On the 25th Harley Earle did fine--just fine. From Stanwood we'd averaged 13.32 mpg by the odometer and 16.9 corrected. Oil consuption wasn't as good--762 miles per quart, with, I think, most of that blowing out of the breather cap. The transmission demanded monitoring, also, dribbling out fluid at an estimated rate of 1400 miles, but that's not at all exact because of the heavy spillage from two flatbed jackings. We didn't need to add coolant the whole trip.
But Harley E had a trick up his sleeve.
We made 543 miles (actual) that day, our best run so far. We were 12 hours, fifteen minutes motel-to-motel for an overall average of 44.3 mph. Not too bad, I suppose, including stops for food, gas, and Mother Nature--but no break-downs!
We had decided we didn't want to make a forced march from Las Cruces home to get Dee back to work on schedule Monday. Instead we would take three days to cover the remaining miles from Las Cruces to Pensacola. I knew from experience that we could make Houston to Pensacola in one fairly long day, and Las Cruces to Houston was obviously less than an honest two day's ride. Then it occurred to me that we could make Layfayette, Lousisiana, our destination for Sunday. The itinerary was set, with only where we'd reach by Saturday night in question.
This being decided, we didn't leave Las Cruces right away. Dee had a hankering to see the Farmer's Market in the historic section of the city, so we went there. She was disappointed: there were many and varied crafts for sale in the courtyard of a bunch of shops, but the display, as a whole, was rather commerical. We meandered; I got bored and worked hard not to show it, thinking Dee was having fun; but when we did get back in the car without her having bought anything, I suspected she had been disappointed. It was worse than that--she was disallusioned. She sulked in a most lady-like fashing for an hour, then shrugged it off, as she always does. We left Las Cruces at 10 a.m.
By 10:25 we entered Texas; wer were at the El Paso city limits at 10:29; and --blush---the artictically-finished retaining walls and overpass supports I credited to Pheonix are here, instead. Oh, well. Columbus didn't get it quite right, either, did he?
A gas stop at 11:13; a lunch stop at 11:20.
At 1 p.m. we reached a detour for all east-bound traffic--an ICE checkpoint. It was chilly; the ICE man (giggle) had a fur-lined collar turned up and the fur-lined ears of a cap turned down, and all I could see of his face at first was his nose. He waved us through. As we pulled abreast of him I shouted "I'm disappointed!" I could then see teeth in a grin. He still didn't make us stop.
The time zones change from Mountain to Central, our home zone, just past Horn (it was there Dee saw the "diesel fried chicken"). We crossed at 2:20 p.m., losing an hour.
In a tiny place called Kent, we pulled off for drinks. On a two-way serivce road between the off-ramp and down town metropolitan Kent (a Chevron station and the attached Kent Mercantile Store, one attendant for both, and no working bathrooms. I suspect the attendant didnt want to be bothered cleaning them, and hung the out-of-order signs on them, depriving all of metropolitan Kent restroom service), was the stone walls of an old school, roofless and windowless. I went back for a photo op after drinks. We took some pictures than investigated the ruin. Evidently it had burned. There were the charred nub ends of floor joists embedded in the walls, plus a horizontal line of charred wood which used to be the floor. I confess I peed in a corner of what once was the crawl space. If all of Metropolitan Kent has no working bathrooms, a fella has to improvise.
We rolled into Stockton around 4:30 and stopped for gas, drinks and potty. Harley began to spring his up-sleeve trick . . . at first, nothing happend when I stepped on the gas pedal to start him. Nothing at all. I opened the hood on one side, saw nothing wrong, and opened it on the other. Nothing wrong there, either. But when I pressed again, he fired up in good order. Good-I could practice magical thinking: it was a quirk, nothing was wrong, and it would never, ever happen again. We got back up on I-10 and rolled eastward.
Dee's notes are filled with references to wild flowers and catci; there is a litle sketch of a two-armed sonora catcus--and then one of a windmill.
About 300 miles west of San Antonio there are several hundred acres covered with moden electicity-generating windmills. They stand in goups, the orientation of two-row groupings in different directions. There must have been hundreds of windmills, white, with single enclosed columns and three very long and slender blades. Only some were turning, and were turning rather slowly, so much so that ther was no difficulty following a single blade around while blowing past at 65 mph. Before we passed, we saw an of-line grouping come on line, with first one, then another, then more windmills starting to turn. They made no noise audible from a distance--undoubtedly a design requirment met by slow-turning, powerful blades.
The powerful front which had raised hell all across the west had been ahead of us for two or three days; at about 6 p.m. we caught up with it, driving into light rain and gusts along its backside. By this time our target for overnight was San Antonio, and Dee's notes, along with an obseration about it beginning to rain, say "at least two more hours before we get to San Antonio." Read into the comment that she is not thrilled with riding in Harley E in the rain. There is also a closley-floowing note, "Rain-X mostly gone." True. Two days before, I think, I'd made the mistake of cleaning the windshild with soapy water.
Rain was heavy around Junction, which we reached at 7:45. From somewhere I had the idea that we had enough gas to make it to San Antonio. At 8:55, in the rain, in the middle of nowhere, we ran out, and rolled off onto the shoulder at an exit ramp labeled Cyprus Creek Road.
We called AAA again. I think they know us. Rather sooner than we expected--in fact right at the outer limit of the one-hour time frame we were given--a flatbed rolled up with gasoline.
"I knew the dispatcher had it down wrong," said the drive. "I knew it was a 1994 Buick. I owe her a candy bar."
It turned out that Cyprus Creek Road is a sort distance west of Comfort. We filled at Comfort, and it was comforting, indeed. On to San Antonio!
We passed the San Antonio City Limit at 11:25.
We missed a right-hand split at 11;45, rolling onto I-35. We got off at the first exit and turned right. We drove through unsavory neighborhoods. We turned right and left a couple of times, hunting for I-10 right of I_35. We found ourselves running parallel to US 90 west---how the hell had we done that? When we finally turned onto a large thoroughfare, we pulled into the first convenience store we came to, and I asked an elderly man how to get to I-10.
He couldn't tell me. He thought, then gave up. He suggested that I might inquire at the next convenience store down the street. I retrospect, I suspect the man didn't know how to drive, and may not have been away from his neighborhood for years.
We pulled into the parking lot between the next convenience store and a take-out pizza establishment. Wait--take-out pizza, a business depending on knowledge of highways and byways! We'd inquire there, instead!
"Yeah, you go that way (the way we'd come) and it will take you straight to 90 east, and that will take you to to I-10 east." Sigh.
At midnight we found US90 east. Dee's notes became sketchy some time before that. The only other entry is "12:45 a.m. at Motel 8, Seguin, Texas."
We made 572 miles by the odometer, 726 corrected--tthe greatest distance covered between beds, with bstart-to-stop time of 14.75 hours and an all-included average speed of 49.25 mph. Not too shabby for a dumbbutt who runs out of gas.
Next, a bison, an ostrich, and a zebra; Harley plays the card from his sleeve