Archives 2013

I had a running club meeting last night.  It was made more enjoyable since it was held at South Street, my favorite local bar.  I got there ahead of everyone else and sat down at the bar.  At first I figured I would order one of my “normal” beer choices like Miller Lite, Bud Light or maybe even a Shocktop (a recent addition).  I just happened to be sitting next to the beer taps.  I saw that they had a beer on tap called Atom, a pumpkin beer, surely a specialty item for the upcoming Halloween season.  I decided to give it a try, I never have had a pumpkin beer despite hearing positive feedback from others about them.

The beer wasn’t bad, the taste of pumpkin was faint but definitely there.  I didn’t check but it felt like the alcohol content of the pumpkin beer was pretty high.  I only had two beers total and was feeling “happy”.  The meeting went fine.  After it was done I hung around for a little bit to shoot the breeze with a couple of the guys.  I was home by around 8:30.

I totally forgot that we are officially now in fall.  In SW Florida there is no significant change in the weather patterns for another month or so, meaning the changing of season is a non-event.  Right now every day is still hot, humid, with some degree of rain most days.  I am really yearning for the 70-75 degree winter days to come sooner rather than later.

It is also amazing that September 25th is here already.  The pages of the calendar flip so fast for me anymore it is dizzying.  In the blink of an eye it is going to be Christmas, sheesh.

I’m not feeling much literary inspiration today.

Once I recover from the financial crater of the road trip I have some things I am looking to buy down the road.  One of those things is a new tv for my bedroom.  When I was putting together a checklist of things that would be cool for a replacement set a couple things came to mind, bigger, thinner, lighter, 120 mhz refresh, internet connected and 3D.  Well as I did some window shopping I noticed that 3D is largely absent from new sets.  I wondered why that would be until I did some research, 3D TV is basically dead.

Apparently at the CES show this year where consumer electronics companies roll out their latest and greatest tech, 3D was already out the door.  Evidently consumer adoption of 3D at home just never materialized.  ESPN announced in June it was shit canning their 24 hour 3D channel by the end of year due to lack of interest.

When I step back and think about my own feelings about 3D movies which is now basically take it or leave it, now that the newness of 3D has worn off, I guess I can understand.  3D tv’s cost significantly more and require you to wear glasses to get the effect.  If you are one of those unlucky people that bought a set which requires the powered, active style glasses there is a good chance you suffered from headaches and eyestrain as well while trying to experience the third dimension on your home tv.

I messed around with 3D in WoW awhile back and found the effect to be cool for about 5 minutes but distracting and annoying afterwards.

So anyway, finding out that I apparently totally missed the boat in home 3D was kind of funny.  I still might consider getting a 3D set if I get a good deal on it although I would only consider something like the LG sets that use passive glasses.  The LG’s also have a cool ability to make 2D programming 3D on the fly.

I watched the Dexter series finale last night.  Dexter has been one of my favorite shows for the last half decade.  I have been compared to Dexter by several people not because of serial killer tendencies but more because of my somewhat stoic outer appearance while a myriad of internal conversations/observations are going on.  So it all wrapped up this week.  Overall I liked the final episode although there was a bit too much symbolism going on and the grasp on reality was very, very loose at times.  Now that Dexter is done, who is going to kill the killers….

As predicted my weekend was busy since it was my first official weekend since returning from the trip.  On Saturday a bunch of my time was consumed by working on the van exhaust pipe problem.  Early in the morning I headed to Advance Auto to pick up a flange repair kit.  I didn’t know the diameter of my exhaust pipe but the kit accommodated up 2.5 inch pipes, I figured I would be good to go.  I grabbed oil and a filter while I was there to do the oil change on the van which was necessary after 5500 road trip miles.

While I was out I made another stop at Wal-mart to pick up random items like a new watering can to replace my old which is falling apart, a container to hold bird seed to keep cockroaches and other undesirables out and a bag of weed and feed.  The weed and feed purchase was the one that got my attention, even meriting a FB update where I said:

One bag of generic weed and feed was like $30.  If I were to buy enough of the stuff to sufficiently cover the grass just on the house mound and immediate surrounding area I would spend a small fortune.   Unfortunately the dollar weed is starting it’s annual attempt to overtake large portions of the yard so I have no choice but to lay out a kings ransom to combat it.

So when I got back home my work on the van began in earnest.  As is often the case with my repairs and projects I had a loose game plan in place but I rarely expect things to go as planned.  This was once again the case.

So the flange on the muffler had one bolt intact, one bolt that had half remaining after I beat on it and a third bolt that was broken off inside the hole of the flange, with only a small amount left.  I figured this should be my first target as it would be the easiest to remove. The flange repair kit I bought at AA proved to be useless, the exhaust pipe was much bigger than what the kit would handle.

At first I had my cordless DeWalt drill and two of my generic metal/wood bits to use to drill out the small remaining portion of the stud.  I used my big floor jack to raise the side of the van to give me as much space as possible since the car ramps didn’t do much that far back.  Even with using the jack, it was quite awkward trying to apply pressure on the drill while laying flat on my back. I used vice grips to temporarily hold the joint together and give me something solid to drill into.

Before long it became obvious that the cordless drill was not going to have the staying power needed for this job as it seemed I was making minimal progress.  I pulled out my new DeWalt corded drill and ran a long extension cord down to where I was working.  I also pulled out other bits I had that looked to be about the right size and have a non-masonry head.

I tried all of them with my high power drill and got nowhere.  I burned up two or three bits before I gave up and resigned myself to buying a new bit designed for metal.  So for the second time in a few hours I was back out on the road running errands.  I incorporated additional to do’s into the second run as well, emptying my two oil containers and stopping by my mom’s work as well.

Mom had called me on Friday and told me she had her front end clipped of her Rav 4 by a big flat bed that changed lanes without seeing her, hitting her front end with their big tire in the process.  I stopped by to survey the damage.  This was the first time I have seen the shop where my mom works.  I was familiar with Flamingo Island but had not been there in over a decade.  I wasn’t quite sure where in the complex the store was so I just fast stepped it looking at store signs rapid fire until I stumbled across her store since I didn’t ask my mom for directions ahead of time.

So I found mom and she took me out to her Rav 4.  The bumper on the passenger side was intact but sitting a couple inches low.  The passenger side fender and trim piece had some damage as well from the impact with the tire.  I laid down on the ground at took a look inside to see if any supporting braces were bent up.  They all seemed intact.  I grabbed the bumper as my mom protested, and was able to get it back in place.  The only thing it would need to keep it there is fixing a mount where the bolt secures it.  From 15 feet away you can hardly tell anything was wrong with it. I told mom she still needs to get a quote from a body shop for the damage since the truck driver is responsible for whatever it would cost to repair.

So I got a brand new drill bit at Home Depot as well as some bolts and nuts to hopefully be utilized in the repair, assuming I was successful punching through the stud.  When I got home I returned to my uncomfortable position under the van, loaded in my fresh bit and had at it.  This time I utilized lower rpm’s as I read online was the best way to utilize a metal bit.  Even with the new bit and the slower drill speed I was seeing precious little metal shavings dropping out of the hole.  I was really fcking frustrated.  At this point I spent at least 90 minutes under the van between the two sessions and had absolutely nothing to show for it.

I took a break from the drilling that was seemingly going nowhere and grabbed my big center punch and mini-sledge and started pounding on the stud, it was more of a stress reliever than a technique for stud removal.  Again my flat on my back orientation made hammering difficult.  As I hammered away, with each impact reenforcing an obscenity in my head, it felt like I finally had some movement on the frozen stud.  A few more whacks and the tiny stud remnant popped out, finally….

Examining the stub nub revealed all that work was to punch out something that was barely a half inch long.  The splines on the stud confirmed it was pressed/hammered into place however many years ago it was installed.  I used the hardware I bought to firmly attach one of the three flange holes.  I had hopes of threading a nut onto the one full stud that remained however multiple attempts to do so failed because both of the substantial rust that had accumulated on it and the damage I had caused to the end of the stud while pounding on it initially.

I started the van up and listened/looked at the joint.  It sounded quiet, the combo of a fresh gasket and at least one bolt securely tightened seemed to be an adequate but less than ideal band aid for the problem.   I am sure a muffler shop could pop out those other two bolts with significantly less effort than I expended.  It’s all about the tools.

Despite being pretty spent from fighting with the van I had more yet to do.  The grass which has been unmowable due to standing water had to be addressed, despite ample standing water still spotting the yard.  I used variable mower deck height to get the job done, raising the deck to max height when I would be going through underwater sections.  These ponds also required me to have a good head of steam before hitting them.  If you go slow you wind up getting stuck on the slimy ground below.

The mower was a disgusting mess by the time I was done but I at least got a good portion of the grass mowed.  Unfortunately the forecast calls for another few days of significant rain which will submerge things further. My Saturday of work/chores didn’t really end until after 6pm.

On Sunday Cindy and I had intentions of doing a run/swim training brick.  The last time I ran was the 10K I did with her where I felt absolutely awful and wanted to quit which was at least 3 weeks ago.    Part of the reason I felt awful was we didn’t start running until the sun was well into the sky, not taking our first strides until around 8:30.

This time I suggested that we get up early and try to start around 7, missing some of the heat of the day.  We figured after we were done running we could fill in the dead time drinking coffee at DD until the pool opened.  I also suggested we run the square in a counter-clockwise direction.  Although the distance is identical, to me the run seems less mentally fatiguing when taken down in that way.

The two changes did make the run go better although the 9:44 pace was far from blazing.  Even with the early start it didn’t let us escape the humidity, my shirt was absolutely soaked from the 6.36 mile run.  I need to keep the long runs going for the next month or so since I need the cardio base for the Tough Mudder I am doing the first weekend of November.

So we headed to Dunkin Donuts, grabbed our go juice, and were sitting outside drinking it while playing with a bulldog puppy that a couple had with the them.  His name was Logan and he loved everyone.  As I looked at my watch I saw we had over an hour to go until the water park opened.  I said to Cindy we could be spending the time changing oil.  She was ok with axing the swim portion of the brick in order to get to her oil changing lesson.

Once we got back to the house I changed into my oil changing gear and pulled the needed equipment out.  Cindy always had wanted to learn how to change oil but never was in a situation where someone would teach her.  I was happy to give her a tutorial.

Even with the Miata up on ramps, there was precious little clearance to work under the car since it sits so low to the ground.  It was so low I had to abandon the Kreepy Krawly and instead just shuffle under the car on bare concrete.  I located the oil drain plug and filter.  The only thing I did was initially break the drain plug loose, after that I just gave Cindy guidance on what to do next.  She did great and was surprised how simple an oil change can be if you don’t mind getting a little dirty. I followed up with putting the van on the ramps to change it’s oil as well.  Once again Cindy did the majority of the work and loved doing it.

I pulled out the pressure washer to do some more work.  Tuki’s cage was in need of a good cleaning and I wanted to blow off the crust of sand, dirt and grass on the tractor as well.  A hose just does not do the job when it comes to tractor cleaning.  I used the floor jack to lift the front end of the tractor to get better access to blast away.  By the time I was done the driveway was covered in green sludge.

Sunday night I watched Django Unchained.  I thought the movie was extremely well done with a few caveats.  I was already prepared for the abundance of the n-word, a word I find repulsive when used in a racist context.  In the timeframe of the movie the word was commonplace so it’s use was merited although it certainly could have been used a little less without affecting the authenticity of the movie .  Tarrantino’s movies always seem to feature very graphic violence and this was the case once again with Django.  I thought some of the scenes were really gruesome, needlessly so in my opinion.

However overall I thought the movie was really, really good.  The acting in it was top notch and even though it was quite long, I never found myself bored.  The movie also puts a big spotlight on the days of slavery and just how horrific it was when looked at through a pair of 2013 eyes.  I found myself wondering how enslaving human beings was viewed as totally normal behavior by white people, treating slaves as objects that were discarded as trash when their usefulness ran out.  I also wondered if  someday some of our modern day prejudices/practices will someday be looked back on in a similar fashion, uncivilized, cruel and ignorant.

Anyway, I’d give the movie a solid A.  If you go into it knowing there are going to be some bumps in the road you should appreciate the film more.

On the way home last night I stopped at Ali’s place to give the girls the presents I bought from the trip.  Of course Sadie was very happy to claim the stuffed mule from the Grand Canyon for herself.  From Durango I got a miniature NICK license plate and some venison dog treats.  I also picked up 5 funny dog drink coasters.  I told Ali to pick out her favorite 3 and I kept the other two. I talked to Ali about the trip a little bit but it was awkward as I kind of expected it would be.  I understood and cut the storytelling short.

When I got home I wanted to take a closer look at the exhaust joint that was leaking.  My hope was to remove the remaining bolts and gasket to take with me to the auto parts store to get suitable replacements.  I headed out to the van with car ramps, PB blaster, my socket set, wonder bar and two hammers, figuring that should cover my bases.

Even with having the van up on the ramps my working space was pretty limited.  The first thing I noticed was neither of the two remaining bolts in the flange joint had nuts on them, that’s odd.  I took my mini-sledge and started banging on one of the bolts, hoping I could punch it through..  After several whacks the bolt broke off, great.  Before I started banging on the other bolt I took a closer look at the head of the bolts that are on the muffler side.

There was no conventional head at all, instead the heads of these bolts were round, like they are pressed in place, not turned in.  So now I had two broken bolts in the joint and one that was still intact.  I whacked the remaining bolt a bit and then used the wonder bar to pop the joint apart with the bolt still in place.  These old bolts aren’t going anywhere, they feel like they are more or less welded in place from the years of extreme heat and exposure to the elements.

The van sounded quite ominous with no muffler attached as you can hear above. I put my tools away and went inside to do some further research.  I came up with several options.

One option is to take the van to a garage and see if they can remove the bolts by heating and beating the shit out of them.  However I think doing so would destroy the flange part of the muffler.  Replacing the muffler is the quick but expensive solution as a muffler for a full size van with labor costs could easily reach $300.  I didn’t like that option.

As I dug around on the internet I stumbled across exhaust flange kits, hardware designed to serve the purpose of a flange when there is a problem with the original.  I think a new gasket and one of these kits will be all I need to get the pipe securely together for less than $50.  I am hoping I can simply leave the old studs in place and offset the fix-a-flange around them.  It should be yet another interesting automotive repair experience.

So I was considering going to Zookies to watch the Eagles game but my eyelids were already feeling heavy at 8:15 so I opted to just listen to the game on Sirius, streamed to my surround sound system.  The game was pretty much a cluster fck from the get go with the Eagles turning the ball over with alarming regularity.

After an exciting 30 minutes to start the season, the team that has taken the field since then has been exposed as one that still has many holes, despite Chip Kelly’s up tempo offense.  Going fast doesn’t make interceptions or fumbles any less painful.

I didn’t get too bent out of shape about the game, as I have had the typical high hopes but low expectations for the team this year anyway.  I am happy about the new coach, I’m not thrilled still having Mike Vick behind the center. Like the Eagles team so far this year, Vick had a short flash of brilliance 3 years ago but since then has been nothing but mediocre and injury prone.

It must of been a sweet “FU” moment for Andy Reid to roll in here with a team that was 2-14 last year and beat his old team on their home field, convincingly.

Speaking of home field, despite the beauty of The Linc, the Eagles modern stadium that was completed several years ago, it SUCKS as a home field.  The Eagles have never had a significant home field advantage at this stadium, nothing approaching the days of the Vet when the deafening roar of fans in the closed bowl stadium combined with the rock hard and treacherous playing surface struck fear into opposing players.  The Linc scares nobody and for whatever reason the Eagles have played some of their absolutely worst games at home.  It’s maddening.

Last night I had a funny dream.  I had installed iOS7 on my Iphone yesterday and despite reports of problems reported by others, my install went smoothly.  I like the new UI although I find it ironic that it reminds me in someways of the Metro interface in Windows 8.  So anyway, in the dream I had also just completed the os upgrade on my phone.  It was plugged into the computer with a USB cable.

All of a sudden I smelled something burning.  I looked down at the power plug for my pc and it was starting to melt.  I looked at my Iphone and it was glowing red hot in the middle.  The glow was working outward, towards the USB cable, almost like a bomb fuse in reverse.

I instinctively yanked out the USB cord, hoping it would stop whatever was going on.  The PC was saved but the Iphone continued to glow.  As it heated up it started to roll up, like a tube of toothpaste.  By the time it was done it looked like a small log.

I was in disbelief of was just happened but I recall thinking to myself “Well I guess it’s time try out a Galaxy S4”

This weekend will be quite busy.  If I get any sort of break in the rain the grass severely needs attention.  I also will be working the exhaust repair in the van as well as changing the oil since it just pulled what is normally 9 months of driving in 10 days.  I am going to show Cindy how to change the oil in her Miata while I am at it.  She is very interested in doing car work for whatever reason.  I’m happy to share whatever little automotive knowledge I can with her.

I need to mix in a training brick with the various chores I will be mucking my way through as well.  For fun there is a mountain of Tivo content yet to be digested.

We have been in a VERY wet pattern the last few weeks here in SW Florida.  Yesterday was more of the same. On the drive home I was crossing small rivers where roads normally reside.  At some points the water looked to be close to a foot deep.  I was glad I was driving my Tacoma which sits nice and high off the ground.

My property looks to be equal parts water and land at this point.  I get depressed when the yard gets this wet.

On my home computer I have added some of my favorite pictures from the trip to my Windows background rotation, it’s great seeing them flip up on the screen every three minutes.

Tonight I have to see if I can figure out a way to watch the Eagles game.  I really hate that the NFL started putting Thursday night games exclusively on NFL network, a channel that you typically need to pay extra for if you want it included in your cable package.   Although I actually have basic cable tv as a result of my last negotiation with Comcast that bundled tv and internet, I only have the basic stuff which does not include NFL network.

I could go to one of those overseas websites that broadcast NFL games but I hate the malware filled viewers they require you to load in order to get the content.  I might just wind up listening to the game on Sirius, who knows.  Weeks like this make my investment in the DirecTV Sunday Ticket seem like a colossal waste of money since even with laying out the $300 for the package, I don’t get to see Eagle games that are on Sunday night, Monday night or Thursday night unless I use other means.

I listened to the Eagles second game in the back of the van on the drive home.  It sounds like the offense is far ahead of the defense in terms of performance.  The last part of the Redskins game and for the entire Chargers game, the defense has been awful.  I believe the Chargers only punted one time the entire game, driving up and down the field at will.  If I had a choice of a powerful offense or a punch you in the face, lock down defense I would take the defense every time.  Defense wins games.

It would be cool to actually see tonight’s game since it is Andy Reid returning to Philly as the head coach of the Chiefs.  Andy has the Chiefs off to a good 2-0 start.  I could go watch it at Zookies but the game doesn’t start till 8:25, it would make for a very late school night.

So yesterday was the last day of freedom before returning to work.  I had a pretty diverse day.  My ideas of mowing the grass were washed away by yet another very wet afternoon.  I attached the new stickers we picked up on the trip to the back of the party van.  The back window and bumper are getting filled with lots of adhesive proof of the various adventures the van has taken me to.

I also did a little digging into the additional noise I was hearing out of the van the last few days of the trip.  I turned it on and laid on the driveway to listen/look.  I saw the joint in the exhaust pipe in front of the muffler had only one of the original three bolts in place and I could see the joint was loose, leaking condensation and exhaust.  That would explain the extra noise I was hearing.  I should be able to fix it up myself this weekend with a new gasket and a few bolts.

Later in the morning I stopped by my mom’s place to give her a few souvenirs we picked up on the trip.  She was at the community pool with her “pool lady” friends, both of whom are two decades older than she is.  Mom liked the stuff although the small ceramic mask we picked up for her in New Orleans had a small piece crack off of it that I took home and glued.  I hung with mom at the pool for awhile talking about the trip and other things, it was nice.

Tuesday afternoon I did various things at the house like more computer work, planting the Joshua tree seeds I bought out west and getting a workout in although it was a big failure.

Last night was a running club board meeting but I skipped it.  The weather was shitty, the meeting agenda wasn’t pressing and I didn’t really feel like driving all the way into town for it.  Instead I used the time to do some spur of the moment work on the SSR.

Ever since I installed the Pioneer radio in my SSR I have had an annoying problem, I would get an engine whine coming through the speakers that corresponded with the RPM’s.  I have tried to address this problem a couple times, once by turning down the gain on the potentiometer on  one of the 3rd party modules in the install and a second time by relocating the ground to a different location.

Recently I was contacted by someone on the SSR fanatics site asking about my stereo install since he was installing a Pioneer radio in his truck as well.  During the conversation he mentioned how he simply used the ground built into the radio harness and did not run a separate ground wire to bare metal.  He said he has no electrical feedback in his install.  This got me thinking…

Prior to doing my install I looked into how others have done it.  The guideline I followed included a physical ground so that is what I did in my install.  However from my Tacoma radio swap I did no additional grounding and just used the factory wire harness and it’s built in ground.  So to test this theory I ripped into the dash of my truck for the 6th or 7th time.

I am disgusted at the rats nest of wires every time I pull the radio out.  Despite multiple efforts, I never found a way to clean it up that actually fit in the space I have available.  It took me awhile to dig through the cluster of wires to find what I was looking for.  When I looked at the ground connector I realized there were two black wires.  One of the wires was bare and meant to be used to ground other parts of the system, the other was wired into the factory ground in the harness.  Well I realized I had basically double grounded the system which surely was the source of my problem.  To verify this I removed the auxiliary ground and powered up the radio.  It worked fine. Doh.

Realizing this stupid mistake was aggravating but a relief at the same time.  After a difficult struggle getting the radio and it’s tangle of wires back into the dash I turned the truck on and revved the motor, verifying my noise gremlin was gone.  It was.

Putting the front dash panel back on was a pain in the ass but I already knew it would be, just as it was every other time I have had it apart.  Once it was all buttoned back up I did one more test run and again all I heard was music, finally.  Persistence pays off.

Last night I stayed up way too late getting caught up with Breaking Bad, watching the last two episodes.  Wow, some crazy, crazy stuff went down.  I had a hard time falling asleep afterwards even though I was exhausted.

So yesterday’s drive was lengthy and made lengthier by a very nasty storm we hit around the Tampa area.  We were driving in near blinding wind swept rain for quite awhile.    The last two days I have noticed something different with the way the van sounds.

The check engine light problem disappeared when we got back to our normal near sea level elevations. However it now sounds either like there is a small miss in the motor or perhaps an exhaust leak.  The van just sounds louder to me.

It got us home, that is all that matters.  To be honest, asking the party van to take me to the most western point I have EVER driven was a gamble.  We drove it hard and long, covering the bulk of the nearly 5500 miles traveled in a span of 7 days.

The overall mileage average for the van was a pretty paltry 15.89 mpg which added up to a total gas expenditure of $1087.  Yes that is a painful but expected number.  There is a price to pay to cross the country in conversion van comfort.

The most I ever spent on one fill up was around $93.  The cheapest price I paid for gas was $3.19 a gallon (in Alabama I think?)  The most I paid was $4.19 a gallon at the area by the Grand Canyon where they basically have you held hostage since there was only one gas station . The Grand Canyon area also has a very high sales tax, right around 9%, just an FYI.

My wallet was vomiting with credit card receipts, all of which I put into Quicken this morning.  Yes the trip was not cheap but thank goodness Cindy split the expenses with me.

Looking back on the trip, it was pretty f’ing awesome.  Of course the highlight was hiking the Grand Canyon down and back in a day, something that I would not recommend to anyone unless you are crazy, like me.  The hike pushed me closer to my personal breaking point than I expected.  However it is also one of my proudest physical achievements so I’ll trade the pain for the pride I will always take from the moment we emerged from Bright Angel Trail, 9 hours after we started.

As awesome as the Grand Canyon was, it was preceded and followed by some other pretty incredible experiences like partying on Bourbon Street, the solemn walk through the Oklahoma bombing memorial, the beauty of Durango and sledding down sand dunes at White Sands National Park.   Each event will stick with me until I am done on this planet.

In total I took close to 500 pictures.  You can see them all here.  There are some AWESOME shots in there.

There was concern on both Cindy and my part about how we would get along being on a long road trip together.  It really was fine.  Since we are both “doers” we complimented each other well.  There were only a few annoyances on both sides of the fence and they were minor at best.  Overall the trip went very, very well which is a tribute to both the prep that Cindy put in leading up to it and the effort we both put into just enjoying things for what it was, an opportunity to see some of the great things that are out there if you just take the time to look.

Last night and today have been mostly about getting things back in order although Cindy and I did take time out to go to the DD ride this morning.  After seeing I gained 3 pounds on the trip the four alarm fat bell is sounding in my head.  The 20 mile ride was just the start of my efforts to get things tightened up asap.

I have tomorrow off as well.  I’d love to get the shaggy grass mowed but Mother Nature seems determined to dump water on the property daily in high amounts.

This morning we slept without an alarm until 7:30.  It was a luxury we haven’t had very often on the trip but we only had about 450 miles to drive today.  We found a Dunkin Donuts to fuel up before we left.  Unfortunately, for the second day in a row, a Texas DD delivered horrible coffee.  It was bitter and short on the sugar and cream I ordered it with.  I choked it down anyway for the caffeine benefit.

Most of the drive today was backtracking road we traveled already when we headed west.  Cindy actually did more of the driving than I did.  I spent most of the highway time blasting through countless waves of zombies.

The van mpg bounced back up into the 16’s after the piss poor mileage the day before which saw a 13 mpg.

I am so glad that I have been blogging and uploading pictures daily during the trip, to try to recall this monster trip after the fact would be a feat that far exceeds the capabilities of my deteriorating memory.

Tomorrow I hope to hit the road a little earlier.  The final drive back to Naples is longer than I thought, over 600 miles which will take around 9 hours to complete.  My goal is to be enjoying dinner under my own roof tomorrow night.  I have not even attempted to total how much I have laid out in gas on the trip, it would put an unnecessary damper on what has been a great adventure otherwise.  It will take me forever to balance the books once I get back home.

There isn’t much excitement to be found in today’s lengthy drive across the widest part of Texas.  We were up early and out on the road around 6AM.  We found a near by Dunkin Donuts, unfortunately they made pretty lousy coffee.  I was able to choke mine down, Cindy gave up after downing about a third of hers.

The 80 mile an hour speed limit was welcomed to help gobble up the seemingly endless miles in western Texas.  Unfortunately pushing the van to 85 mph meant the gas mileage was horrid.  On the one fill up I calculated my mileage to be in the high 13’s, ouch…

For bathroom breaks we normally would use either a rest stop or a gas station during a fill up.  Well we both found ourselves having to go badly in the middle of no man’s land with neither of those options available.

Cindy pulled off on an exit that only had a couple campgrounds listed as attractions, no gas or food.  We figured before we would resort to using a tree as a bathroom we would try the main office at the campground.  Fortunately the women that worked there were very nice and didn’t mind if we used their employee bathroom.  We bought a couple ice cream sandwiches there just because.

The drive wasn’t bad for me during my first 5 plus hour shift but during my second shift I started losing it a bit.  I felt like a babbling idiot making stupid sounds and noises to entertain myself.  I just wanted the driving to end.

I spent almost all of my time out of the drivers seat playing Plants vs Zombies 2 on my Iphone.  It’s a great game but I HATE the way they have put micro-transactions into it.  Actually they aren’t all that micro if you ask me, $2.99 to buy a cool plants? $5 to unlock a level??  Fck that.  I much prefer the model they used with the first game where you paid 5 bucks for the game and that was the end of it.  With 2.0 the game is free but if you lacked financial discipline you could easily drop 50 bucks on the game with these transactions.

I refuse to pay for these upgrades and am doing it old school style, meaning you grind and grind until you earn the in game currency needed to progress instead of pulling out your credit card for the fast track.  Even with the annoying pay model the game is very fun, and addicting.

The place we are staying at in Beaumont is surprisingly nice, it’s called the MCM Elegante’.  It also is the first hotel I ever stayed at that has a huge statue of the Ten Commandments by the front door. Weird.

We had a nice dinner at the hotel restaurant before retiring for a well deserved good nights sleep after 13 plus hours of driving.  This was the last brutal driving day of the trip.  We have about 450 miles to get to Pensacola tomorrow and about the same to push into Naples on Sunday.  The van has already racked up 4,400 miles, whew…

So yesterday’s drive from the Grand Canyon was not all that eventful other than a pit stop we made in Tombstone, Arizona.   Like a dumb ass, I left my charger and cord for my Iphone 5 in the hotel at the Grand Canyon.  I figured I could grab another one at Wal-mart.  So we head into the store, go back to the electronics section and find an overpriced replacement.

Before paying for it I had to hit the bathroom, while Cindy went to find some laundry detergent.  In the span of 60 seconds I saw no less than a half dozen people that belonged on peopleofwalmart.com.  The funniest of all was this gentleman.  Here is how I described him on Facebook.

Fumanchu mustache, short shorts, orange sneakers, mullet, tank top, beer gut, toxic waste tattoo on left arm – welcome to Tombstone Arizona.

The guy just looked incredibly ridiculous.  His toxic waste tattoo was just perfect icing on the cake.

On the way back out to the van we were passed by two guys driving what looked like a homemade dune buggy.  It also looked like it was ready to fall apart.  The driver mistook my stare as one of admiration and gave me a “yea, this shit is cool huh?” nod.  Instinctively I nodded back.

The rest of our driving day was long, longer than I would have liked.  We didn’t pull into Las Cruces until 9:30 PM local time.  We lost an hour along the way as we started out on Pacific time and wound up in Mountain time.

I can’t tell you how whacked out your internal clock gets when you are doing cross country road trips like this.  I have left the radio clock and GPS on EST the entire time.  It gives me a reference point to how screwed up my sense of time has been.  Last night we ate dinner at something like 11:30 est and it felt normal.

That dinner was take out from Cracker Barrel, something I only found was available when dad and I drove down to Florida in January.  The meal was good but heavy, not exactly what I like to go to bed with in my stomach.

I had a rude awakening around 4:30 am when I heard a sound I never heard before coming from my phone.  I stumbled out of bed and tried to focus on the screen.  It was a weather alert, similar to what you would see/hear on the radio or tv with the emergency broadcast system.  It was a flash flood warning.  I looked out the window and saw it was raining hard but did not see any floodwaters nearby, so I went back to bed.  I never knew they had the capability to do targeted emergency broadcasts to cell phones in a specific area.

Cindy and I slept in majorly, not getting out of bed until nearly 8AM.  This was ok because today was a scheduled light driving day.  We actually wound up staying at the hotel until nearly noon, waiting for laundry to dry.  It was ok though as it gave me a chance to get caught up on some computer work.

We pulled out and headed to White Sands National Park, a place I have been twice before with Ali.  I never get tired of seeing it’s snow like sand.

The weather heading to the park was very ominous.  It rained most of the way, only stopping a few miles before the entrance.  We also got to pass through our first border patrol checkpoint where you get eyeballed by some guy while he asks you if you are US citizens. You tell him yes and if he believes you, you can go.

When we went inside the building we checked out the shops.  I realized that the two prior times I was there I never went into the gift shop in the back.  I don’t recall if that was intentional because of having the dogs in the van or if we just missed it altogether.  The gift shop had a ton of cool things, including saucer sleds you can buy/rent for the dunes!

Cindy and I had been hobbling around badly all day.  The second day soreness from the epic Grand Canyon Hike was hammering us in a major way.  Despite that we had to grab a sled.  How many times do you get to sled in sand dunes in your lifetime?

The temperature in the dunes was dramatically less than my two prior visits when the thermometer was close to 100 degrees.  I don’t think it was even 80 degrees thanks to the overcast skies.

The white sand was much more compacted than I remembered, probably an end result from the monsoon rains of the last month or so.  I was bummed out that access to a huge portion of the park was blocked off because of the rainy weather they have been having.  Evidently they didn’t want vehicles on the non-paved roads if heavy rain was a possibility.  It meant we couldn’t get back to some of the really cool areas deeper in the park.

It didn’t matter much though, we parked the van and just walked deep into the park, looking for good dunes to sled.  It didn’t take long to find some.  We bought some wax to help reduce the friction the plastic sled would have on the sand, we reapplied it regularly although I don’t really know if it was needed.

Cindy has never seen snow in person in her life and she certainly has never sledded.  This was a very cool thing for her and she wasted no time trying out the sled, being the first one down a dune.  Once you got moving downward it really does feel like regular sledding although you slow down a lot faster when you run out of dune.

Cindy rode the saucer like a pro, not falling off once, even down some very steep sections.  I was not as fortunate, wiping out twice, including a funny head over heels flip on my last ride.

I compiled the phone video into a YouTube video if you want to see the fun.

It was not only great fun to sled the dunes, it was breathtaking to just take in the beauty of them.  The dark skies with angry clouds put a backdrop on the dunes I never had seen before.  I took a ton of pictures, many of which I am sure are going to be used in the future to decorate either my cyber or real living spaces.

We left the park just as it looked like the skies were going to open up.  I stopped back at the visitor center to grab a new window sticker to replace the badly weather beaten one that is on the van now.  The Grand Canyon and White Sands National park in a three day period is about as much of nature’s beauty that I can imagine,  such different and incredible places….

After the park we went to near by Almogordo to have an authentic Mexican meal at a place named Margo’s which was recommended by one of the White Sands employees.  The parking lot was empty when we arrived but probably it was due to the time of day, 3:30pm, right between lunch and dinner.  (more of our internal clocks being whacked)

We had the entire place to ourselves for awhile until another couple came in.  The food was great, the inside of the restaurant was charming, and all of the staff we dealt with seemed very friendly.  What a nice find.

The remaining drive to El Paso was thankfully short.  Cindy booked a room at DoubleTree which is the nicest hotel of any that we stayed in.  It’s too bad it is in a place like El Paso which I have long considered the armpit of Texas.

Tomorrow we will be getting up early and blowing out of here.  Tomorrow is the last brutal driving day of the trip.  I plan to cover the entire width of Texas in one day which is somewhere around 900 miles.  The mind numbing drive is made somewhat better by the 80 mph speed limit in much of west Texas but even so there is no way to avoid the suckage which will await.

I have had odd mpg numbers with the van.  The last three fill ups at elevation were showing my getting exceptional gas mileage, 17 mpg and even 18 mpg for one tank.  It didn’t make sense to me since it seemed the thin air was making the van work much, much harder to maintain speed.  Well this morning’s fill up calculated to an mpg in the high 14’s, the worst of the trip, I dont know why there is such a wild fluctuation.

The CEL did come back on yesterday and it was the same O2 sensor errors.  I cleared them with my code reader prior to the drive today.  It will be interesting to see the numbers the rest of the way.

I can pretty much write tomorrows blog entry right now, “We drove,a lot…”