Day 22 - Going to Get Oil Changed in Prius and Then......Crash

My day started off as usual with early rising as my body just doesn't like adjusting to time zone changes.  So I took off for the local McDonalds for tea and downloads and I saw the "bicycle guy" who I wrote about last year.  He was working on his computer.  I waved but I don't think he tempered me from the few times we spoke a year ago.

The service department at Precision Toyota opens at 7 so I left in time for arrival just after then.  I'll paint the picture now in that it was still fully dark and I was following the GPS turn-by-turn instructions. The GPS said be in one of the two left turn lanes so I turned into what I thought was the lane and big bounce and I knew I blew the tire.

Here is the aerial view:

I am driving left to right like the arrows I drew and what I didn't see was there was a turn lane protector with no signage so when I turned to get into the turn lane I hit the curb.  I stopped where the red pin drop is.  A case of not seeing the jutted out curb and I ran into it.

As I said I immediately knew I blew the tire.  Big hole!  I wasn't thinking camera but I'm in the middle of the road get help!  I called AAA and after 50 questions I got a 40 min estimate.  In about 5 more minutes Tucson PD pulled in with lights to protect me (Thank You) and 10 more minutes I was on my way to Precision Toyota, now only 2.5 miles away.  Wish I had taken a picture of the tire but I was in damage control mode

The damage. 

Front drivers side tire blown out

Front hub cap gone for ever - Glad it didn't hit someone. 

Dent front alloy rim - rim looks still round but not nice like it should be -  hope I don't have to replace $$$

Rear drivers side tire scuffed but ok

Rear hubcap gone-  yikes can you imagine two coming at you!

Scuff in rear alloy rim

So can't replace one tire so need 2. The dealer has 3 but 2 are held for customer.  The parts dept orders two more and I get 2 from inventory $316.00

Decided on front end alignment - I have 11K miles still to go on trip and don't need problems - hope all linkages are ok or more than $79.95

Oh yes I was coming in for oil change & tire/s rotated so do that $67.03 for oil & $24.95 tire rotation.

Estimate $487.93 before taxes and fees

Estimated to be done around 1:30 - I was offered a shuttle ride but I hunkered down for the long haul here in the waiting room.

What I learned

- Look for unmarked curbs.  

- Prius has a low ground clearance to begin with and there is not much room for error there. The poor wrecker guy had a heck of a time trying to get underneath to hook it for the ramp truck.

- The wrecker guy said put it in neutral ok but I have to leave the engine on because the prius automatically goes into park when you turn it off so I needed to wait for the cables to start lifting to take my foot off the brake and then he lifted it.

The good - no one was hurt - cars can be fixed.

I'm glad I was not out in the boonies without cell service.

Very glad to have AAA. It worked well.  AAA have their own service center and the driver suggested I may consider them.  I opted for the Toyota dealer.  They can get the right parts and I am good with the expertise, although only a few dollars higher.

The work was done on time and with taxes and fees it cost $530.  Rims were ok and no under carrage damage.  The alignment was a little off.

This is not all a problem as I was going to replace all 4 tires when I get back.  I was also planning a front end alignment for the new tires.  I guess I got some of it done early.

I was grubby having a need for a shower and shave and I was hungry too.  I headed out for the shower at the Pilot truck stop first.

With shower and shave behind me I was off to Food City to get some groceries.  To the park down the street I went and grabbed a picnic table and made a kind of fish wrap. Cleaned up and then tackle the mess from the Toyota Service Dept who had to get my spare out of my "house" to put on the Prius to get it into the service bay.

Well, the Prius got packed using "every cubic inch".  The did the best they could and I needed to pull out all the trunk and redo it.  This is not a bad exercise as I made a mental list of what I plan shipping home when I get to son Clayton's house in Monterey to better utilize space.

After dinner I met up with the two Vandweller friends at the casino parking lot.  We caught up on what we did during the day.

We all leave for different places during the day and come back for the night along with others.

The day ended with a wonderful sunset.

Tomorrow?  Haven't decided yet.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Day 21 - El Paso, TX to Tucson, AZ / 4000 miles

Welcome to El Paso, TX and Juarez, Mexico on the other side of the Rio Geand River.

It was 37 deg this am and I was up at 4:00 in the Mountain Timezone having my body stuck in the eastern Timezone.

I decided to wait for daylight to drove the Rim Road.  I took the picture above from there.

There are very nice houses up here on the mountainside.

I took a tour of the Magoffin Home State Historic Site this morning before leaving El Paso.  This built in the late 1880's and is one of the original ranch homes with lots of history.

Welcome to New Mexico.  Based in the time of day I will not be stopping before getting to Tucson.  I had thought of playing disc golf in Las Cruses at the college but ran out of time.

CSX's train runs along the side of I10.

Welcome to Arazona!

Ok folks back in MA 77 deg and A/C is on.

I had the best Prius trip ever.  Can you believe I got 65.3 mpg for the 339 mile trip from El Paso to Tucson.  Got yo love long flat roads.

I have driven 4667 miles on this trip so far and with the good Milage on today's travel my overall mpg is now 50.1!

Now that is 5 times better gas Milage than my Class B camper last year.

I arrived in Tucson and met up with one of my friends I hung out with last year. Bit was nice to see him and hear is has been well.  I also met a new Vandweller, who started vandwelling last December.  

Tomorrow am I am going to see about an oil change.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Page Views By Country - 2/4/15

Here are the page views by country over the last month as of today.

Pageviews by Countries 

Entry	Pageviews
United States	604
Ukraine	4
United Kingdom	3
Indonesia	3
China	2
France	2
Russia	2
India	1
Poland                                   1

Day 20 - Sealey, TX to El Paso, TX / New Time Zone

Picture of the trucks and RV's parked with me at Walmart last night.  You can see the streaks on the windshield from me wiping the moisture off before I could drive away this am.

It rained hard at times overnight, waking me at times with the noise on the car roof.  It was not the only noise as there was a train that blew the whistle at grade crossings nearby and since it was a 24 hour Walmart there were car doors from time to time.

Speaking of hearing train whistle overnight.  I heard train whistle when I also stayed at Hog Pen Landing and in Cartersville.  At home I hear the train engine low level rumbling noise while the train is sitting on the tracks 3 miles away.  They ripped the second track up years ago so the westbound train sits waiting for the eastbound to come through the single track section.  

It was just after 6:00 when I started heading west on I10 and it was 43 deg. The rain, fog and mist from the vehicles made it a tough drive until it got light.

The good news is that I was going to be driving out of the rain eventually.

My son Brent called and he suggested a side trip to Gruene, TX.  It is next to New Braunfiels, and is picturesque town that has a famous rafting river.  Both towns are subburbs of San Antonio.

I took Brent's advice as it would break up the long ride today and put me on some secondary roads for awhile'.  It also got me off the morning traffic around San Antonio where there were delays from accidents.

I arrived before anything was open but I did get to walk around the town streets looking at the shops and houses with Western style architecture.

I would have enjoyed walking around in a nice warm afternoon/evening with others and having lunch or dinner in one of the restaurants.  That wasn't to be on this trip as it was still a raw 43 deg and drizzle, and too early in the day and too many miles to wait.

I headed west to pick up I10 again and after putting a bunch of miles behind me I got through the weather front and I got my blue skies.

I looked down and it was now 77 degrees and I am on to Ft. Stockton, TX got gas and a decision if I will go for El Paso tonight or stay in Ft. Stockton.

I talked to Brent again and he suggested to put more miles on so I would have more time to do things Thursday.  I'm on schedule to be in Tucson, AZ tomorrow night.  I need to get an oil change on the Prius so I will do that Friday there.

The sun set before I arrived in El Paso.  He sunsets in the southwest are so beautiful. This one is nice but I be showing you more in the weeks ahead.

I I drove just under 700 miles today.  That's a long day.  The speed limit is 80 mph for most of the rural trip but I kept it about 70 mph for better gas mileage.  As it was I only got about 48 mpg for that speed.

Tonight I am at a Flying- J.  I got here too late to look up one of the local restaurants that Brent and I discussed.  I opted for a salad at Denny's here and then a shower before bed.  It's still in the 60's.

The forecast for Tucson is around 80 during the day and around 50 at night.  That's why I like the southwest in the winter.

Day 19 - Biloxi, MS to Sealey, TX

I woke at 5:00 eastern time as usual but I am in the Central Timezone so it was 4:00.  I read other blogs until 5 and then drove to I10 west to the nearest Flying-J truck stop for a shower.

There isn't much to see on the road and since Missippi is narrow at the gulf it didn't take too much time to get to Louisiana. Sorry for the poor quality of the photo.

To amuse myself while listening to podcasts I decided this road being very flat, and having such a good computer in the Peius I would do an experiment.  The test was how much better would my gas multiagency be if I picked up some drag from a tractor trailer truck.

Fully loaded I get about 50 mpg and as I use gas the less weight improves the mileage.  So I found a TT going a consistent speed and backed off 8 car lengths for safety and trailed them and I was able to get 5 mpg more.  You can barely see the computer screen but you can see how far off the TT I was.  Today I was able to get my overall mpg from the start of the trip up to 49 and this is with running the Prius many hours to power my devices and the cooler.  If I hadent run the engine as a generator I would have been over 50 mpg.

Today was a drive day all day.  It was 36 deg this am and cloudy.  I was traveling into rain today along the Gulf Coast.  At least it is warm enough not to be freezing.

Above is one of a couple traffic jams.  This was caused by an accident with injuries.

I stopped in this Louisiana McDonalds for iced tea, downloads and some work for my class. These men in the picture above were cajun's speaking Creole.  

I didn't have room to bring a printer with me this year to print sign and then photograph and send back to the college.  Today they wanted me to sign my contract. 

It was a PDF file and it was sent so modifications could not be made.  I brought up the file in my laptop and took a picture and used a picture edit software that allows me to script write on the image.  I signed my name and dated it and mailed it to the college and they accepted it. Yea, paperless! Let's see if I can go without having a printer this year. Downsizing causes you to think of solutions.

Oil refinery along gulf coast.

 Now in Texas I stopped for a rest break and the rest area is on the Blue Elbow Swamp.

I saw a billboard after entering Texas Catfish Kitchen and it brought to mind the large southern catfish they have down here and some people catch them by their bare hands.

This is a picture off the internet, I was recently talking to someone I met in the trip about southern catfish and about the fact that they can live longer than most fish out of water.  Catfish is very popular in this area.

Finally hit heavy rain.

Arrived in Houston - that gray box on the dash is the remote wireless thermometer for my cooler so I can keep an eye on the food temperature.

Now it was time to stop for the afternoon and grade my students work and go to the post office.

My aunt in FL had loaned me a key to her trailer the night I went to the movies.  Well guess what I found in my pocket.  Yes the keys. A stop at the post office for a priority mailing envelope to send it back to her.

With my work done it was time for dinner.  I found a local BBQ Restaurant here in Sealey, TX where I am staying at the Walmart parking lot for the night.  This is where I stayed last year and I am parked near other campers.

It's still raining and it is 46 deg.

Tomorrow more driving in TX.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Day 18 - Cartersville GA to Biloxi, MS / 3K miles

I said goodbye to my cousin Ramona & Husband Doug this am and I was on the road to Mississippi at 8:00 and 42 deg.  The heavy rain over night had ended and I will be driving into clearing skies as I head southwest.  When I entered Alibama I also entered the central Timezone.  That gave another hour to get to my destination today.

My trip to Biloxi followed the same general roads as last year with the first half of the 7 hour travel time trip on secindary roads going through rural northwest Georgia then down eastern Alibama.

There was one town that I drove through that has the county courthouse (above) in the town square.  This is Clay, the county seat. Unfortunately it still looks like it is having hard economic times as thereare many  commercial buildings empty.  It's a shame as it is picturesque.

I did stop at McDonalds on Clay as I did last year.

Denise shared the latest winter storm that closed schools and nonessential government offices.

There is a street between the large maple trees and the fir tree/mail box

This is the third big stom at home with the blizzard the middle one, and with no melting puts the snow depth about 4 feet.  I don't feel bad about the snow flurries and 37 deg in Clay when I see what is at home.

I like this ride as it is rolling hills until you get to Monthomery, AL (above) where it flattens out and I got on the interstate to head toward Mobile, AL.

I stopped at a rest area about half way between Montgomery & Mobile.  Sunny and high 40's.

Then it was on to Mobile where I pick up I10 west that I will be traveling on or near it to Arazona.  

I entered Missippi.

I stopped at a Flying-J truck stop for gas at $1.89/ gal and had a Moe's burrito for dinner.  The billboard on I10 said get off here for historic US90.  So I did head down to the ocean where US90 is along the gulf coast and it was 52 deg.

Traffic was terrible and the sun was setting in my eyes, but I didn't mind as I didn't want to get to the Hard Rock Casino too early.

I arrived and parked in the Hard Rock lot across the street with s couple other RV's. I figured this would be better than trying to sleep in the multilevel parking garage.  This is where I parked last year and where they allow RV's to park.  Some other casinos offer the same.

Here is my view from the car tonight with flashing lights and traffic it doesn't bother me

I went into the casino for a few hours & played a few slots and made back what I had initially put in.

The free WIFI followed me to my Prius.  Although slow it is adiquate for posting my blog.

On the way here I passed 3000 miles so far on this trip.  About 12000 more to go.

Tomorrow it's on to TX.  Once I get to Texas it is about 900 miles from the LA border to Where you enter NM by El Paso.

Brent

macaloney@hotmail.com

Day 17 - Tour of Cartersville / Super Bowl

1. Above is a picture of the Etowah Indian Mounds (from web - raining today)

   
   

   The following is directly quoted from the following website.  http://www.gastateparks.org/EtowahMounds

   
   

   "Home to several thousand Native Americans from 1000 A.D. to 1550 A.D., this 54-acre site protects six earthen mounds, a plaza, village site, borrow pits and defensive ditch. Etowah Mounds is the most intact Mississippian Culture site in the Southeast.  Artifacts in the museum show how natives of this political and religious center decorated themselves with shell beads, paint, complicated hairdos, feathers and copper ear ornaments. Hand-carved stone effigies weighing 125 pounds still bear some original pigments.  Objects made of wood, seashells and stone are also displayed."

   
   

   Cartersville is in Bartow County and one of the more unique attractions in this picturesque town are the Etowah Indian Mounds as described above.

   
   

   This is a high growth area and is a commuting distance from Atlanta.

   
   

   Doug, cousin Ramona's husband gave me a tour of the county and some of the history.  Many places were closed today but the tour was a good look at the area.  There is also a cannon ball factory used during the civil war and a wall where Sherman's Troops stayed on their march to Savanah.
   This evening was reserved for the Super Bowl.  Ramona & Doug hosted a couple friends to their house for the game.  It's wonderful to meet new people who know what TED Talk is and to share stories. 
   I was in a house with everyone else here cheering for Seattle and I just smiled when the Patriots won.
   
   Tomorrow I am heading south and west to the I10 area as I make my way towards AZ next weekend.
   I spent 7 continuous days sleeping in the Prius before getting a break staying at my cousin's.  My next house bed is 11 days away in CA.