As we left the Phoenix Cummins shop, we stopped to fuel up and then took I-17 north toward Flagstaff, AZ (I think I typed ‘Kingman’ in a previous post!) . The plan was to hit I-40 and go East towards Albuquerque, NM.
Not long after we cleared the Phoenix area, we found ourselves climbing in elevation that really tested the horsepower response of the Bus engine, and it passed with flying colors. In addition, the weather turned colder, and it began to rain!
To make the drive more challenging, I thought that I had hit a bird and it slid off toward and passed the DS window. However, I soon figured out that my DS windshield wiper had broken off near the swivel point at the bottom of the windshield, and fell off. Luckily, I use “Rain-X” on my windshield, and I could continue to drive in the rain without the wiper!
We had originally planned at the beginning of the trip to spend 4 to 5 days exploring the Santa Fe and Albuquerque areas, but adjusted our plan to spend Friday touring the “Old Town Albuquerque”. To make that work, time wise, we drove until about 11:00pm, and stopped to overnight at a Wal-Mart in Gallup, NM.
The next morning, Patsy looked out the windshield, and this is what she saw!!!
It snowed about 3—4 inches during the night, and we had no idea! We were about 125 miles from Albuquerque, so we decided to drive on. Before we hit the road, I went outside to run the car to lube the transmission, and took some pictures…..
As we drove toward Albuquerque, the weather only got worse. There was ice on the overpasses, miles of heavy fog, and more snow. For us South Texans, it was different and a little bit of fun, but we knew it was not a good thing!!! Here are some random roadway pictures……
It turned out that the Rain-X did not work as well on snow and ice as it did on rain!! When we arrived in Albuquerque, we got the call from Gerry at the Phoenix Cummins shop and it was arranged for us to visit the Albuquerque Cummins shop for an upgrade to our engine’s computer software. I asked him to also set it up for the guy to swap out the PS wiper arm to the DS….. to help me drive. I figured he owed me that for all my inconvenience, and he did it. I helped the guy, and it turned out that the DS had broken in half about 3 inches from the mounting point.
With the weather condition, Patsy and I agreed that a tour of Old Town Albuquerque was not a good idea for this trip, and decided that after the computer fix, we would continue to head toward Ft Worth, TX, where the weather was predicted to be better.
We left Albuquerque and continued East on I-40 toward Amarillo, TX, where we overnighted at a Texas Welcome Area with a separate RV section. Here some more pictures with the DS wiper………….
After we woke up Saturday morning, and got on HWY 287 headed toward Ft Worth, the roads cleared, and the weather was much better……. just cold!
We arrived at the TreeTops RV Resort in Arlington, TX at about 4:00pm and got set up for two nights. We found a Wal-Mart to replenish our supplies, and had a good dinner. We spent Sunday snacking, catching up on laundry with the on-board washer & dryer, and watching all of the Super Bowl broadcasts. It was a relaxing day!
On Sunday, we had a little rain, and then a hard freeze on Sunday night. When I brought the slide-outs back in to set up for travel on Monday morning, there was about a half inch of ice on them, and it broke and fell to the ground. On the ground, it looked like we had shattered the side windows, so I told Patsy that to “mess” with her a little bit. She did not see the humor, but took pictures……
As can be seen, the Sunday rains did a good job of washing all of the road sludge off the Bus and the car. They looked pretty good!
We headed toward Little Rock, AR to spend three days with Deanne, Mike and Rachel….. especially, Rachel!! More on that in the next post!
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