Home Stretch

   We left Effingham, Illinois at our usual 9:00 time and headed east again on I-70. We soon crossed into southern Indiana, the Eastern Time Zone and passed Indianapolis on the way into Ohio. The road took us through Dayton and Columbus then over the Ohio River for a quick visit into West Virginia at Wheeling before crossing into Pennsylvania.

   We passed a van at 75 mph with a dog hanging out of the driver's window. He was having a great time but I hope he never falls out. Mary said she could almost pet him as we went by.

   By dinner time we were at Pittsburg, and we entered the toll booth at the Penna Turnpike. Since we felt ok and the road was good we decided to keep going; a late night home arrival would be better than another night in a hotel. Helen had kept watch over our place and Becky & Gayle were there waiting for us, and the house was just as we left it. We got in around 11:00  and we were very glad to finally be home.

   It was a great trip and we both had such a good time; I was surprised we weren't a lot more car weary at the end. The car handled itself perfectly too. Thanks to everyone who followed along for some of our trip, it was nice for me to feel a little closer to friends and family at home by keeping up the travel blog.

   Some trip stats:

   25 Days
   20 States & 1 Canadian Province
   9,345 miles
   309 gallons of fuel
   30.2 mpg overall
   $3.79 / gal  avg gasoline price
   8,500 ft, highest elevation
   1 car mud bath
   2 car washes

Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois

   It was a good driving day today and we logged a bit over 600 miles. We took I-44 east out of Oklahoma City and stayed on it all the way to St. Louis. There were tolls on the road in Oklahoma, $4.00 on each side of Tulsa; now we know why the rest stops are so good.

   We crossed into Missouri very close to the Arkansas line and I saw a tanker truck with a big coffee sign. It made me wonder if he was providing refreshments for a large and boring work meeting somewhere. Sorry I'll be missing those in the future.

   We passed through St Louis and the arch was very impressive. I was also hoping to get a good look at the Mississippi River as we crossed, but with the construction and traffic we didn't even get a peek. From St. Louis we'll be on I-70 east all the way to the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

   We ended the day with a steak dinner in Effingham, more than half way across the state in Southern Illinois.  Only 785 miles left for home ..... I wonder how far we'll get on Friday.

Drive Friendly -The Texas Way

   Not many good pics today; we left Albuquerque with the idea of getting as far down the interstate as we could. The weather wasn't the most cooperative, it was rainy and windy for most of the way across New Mexico. The rain stopped for a while when we passed Tucumcari and left the mountains. I was able to use the cruise control comfortably and soon afterward we crossed over into northern Texas.

   When we passed through Amarillo the rain & wind came back and continued on and off for the rest of the day. We crossed into Oklahoma and took a break at a highway rest stop, and we were surprised to find the nicest rest stop we've ever seen. The welcome sign was made of stone, the restrooms had new marble countertops and there was free fresh coffee.

   We only logged 507 miles for the day but we decided to call it quits around 5:30 in Oklahoma City.  Tomorrow's forecast is dry and we'll start out on I-44 toward St Louis, we have 1,387 miles left to make it home on the weekend, and the schedule is looking good.

New Mexico

   Today's agenda included a visit to the huge radio telescope site south of Albuquerque called the VLA; short for Very Large Array. To get there we drove backroads south from Gallup. As we got further from town the roads weren't paved and eventually became pretty muddy with an overnight rain. When we got near the community of Pietown, the mud got too deep for our car. We backed out and found our way to the paved roads before the rains came again. We re-learned our lesson to stay on the main roads, and things got a lot easier.

   The VLA consists of 27 huge dish antennae that are all linked together electronically and act like one giant antenna, 23 miles across. The individual dishes are huge in themselves, each bigger than a baseball diamond and they're moveable depending on what the astronomers are looking at. The facility is located off Rt 60, 50 miles west of Socorro at an altitude of 7,000 ft.

   In the afternoon we took I-25 back to Albuquerque and turned east again on I-40. It was a wet afternoon, more rainfall in one day than the area has seen in months; it definitely helped out with all the mud we picked up on the car. We stopped for the night in the town of Moriarty, NM and will continue on toward home in the morning. Only 1,894 miles to go.



  

Arizona

   We departed San Diego around 9 am with 2,694 miles ahead of us. We took I-8 east traveling near the Mexican border and at one point could even see the border fence from the road. We crossed into Yuma, Arizona in the early afternoon and soon we were heading north around Phoenix on I-17 toward Flagstaff. We crossed mountains in California and there was a sign marking sea level in southern Arizona, but by the time we got to Flagstaff we were back up to 6,000 ft. From there we picked up I-40 east with the sun fading behind us.

   The temperature was 70 deg when we left San Diego, it climbed to 98 near Phoenix and was back down to 60 crossing the mountains around Flagstaff. On top of the hills we could see far away lightening and we ran through some flash thunderstorms that were also quick to dry afterward. Mary got a couple of pictures through the windshield of Arizona cactus and the rocky hills we were climbing over.

   Just east of Flagstaff is the famous impact crater site and we turned off the interstate driving 6 miles on a small road up to the crater rim. There's a visitor's center charging admission, but it had closed at 5 pm and we missed it by 30 minutes. There was a locked gate blocking access to the top of the rim so we couldn't see into the crater unless we came back in the morning. After some thought we decided to press on because we have ground to cover; we'll save the visit for another trip.  

   We had dinner in Winslow, Arizona on Rt 66 and decided to drive a little further after dark. We saw a sign for Chester Fried Chicken fast food, but the smiling chicken face couldn’t convince us to stop, with what we knew about Chester.

   We got to Gallup, New Mexico and pulled up for the night, noticing that the clock had changed to Mountain time. We'd have those to go through most nights now on the way home.

San Diego, the far turn

   Saturday was the 400+ mile ride from Monterey to San Diego. We started out on Rt 101 south and eventually cut over to the faster I-5. We passed vegtable and fruit farms, grape vinyards and groves of almond trees before the mid state terrain turned hilly, brown and barren. Palms and citrus trees were the scenery for the last couple of hours of our ride.

   We passed through some famously slow traffic in the Los Angeles area and made our way into San Diego around dinner time. From our hotel, Mary & I walked over to a street festival in old city and ate at an outdoor Mexican restaurant with a really good live band featuring panpipes.

   Next morning we met our good friends Joe & Beth Mintzer who were in town for a work conference. It was great that our schedules worked out because we had a really fun day with them; we  drive the La Jolla coast to the Point Loma Lighthouse with its overlooking views of the city harbor. We then stopped for a drink at Shelter Island with a big picture window right on the water.

   On Monday morning we finally turn east after driving the entire US west coast. We'll be taking the interstates for as much as possible on the way back, but will stay flexible for an interesting detour. We hope to be back home next weekend.