Be free, head west

Last night after work I headed out to tend to the chickens.  I gave them a nice surprise by letting them run around the yard while I was moving the coop and cleaning/refilling the food and water stations.  They were quite funny as usual.  After I refilled their food at the small shed they followed me like the pied piper as I carried it across the yard.  Later I sat down on the hill and all three of them were mulling about me only a couple feet away.  Betty even sat down when I reached towards her, letting me pet her back and neck.  A couple of the chickens took advantage of their freedom by jumping up and “flying” for a short distance.  It was cute.

When Cindy got home from work I told her I had the chickens out of the coop.  We have been hesitant to do this much because of potential difficulty getting them back in.  However we now have established their absolute love of cracked corn.  By carrying and shaking a small cup of it Cindy was able to lead the chickens back to their home.  Sprinkling some of it in the coop was all that was needed to get them in there.  Now that we feel confident we can get them back in reliably we can let them out to explore on a more regular basis, even for short periods of time.

So Cindy has been getting the itch to do a road trip again.  Much like last year we are throwing together plans to head west in September with the the western endpoint destination being Durango, Colorado.  You may recall we stopped in Durango during our epic Grand Canyon trip last year.  During that stop both Cindy and I commented how Durango had so many things to see and do that it would be a great place to spend several days, hence our current plan.

There will be a major difference in the trip this year, the party van will be left at home.  As comfortable as the van is for long distance travel, the 15-16 mpg it delivers adds up to massive gas bills on a trip of this length.  Since money is an issue, we are going to try crossing the country in Cindy’s Prius instead.  Getting 3x the gas mileage of the van is going to add up to a huge reduction in expense.

Now of course there are trade offs to be made.  The Prius has seemed comfortable enough on the various places we have taken it but being in the vehicle 8-12 hours a day is a totally different scenario.  To address that issue we may have to do more frequent driver swaps.  To allow for at least some degree of party van type comfort we hope to lay the back seats down flat and cover the area with a mattress pad and comforter.  The thought is one human being should be able to lay down on one side of the area while the luggage would take up the other side. To make this plan work we will also need to pack more frugally than we have in the past with the van which has no tangible limit on space for stuff.

Who knows, trying to go cross country in the Prius may turn out to be a mess but it’s worth a shot to find out.  50 mpg is just too alluring.

The route I am envisioning would take us through St. Louis so Cindy can see the arch, something I have toured before but would have no problem seeing again.  We will have to see what other things we may be able to hit on the way out there.  The good thing is that potentially, we could take a full 2 weeks if we wanted to but I think we can do everything we want in less time with a few days left over to relax at the homestead.