Postcard from New Mexico- 1

Posted on Sunday, 14 October 2012 by bruce10b

13-14 October 2012

Getting to Tucumcari, NM

Well we made it to the KOA here but not without a very high level of anxiety. Aarrrggh!

Mileage has definitely deteriorated and exhaust gas temps are very high… running at the maximum allowed temp (1,250° F) even with straight & level pulling. What’s more there is a very strong smell of diesel exhaust in the coach and in the storage compartments of our Montana every time we stopped along the way (115 miles). I had to run the kitchen exhaust fan just to step inside.

At one point I got out and looked under the truck to see what the new sensor looked like and was shocked to see that it’s simply clamped to the outside of the diesel particulate filter (the so-called DPF). You gotta be kidding me! This is Ford’s solution for replacement of a corroded EGT sensor?

There may be something additional wrong, but my guess is that the replacement sensor is reading very low since it’s not inside the DPF. I’ll further guess, and I admit this part is a little weak, this causes the Engine Control Module to use too much fuel. Too much fuel makes the EGT higher than normal. Our truck, as delivered, won’t display EGT for the driver. You have to have a separate readout that accesses the internal data bus, and that’s what the Banks does (in addition to modifying the fuel-delivery commands if you’re running in non-stock power levels). In Stock mode- that’s what we use 100%- the Banks tuner doesn’t modify the engine fuel delivery commands, but it does display the data being sent to the internal computer. So the average owner would be driving in ignorance of just how hot the exhaust gases are.

Btw, I saw a puff of white smoke on at least 2 occasions on the driver side. The exhaust, however, is on the passenger side. So I haven’t a clue where that’s about. I thought maybe we had a locked trailer brake and I was seeing a tire skid and smoke but that proved to be wrong.

The plan was to find a Ford dealer here in Tucumcari. No joy. We either have to drive 115 miles back to Amarillo, TX or drive south about 80 miles to Clovis, NM. At this point it seems to make more sense to drive to Santa Fe and get it looked at there.

Enough whining. Mea culpa!

Tucumcari KOA

This little guy is a chi-weenie… chihuahua/Dachshund mix.
He does a good job of getting diners to share their food!

This stop has been a surprise. I wouldn’t begin to call this a garden spot since this part of New Mexico is very dry. But the campground has what a traveler needs if they’re just stopping for the night. This KOA has an on-site restaurant with food that’s made here… not just something re-heated in the microwave! We had both had the Mexican plate which had a choice of 2 of the 3 entrees offered: enchiladas, tamales, or chile rellenos. I had a couple of very good cheese enchiladas (you can ask for cheese, chicken or beef) plus black beans and a very good New Mexico-style Spanish rice. I wanted green chile salsa which was mild enough that most diners wouldn’t notice anything but the flavor.

Cindy & Layne are the owners and Cindy makes everything except the tamales herself, including the tortillas. We were very pleased with our meals and don’t hesitate to recommend eating here if you happen to stop. And they’ll deliver the food to your site if you want. Pretty cool!

Oh… and we had breakfast there this morning which was every bit as good as dinner last night. We had pancakes (a stack of 3, mine were 6″ pancakes). But I was pissed at myself for not remembering they have biscuits and gravy on the menu! I doubt I’ll be able to convince the Admiral to eat out again, so that was a missed opportunity.

The campsites have a few trees, but they’re struggling
with the limited water.

Tucumcari is in the high desert and, as you should expect, it’s very dry. The rule of thumb is that anything green that isn’t grass probably has a sticker on it or is poisonous. They had about 1/2″ of rain a few days ago and almost overnight it greened up a little, but that will soon be gone. And there’s a steady 15-20 mph wind blowing during the day. The kind of wind that can wear on you. You can’t be a wimp to live around here!

Click on the image to get a larger one, then check the
ridge of the distant hills. You may be able to pick
out the wind generators.

All the pull-thru sites were full last night, but they tell me that by tonight we can have a pick of any site in the park. The spike in visitors is because of people who have been to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta and are now heading home. Sure enough, by 4:00 AM I was hearing engines start as people began heading out. When I went over to arrange to have a propane tank re-filled there weren’t more than a couple other campers left in the park.

We should be on our way tomorrow to Santa Fe (west on I-40 to Cline’s Corner then north on US-84/US-285 to El Dorado, then west about 20 miles to the NM-599 turnoff). We’ll be staying at Santa Fe Skies RV Park again while we see all the usual doctors.

And oh, btw…

We’ve been trading notes with RV’ing friends Mike & Susan about the current truck problems and possible repairs. Susan reminded us “If it has testicles or tires, you know it’s going to be expensive!”

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Postcard from Texas- 1

Posted on Thursday, 11 October 2012 by bruce10b

11-12 October 2012

Amarillo, TX

The truck got us here without a problem, though it seems like we are getting poorer mileage and exhaust gas temps are higher when running. Still it had plenty of power and ran smoothly, so it’s probably just the elevation change… we’re at about 3,300′ here in Amarillo.

This KOA is on the Northeast outskirts of town, so a simple job like getting groceries took a 12 mile drive each way. But it was an Albertson’s so we were able to buy familiar brands again (Yea! Oroweat again!).

Great burgers!

The Admiral is doing her best to ignore
the locals peeking over her shoulder!
It’s a mural painted from an old photo
of patrons of this 1946 establishment.

It’s been 6 months, but yes, the Golden Light Cafe on 6th Ave. still has the best burgers and fries we’ve found anywhere, bar none! We went for lunch and it was crowded but not impossible. Friday nights, as I recall, are a little chaotic. We’ve been thinking about this hamburger for a few thousand miles. Does that qualify as obsessive? or just anxious anticipation?

So now we’re fueled up ($4.26/gal… Aaarrrggh!), stocked up, moneyed up ($3.50 for an ATM charge?!), and the address is in the GPS for Tucumcari, NM. Should be there tomorrow if we don’t get blown off the road. They really didn’t need to order up all this wind to welcome us back. Yikes!

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Postcard from Oklahoma- 3

Posted on Thursday, 11 October 2012 by bruce10b

11 October 2012

Canute, OK

Or maybe it’s Foss, OK… ?? Google & Garmin disagree about where we are. Happens a lot in the boonies.

Good news: the truck is fixed. First I got a number for Jerry Tosh (580-821-2520) who is a mobile repairmen for trucks, oil field equipment, RVs… whatever. If it has an engine, he’ll work on it. He took a quick look, then jumpered across the starter solenoid with the ignition on and the engine sprang to life. He told me “Don’t shut it off!” and said I should go to a Ford dealer. I called a Ford dealer in neighboring Elk City, but they were too busy to look at my problem.

Doug Gray Ford came to our rescue!

The good news, though, is they gave me the number of Doug Gray Ford in Sayre, OK (580-928-3369). Doug Gray Ford is about 25 miles from the KOA and Dennis, their service adviser, agreed to have the guys take a brief look at our problem.

It took their diesel tech all of about 5-minutes to figure out that one of the 3 exhaust gas temperature (EGT) sensors (yes, 3!) had failed and that they had the sensor in stock. I felt confident about what he said about our truck since all but 1 of the vehicles in the 8 service bays was a truck of one flavor or another. A good clue he probably spoke with authority.

You should have heard the lift groan as all 6,800# of our
truck moved up in the world.

The tech got started right away. They pulled one truck out and ran our truck in… literally stopped working on it to take care of us! It souinded so simple I thought I might be out of there in 10 minutes. But then things seemed to grind to a halt. Turns out the sensor was so corroded they had to cut it off the diesel particulate filter (DPF). Ford has an approved work around for this problem. To me it seems like a temporary solution since it involves a hose clamp, but it’s supposed to work till we can have a new boss welded into the DPF and have the sensor mounted as it was originally. Hopefully we can wait till Benson, AZ to get the work finished.

So tomorrow we should be on the road to Amarillo, TX for a couple nights, then on to Tucumcari, NM and finally Santa Fe, NM. We’re getting close to putting Paid! to this season.

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Postcard from Oklahoma- 2

Posted on Wednesday, 10 October 2012 by bruce10b

9-?? October 2012

Canute, OK

This was supposed to be a 2-night stop on the way to Amarillo, TX. Sort of a wide spot in the road that is I-40, but for a KOA it’s unusual. They have a small restaurant for breakfast and dinner and they have fuel. Never heard of re-fueling before in a KOA. And this KOA has the trademark A-frame office, so this full service park was built by the corporation. I can only guess that at some time there was very little fuel available in this stretch of road.

The park has a lot of trees which will come in handy tomorrow when the temps get to about 80° F. We thought we were through with all that, but… !!!

The truck

This is the note I was afraid I would eventually have to write and sure enough, it happened. Our Ford F-350 truck just died. I fueled up, drove back to the park, and as I finished backing in to the site I noticed the Engine Check light was on. I figured it was probably because we’re about due for service so I didn’t give it a lot of thought. We came back out an hour later to take a ride and I found I couldn’t start the truck. The dash lights come on, but nothing happens when I turned the key. Not a sound, not a blink. Nada.

The KOA office gave me the number of a mobile repair service and I called. Jerry Tosh will be here in the morning to have a look. I won’t rule out something easy, but my gut tells me we’re going to become very familiar with the Clinton/Elk City area of Oklahoma before we get on the road again. There go our appointments!

Stay tuned…

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Postcard from Oklahoma- 1

Posted on Monday, 8 October 2012 by bruce10b

6-8 October 2012

Claremore, OK

This KOA says it’s in NE Tulsa, but it’s actually in Claremore… about 30 miles NE of Tulsa.

The track was a stone’s throw from our site.

And it’s a bit of a surprise. The description on the KOA site talked about horse racing and a casino which I took to be somewhere nearby. Not so: This KOA is on the grounds of Cherokee Casino which is co-located with Will Rogers Downs race track. After checking in at the KOA desk in the casino we got parked… about 50′ from the race track. Amazing stuff. I tried to get a couple shots of the horses launching from the starting gate (they were racing quarter horses when we were there), but it was so cold I gave up! Still, it was a great site and something we’d not have seen had I understood the park.

Setting up the starting gate for the next race.

And not a grown tree in sight anywhere. It looks like KOA planted a few sticks when they took over the park, but they’re hardly noticeable. Maybe in 10 years!

The Admiral was delighted about the casino. She loves to play the nickel slot machines and  wasted no time getting over there on Sunday afternoon. Lost her bank roll in a couple hours and came home broke and smelling like an ash tray. So much for paying for the trip with her winnings. It’s been 4 years since the last time she satisfied her urge to gamble, so we should be good for at least another 4 years… she really hates to lose. Almost as much as she’ll hate reading about it in these pages!

Will Rogers slept here

But none of this is why a traveler should stop in Claremore, OK. What you should come here for is the Will Rogers Memorial Museum which is also the burial site for the the Rogers family (except Will Jr. who is buried with his wife in Arizona). This was sort of home base for him and his family. They had a ranch about 13 miles away in Oologah, OK. The ranch tour is free but the Memorial Museum costs $5 or $4 for seniors. We settled on the museum and lunch out.

I don’t think of myself as having heroes. People I admire, yes; people that are heroes, no. I suppose I did as a kid till I got over the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers. If I had to pick a hero today, I suspect Will Rogers would be on my short list (guess I still look to cowboys for inspiration). After listening to recordings Rogers made during the depression trying to gain support for Hoover’s plan for feeding & employing the down-and-out, and then later supporting FDR’s plans to put America to work, I realized that not much has changed since then and that Rogers had some good thoughts on what needed fixing.  I heard many of these recordings when I was young, so much of it was familiar.

If you’ve never seen his private production film Ropin’ Fool as well as the Ropin’ Fool Outtakes, you owe it to yourself to find and watch it. He was truly amazing. It ought to be available thru NetFlix… ??? It was one of the very first uses of slow motion photography in a production film.

A genuine Remington just sitting in the rotunda. Yikes!
A bronze by Charley Russell picturing
Rogers in a typical setting… typing
his daily column.

A model of the Lockheed Orion in which Will Rogers
and pilot Wiley Post crashed. I was surprised to read
there was a witness. They had landed, asked directions,
stretched their legs, took off. About 100′ off the ground
the plane pitched forward and ‘somersaulted’ to the ground
landing on the canopy. Seems a very odd behavior. Now I’ll
have to research what the suspected cause was.

An 8′ or 9′ bronze of Will Rogers
dominates the rotunda. I’m guessing
this too is a Charley Russell.

He did fund raisers all over the world to
help people in need, this one while he
was still with the Ziegfeld Follies.

A patio just outside the theater where his movies play
continuously. He made 50 silent films plus another
21 ‘talkies’. Rogers was a slacker compared to Tom Mix
who turned out over 300!

I guess you know you’ve had an impact when the Navy
names a Poseiden submarine after you!

The veranda where the sarcophagus is located with yet
another bronze of Will Rogers. This overlooks the area
where Claremore is located and is across the street from
Will Rogers State University.
A portrait done by Charley Russell. Rogers & Russell were
both Oklahoma cowboys and close friend.

 

Oh, and Will Rogers’ full name is William Penn Adair Rogers. I also have a Penn heritage (my paternal grandmother was a Penn) and they lived awhile in Missouri & Oklahoma before moving on to Arizona and later to California. I need to poke at that a bit to see if there’s a common ancestor. Now wouldn’t that be cool!!

Recent reading

Btw, if you share my disappointment in what was- and still is- taught to US high school students in American history, check out Lies My Teacher Told Me by  Loewen. He teaches college level history and has been an outspoken critic of the content of American history textbooks as they attempt to establish certain people as “heroes”, whitewashing the distasteful parts of their ‘history’ or ignoring inconvenient accomplishments. And it’s a fun read… like history should be.

On the road again

Off to western OK next, then Amarillo, TX; Tucumcari, NM; and Santa Fe, NM.

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