GALLUP NEW MEXICO TO TUCUMCARI WITH A BIG ‘AWWWWW NUTS’ WEST OF ALBUQUERQUE

With I-40 only a few hundred yards south of our location & a service road running between us & the Interstate I had to stuff a few small pieces of paper towel in my ears to block out some of Friday nights traffic noise.  With both of us being so tired ww easily fell asleep anyway.  Had to get up at 2 a.m. & kick the furnace on.  Maybe by next winter we’ll have our Legacy Blue Flame heater hooked up again.

JUST ONE OUR ONBOARD YUMMY MEALS FROM THE RIG’S GALLEY:))

A sunny cool morning as we rolled out of Walmart’s parking lot heading for I-40.  It was 7:35 a.m. & minutes later we were eastbound heading in the direction of Albuquerque.  It was about 9:15 with all going well when a dark blue older Jeep Cherokee pulled alongside in the passing lane, tooted it’s horn & the lady in the passenger seat pointed down towards the back of our Motorhome & made a flattening gesture with her hands.  Sensing something was wrong I immediately put on my right blinker & moved ourselves off onto the fortunately wide paved shoulder.  We were about 2 miles east of the Route 66 Casino & just a few miles west of Albuquerque.  I could smell rubber & figured we had blown a tire on the rig.  Kelly was already out the door & as I came down the steps she came back saying there was a flat tire on the Jeeps front driver’s side.  Well it was more than flat alright.  Most of the tire was gone except for some shards of rubber still attached around the rim.  Didn’t appear to be any damage to the Jeep or rim but did see some scuffing & scraping at the bottom of the fender.

 

With traffic going by just feet away at 75 mph & because of the angle we were on I decided not to try & change this tire myself.  We pay for COACHNET road side service every year & I figured we’d best leave this hazardous job to the fellas who are out here every day dealing with these kinds of things.  Lady at Coachnet was nice & told us it would be at least 2 hours before anyone could get to us.  No problem, we weren’t in a hurry & we had our computers & recliners to soak up the time not to mention a washroom, stocked kitchen, & solar panels on the roof supplying us with all the power we might need for whatever.

EVERY TIME ONE OF THESE BIG BOYS BLEW BY OUR COACH ROCKED TO & FRO…..I’M GUESSING ABOUT 10 RIGS A MINUTE

Much sooner than expected a knock came to our door & it was the tow truck driver from NEW MEXICO TOWING//ACME TOWING sent out by Coachnet.  Luckily for us we had said ‘NO’ to 2 other vehicles that had stopped wanting to change the tire for us.  They were sketchy looking characters in older trucks with about 3 of them in each truck.  I already knew about ‘characters’ who troll the Interstates.  We were glad to a ‘real tow truck’ show up.  Of course I forgot to get our legitimate drivers name but we couldn’t have asked for a nicer fella.  He had the ragged tire & rim off in no time with our spare put back on.  Knowing we would need another tire right away we asked about a nearby tire place in Albuquerque & he said we were not far from a Walmart tire center.  Good enough for us guys.  Said to just follow him & he would take us right to it & he did.  Two big thumbs up for Coachnet & the New Mexico towing company today:))

NICE FELLA & HE WENT OUT OF HIS WAY TO BE HELPFUL

The Walmart tire center at I-40 & Coors was a very, very, busy place with cars lined up at 3 bays.  Fella told us it could easily be a couple hours before our shredded tire could be replaced with a new tire on the rim.  The spare was in pretty good shape so we left it on the Jeep & put the new spare on the back.  We’ll maybe just leave that combination the way it is until next Fall & see if we can get a set of off-road tires at that time.

ALBUEQUERQUE WALMART TIRE CENTER

DESPITE THE LONG LINE UP AT THE SERVICE BAYS THIS FELLOW WAS VERY HELPFUL & HAD US OUT OF THERE IN LESS THAN HOUR

THERE GOES OUR RIM TO GET A NEW TIRE PUT ON IT & WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT I TOTALLY FORGOT TO TAKE A PIC OUR SPANKIN NEW GOODYEAR TIRE

It was about 1:30 by the time we pulled out of Walmart’s parking lot & heaved ourselves back up onto I-40 heading east.  Hadn’t expected so much traffic on a Saturday but it was heavy with a 20 minute bumper to bumper slow down in a construction zone.  Good thing we weren’t in a hurry today.  Finally made it through the city & began our climb into the mountains.  Because the rig had been running flawlessly we decided to push our luck & leave the Jeep attached.  I had a lot of anxious moments though waiting for a red engine light & loss of power as we climbed through the long grades.  Happy to say my anxiety was for not as the Big EEE pulled us up those grades with power to spare.  Even in the steepest grades our speed never once dropped below 55 mph.  Chris, I was sure thinking about you & that Mass Air Flow Filter today:))

EASTBOUND ON I-40 SLIDING UNDER I-25 IN ALBUEQUERQUE

BUMPER TO BUMPER STOP & GO THROUGH A 20 MINUTE CONSTRUCTION ZONE

WE ARE FINALLY CLEAR OF THE LAST MOUNTAIN RANGE & THE LAND AHEAD BEGINS TO FLATTEN OUT

SPOTS IN THESE PHOTOS ARE BUGS ON OUR WINDSHIELD

EVEN WITH TELEPHONE LINES & A BUGGY WINDSHIELD IT’S STILL A BEAUTIFUL LAND TO BEHOLD

Despite our tiredness with the days events we decided to push on to Tucumcari NM.  I had looked up an RV Park there & figured it would be a good place to stop & take on some water once the mountains were behind us.  We had been traveling with less than a quarter tank because I didn’t want to be hauling a lot of heavy water through the mountains.  Rolled into sleepy Tucumcari late afternoon & found the quaint little CACTUS RV PARK right on old Route 66.  We liked this place right off the bat because it is an original page right out of the old Route 66 days.  Nothing glitzy or glammy or commercialized here & the RV sites are very neat & clean.  The original Motel from the 30’s, 40’s & 50’s is still standing & in reasonably good shape although the doors were probably closed & locked years ago.  Weather has taken it’s toll but that is what made this place appealing to us.  I like old places with all their so irreplaceable histories.  These old units talk to you when you walk by & I like when that happens.  Check out the old photos on their website from a time when this place was in it’s heyday.

How nice to be in a quiet place tonight with no Interstate traffic just a few hundred yards away.  Five other units parked in a line beside us & in another section of this surprising large RV Park I saw other rigs parked as well.  Something of note here though.  ‘50 amp service only’  No step down dog bones to 30 amp.  We hadn’t noticed that on their website & seeings how we don’t travel with a big heavy 50 amp cord we had to rely on our solar/generator power tonight which we are accustomed to anyway so no big deal.

THAT ROAD TO THE LEFT IS THE ORIGINAL ROUTE 66

IF ONLY THESE OLD WALLS COULD TALK THE STORIES THEY COULD TELL

Been keeping an eye on the weather & we’re still kicking around where we’ll go from here.  Either up highway 54 heading in the general direction of I-70 further north or stay on I-40 heading for & around Oklahoma City.  We’ll figure it out in the morning I guess.   Meanwhile it’s Saturday night in quiet little Tucumcari New Mexico & we sit surrounded by memories of days gone by right on old Route 66 itself.  And beaming across America’s air waves tonight came decades of old music to my little Patrolman SW-60 radio which once belonged to my Uncle Fred.  A nostalgic moment for me & one which I know will stay with me for many many years………..

OUR SPOT FOR THE NIGHT

GROANER’S CORNER:(( Aunt Bessie loved to visit her nieces and nephews. However, she had relatives all over the country. The problem was that no matter how much she enjoyed seeing them, she hated flying. No matter how safe people told her it was, she was always worried that someone would have a bomb on the plane.
She read books about how safe it was and listened to the stewardess demonstrate all the safety features. But she still worried herself silly every time a visit was coming up. Finally, the family decided that maybe if she saw the statistics she'd be convinced. So they sent her to a friend of the family who was an actuary.  "Tell me," she said suspiciously, "what are the chances that someone will have a bomb on a plane?"  The actuary looked through his tables and said, "A very small chance. Maybe one in five hundred thousand."  She nodded, then thought for a moment. "So what are the odds of two people having a bomb on the same plane?"  Again he went through his tables.  "Extremely remote," he said. "About one in a billion."  Aunt Bessie nodded and left his office.  And from that day on, every time she flew, she took a bomb with her.