Eastward(?) Ho!

Back in the late seventies when I was in Sales at Ritter Food Corporation, I had an account up on Route 17 in Mahwah, N.J. It was a truck stop, a very popular one as Rt.17 and the N.Y. Thruway met around there and to say it was a busy place would be an understatement. I would make my weekly stop there to get my order and I would sit at the counter listening to the truckers kibitz back and forth, their conversations were always about driving the road. I marveled at the way they all seemed to know every mile of our vast Interstate System that links every state in the Union.

To be honest, I was just a tad jealous of whatever it was that they had that I did not.

                                                Freedom?

                                                Driving those big rigs?

                                                Wanderlust?

                                                Or……. was it just the way that they talked and the clothes that they wore? ……. Big Western Belt Buckles and a drawl that seemed to come straight from the plains of West Texas. Me….sitting at that counter….. just listening….

“Ya know that part of I-10? The one that starts at the exit for the 20?”

                                    “Yea….. in the 80-mph stretch?

“Yup”

“Goin east or west?”

                                    “I was eastbound and this jerk musta not been payin’ ‘tention cuz he shot in front of me ‘cross four lanes, jus’ ta make his exit! I nearly spilt my load all over as I jammed on the brakes and swerved!”

                                    “Yea….. I know the kind but that’s nothin’! Jus’ last week I was comin’ down that hill outa Scranton, ya know the one… It’s in the Harry Chapin song “30,000 pounds of Bananas”……

And their conversations would go on and on and on, just like the highways that they drove, and I was always late for my next stop as I got caught up in my reverie of their travels. Never did I ever dream that I too, would someday be able to recall specific stretches of highway like they were that back of my hand!

                        Yesterday we came through that section of the I-10, in fact we’ve been through there countless times over the past few years as the I-10 is our “gateway” to all parts west of here.

                                                Unfortunately.

                                                Unfortunately, because I-10 is “white knuckler” in a motorhome, as the winds, which routinely gust into the 40-mph range always seem to be a crosswind and that wreaks havoc on our travels. No reveries here, it takes Herculean Forces just to keep us between the lines. There are even numerous signs warning of High Crosswinds. The I-10 runs an almost perfect East/West tangent, and those pesky puffs of pugnaciousness always come from either the North or the South….. a.k.a. crosswinds…. or maybe headwinds.         

We never get the proverbial Tailwind.

Until yesterday.

We departed Desert Hot Springs on Friday morning and decided to try out a new route eastbound. Down again we went past the Salton Sea, right through the heart of the Imperial Valley and all its lush growing fields, and hooked up with the I-8, a rather “shorter-than-average” Interstate as it only runs between San Diego and Casa Grande in Arizona (just north of Tucson). This example of our Interstate System was perfectly smooth, both on the asphalt sections and the nifty-grooved-concrete ones. We liked it so much that we are trying to figure out ways to utilize this highway in all of our trips! It sure would be nice but obviously a tad impractical to incorporate a road between California and Arizona when we’re say, going to Massachusetts…. but it was that good!

Back to our Tailwind!

There were several “systems” that meteorologically effected our travels this past week. Those Mighty Atmospheric Rivers that plague California brought their own brand of ferocity to that area. Our former foray into the San Bernadino Mountains for the destinations of Big Bear Lake and Lake Arrowhead would have been canceled if we had tried just a few days later when they received about 20 inches of Skiing Necessities and the rest of us down below just got rain….. and wind, lots and lots of wind. These systems seemed to flow eastward along with us and fortunately they were Friendly Systems which gave us our Tailwinds. Not just for a few hours…. these guys accompanied us the entire time!

`We usually average about 8.3 (ish) mpg when driving normally. When we get those crosswinds and headwinds it can drop as low as 7.5 mpg. But….. when it’s a tailwind (!!!) it gets as high as 9.5! and our Fuel Guage seems to stop its downward plunge and seemingly hover as our big Cummins diesel motor gets to just sip its beverage of choice as we breeze along not being thrown helter-skelter across the travel lanes!

            It was a joy to travel these past few days!

Except for the snow.

And for the Haboob.

            Well, not really a Haboob because technically you need a thunderstorm and its fierce downdrafts preceding it, kicking up monstrous amounts of sand and dirt, bringing visibility to almost zero.

            We had a dust storm.

            But Haboob is much more fun to say and imagine, so we’re gonna go with that!

            We only encountered a Category 2 (on a scale of 1 to 5) Haboob. I made that up, but it serves a purpose! We did get through (and are now Haboob Certified) a Category 4 in Tucson about four years ago. That one was notable because we had just gone through one of those big, drive-through truck washes and came out the other side all clean and shiny and…… damp. Back onto the I-10 (sigh) we went only to observe the developing Haboob in front of us. There was nothing that we could do. We did survive, the warnings on our phones helped instruct us as to the correct actions to take while driving, but alas, our once (for brief time) bright and shiny motorhome was now brown and dirty as the dust clung to us like we were a dust magnet. (double sigh) See photos from this trip.

Our trip from SoCal to Big Tex is 1356 miles in length and takes 19 hours and 51 minutes to execute (according to Miss Google maps) and though our “mileage may vary” we will use those numbers for illustrative purposes.

I will “illustrate” just how big Texas is and show that it seems like it takes forever to exit or cross this place.

We traveled California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

Half of that distance is in Texas!

From California to El Paso Texas is half of that total distance. You think, Ahh, we’re back in the home state but wait! You’ve still got 662 miles to get back to base and that’s not even to the next state border!

            Hence our stop in Fort Stockton, Texas, a veritable stronghold on that infamous I-10. Fort Stockton has been a haven of sorts for us as we’ve utilized various locations here to snuggle in for the night. First it was the Walmart, then we found an RV campground that is only $35.00 a night, full hook-ups. This works really nicely when the temps go up and the AC needs to run and the only way that happens is if we either run the generator (boo!) or hook up to a 50-amp circuit (yay!)

            But there are in-between times and sometimes the Walmart’s can be too noisy. We happened to stumble on a Chevron station just off the I-10 ramp (convenient!) that allowed us to squeeze over on one side as long as we didn’t block any entrances or exits! We are here for our second time this trip…. we do get our fuel here, kind of as a payback, but no one checks anything so it’s just for our peace of mind. In fact, it seems like you could park just about anywhere around here as there are more abandoned buildings and crumbling parking lots than you can shake a stick at! These types of towns, which seem to proliferate along these southwestern travel corridors, are just a vestige of their past.

            They mostly all suffer from the Boom-and-Bust Syndrome, Fort Stockton is no different. Yes, it did start out as an outpost with a small garrison of soldiers. The infamous “Buffalo Soldiers” (regiments of all-Black Soldiers) were stationed here. The Native Americans gave that nickname to those guys as they admired their intensity and stamina, much like the buffalo they revered. Obviously, the name stuck.

 At that time, the place was called Commanche Springs and was the site of one of the southwests best natural springs.

                        Ranching (boom)

                        Farming (boom)

                        Spring ran out (bust)

                        Oil fields (boom)

                        Oil ran out (bust)

                        Railroad came (boom)

                        Railroad left (bust)

I’m not sure what stage it’s in now, but it serves our needs nicely and it is definitely trying its best to garner its share of the Traveling Public as the local Chamber of Commerce is quite active in promoting the likes of the Historic Fort Stockton and the fact that this city is the gateway to Big Bend National Park, even though its about a hundred miles south of here!

            So here we are still eight hours and 381 miles away from Brenham. We may just split that up and stop halfway in Fredericksburg, the center of the Hill Country and home to Texas’s Wine Region, plus a fine number of German-themed restaurants as this town was founded by German immigrants and has held nicely onto its heritage.

            I can hear the Strudel and Sauerbraten calling us from here.