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"Doing things Differently" |
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07-08-04 After talking with a couple of stupid people this morning (had no clue where to buy auto parts), I finally found an automotive parts supply house and bought 2 fuel filters. Replaced the one on the motor home and kept one for a spare. It seems to have cured the problem. The old one can be blown through, but not nearly as well as a new one. Must still be a bunch of junk in the fuel tank. 2217 miles in so far. We are sitting in another Flying J in the Ogden, Utah. Today we traveled 458 miles, leaving Cheyenne, Wyoming this morning and arriving in Ogden tonight - yes, we decided to take the scenic route. Temperatures ranged from 60 degrees this morning, to 92 degrees this evening in Ogden. Gas mileage was not great today. We ran into some strong headwinds and some strong crosswinds as well. Filled up twice today, once was 8 mpg and the other was 7 mpg. Wyoming has frequent windy conditions, and actually has bars like the ones at railroad crossings, and if it gets too windy they will lower the bars, and close interstate 80 because of safety conditions if it is too windy. It wasn't windy enough to shut down the interstate today, but there were times that I had to turn the steering wheel up to 45 degrees from it's normal position to stay in my lane. Think about it - there we are in a vehicle with sides the equivalent of a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood standing on its end, with 7 of them side by side. That is 28 feet long - motor home is 27, so it is a close approximation. Ever tried to hold 1 sheet of plywood by yourself when there is a 5 - 7 mph breeze? It will just about take you with it, wherever it wants to go. Now think about 7 of them, standing upright, side by side and a 35 mph crosswind with 50 mph or so gusts. This vehicle only weighs about 12300 lbs, not the 80,000 that a semi has to hold it on the road. Makes for interesting times, let me tell ya. That's why the mileage suffered today as well and some of the hills in western Wyoming. There were times that this old beast was floored with the 4 barrels kicked in and we topped a couple of hills at about 38 mph. Funniest thing was a Ford F 150 1/2 ton pickup in the next lane that couldn't do any better than I was doing. Always knew I didn't like Fords for a reason. Anyhow, one of the most impressive sights we saw today was west of the town of Laramie, Wyoming. There was this huge windmill farm. Dozens and dozens of huge windmills, over a hundred in all - they must have been 120 or so feet tall, with 3 blades about 60 feet long each. Yes, they were all turning (almost) and went for miles and miles along the top of a mountain ridge. Most impressive. Wyoming is one of those states where you can drive for long distances and not see anything but scenery. Once we got into Utah, the scenery changed. Still very mountainous, but in a different way. The ground was a different color and some of them were almost straight up. What was interesting though, was that on some of these steep hillsides, up a couple of hundred feet were a line of utility poles with wires run from pole to pole. How did they get them up there? And how did they drill the holes to drop the poles into? Any how tomorrow we will head for Idaho. We'll see how the day goes and how far we get. Adios for this evening. By the way - pictures will be coming later (soon, I hope). |