Arbor the temperature in Michigan never got above 7 degrees.

   By the time we got to Dayton, Ohio we were in a veritable heatwave at 16 degrees. Our first stop was Murfreesboro, Tennessee to have a late Christmas with son John, daughter-in-law Nicole and the three grandchildren. We arrived at their house about 2:30 p.m. Central time and the temperature was 44 degrees.

   Like a really incompetent grandfather I took exactly no photos during our Christmas celebration there. I admit it I am an idiot.

Mileage out: 93786

Time out: 4:21 a.m. (EST)

Mileage in: 94421

Time in: 2:30 p.m. (CST)

   Wednesday started later and warmer than the previous day. It was a steamy 25 degrees in Murfreesboro and dropped to 18 degrees at points along our route through Tennessee early.

Parked outside one of our dinner stops

   I wanted Joan to find Fort Smith, Arkansas (our next destination) on a map so I could see about where we were headed as we have never driven this route before. She politely told me that Fort Smith was not on the map or listed in the city directory for Arkansas in the road atlas she was using. Then she gave me a look like “what kind of Podunk village did you book us into that it doesn’t even appear on the map.”

   When I booked our hotel there were a number of options so I was surprised that it was showing up in the atlas. Finally at one of the bathroom stops we made I grabbed the atlas and immediately found “Fort Smith” on the western border of Arkansas right next to I-40 where I asked her to look. When I politely (and sweetly) informed her that I had no trouble finding our destination she looked at the city and said “I thought you said Port Smith.”

   By Little Rock we reached 33 degrees, but never got above 37 degrees on Wednesday. We stayed at a decent hotel in “Port Smith” and once we got in our room, Joan pulled out two clothes clips that my sister Pam had given her to keep the curtains pulled closed nice and tight.

   In the morning as I was emerging from the shower I found myself in the altogether with the curtains slightly parted and me exposed to the outside world.

   “What happened to the “privacy clips” you had on the curtains last night?”, I asked.

Panhandle crystal trees

   “They aren’t privacy clips, they are only to keep out the sunlight so I can sleep,” she said. We really need to communicate better.

    My father told me that my Uncle Bill had done his initial Army training during World War II in Fort Smith so I found that kind of cool.

Mileage out: 94421

Time out: 7:45 a.m. (CST

Mileage in: 94949

Time in: 4:25 p.m.

   Woke up Thursday realizing I had left the trailer battery in the Tahoe overnight. Now hoping the overnight cold didn’t drain too much power out of it because we’re going to need it to hook up the trailer on Saturday morning.

   Had a nice breakfast at the hotel and hit the road. Temperatures are still below freezing and this region (Arkansas/Oklahoma) are bracing for a big influx of cold air coming this weekend. Fortunately, we will be long gone by then.

   During our trip through Oklahoma and Texas today the Tahoe rolled over 95,000 miles and just to remind you the Tahoe is just barely three years old.

More Crystal trees

   When we hit Oklahoma City about 10:20 a.m. we encountered some minor snow squalls, but other than being a little discouraging because we are trying to get out of that kind of weather it posed no traffic issues. Almost all the way through Oklahoma and the first part of the Texas panhandle temperatures fluctuated through the low 30s.

   The trees in the panhandle had a very beautiful coating of snow and ice that made them look like crystal figurines. That all changed as we approached Amarillo and the sun came out and the temperatures steadily rose into the low 60s (yea!). The highest temperature of the day was 64.

$2.07 a gallon

   At the gas station in Amarillo I was going to give the windows a quick wash, but all the buckets were frozen solid with the squeegees frozen in them. One great thing is how much cheaper the gas is once you get south of Michigan. We are paying 40 to 50 cents less per gallon (a pretty significant savings) once we get out of our home state.

   There was a huge gathering at “Cadillac Ranch” a kind of Stonehenge made up of old model Cadillacs standing on end.

   Once into New Mexico we had a just a short trip to our night stop in Tucumcari where I had enough time to take the Tahoe to a local U-wash place and cleaned off a pound or so of road salt and mud.

Mileage out: 94949

Time out: 7:30 a.m. (CST)

Mileage in: 95518

Time in: 2:46 p.m. (MST)