Shifting winds push me south

Already, the shifting winds are changing what little plans I had. This morning I woke to the realization that if I did not run as far south as possible, I would wake tomorrow to 20 gallons of ice in my tanks. The simple fact is that anything North of Albuquerque, NM was going to go well below freezing each night for some time. While I an handle that myself, my water supply would not do well over the sub-freezing nights. Simply put, you can not flush a toilet with ice.

So, with that issue looming overhead the wise decision was to head straight south and bypass the Moab, UT and Arches area all together. Not only does this help get me into a warmer climate, it also eliminates the need to make it over the Rocky Mountains on I70, and puts me into the cheapest gasoline states. I still have not been to Carlsbad Caverns (NM), Guadalupe Natl Park (TX), or Big Bend Ntnl Park (TX) so that is my new aim. Heck, this even brings me through Roswell, NM… maybe I will get to see an alien or two.

I made it 200 miles south, arriving in Colorado City just in time to stop for the evening’s work load… and the sunset. I will likely get a couple more miles knocked out after work, but only enough to get me into New Mexico.

Happily, when I stopped to fill the fuel after 100 miles, I did get 13.1 MPG which confirmed that my O2 sensor repairs seem to have worked. I was very afraid of the 6-7 MPG I was getting with the bad O2 sensor…. whew!