Trip25

Wednesday.

Up and gone before dawn. Louisiana, Texas, then Oklahoma. OK. Let’s make that Louisiana and Texas. We got to counting days and where we would end up each night. Our schedule had us going right through Dallas at five o’clock rush hour on a weekday. Then we had a five o’clock arrival from the east side of Denver on a Friday afternoon, when we live on the west side. Seems like we make that happen every trip. No matter how far away we start from, we end up going through Denver at rush hour to finish the trip home. From two and a half thousand miles away, we can drive home for a full week, and hit Denver five o’clock. Amazing isn’t it? Well, not this time. No way. We’re too smart for that to happen again. We saw it coming from three days away. We stopped early, before Dallas. We still have enough distance remaining to make another early morning start and not get to Dallas until after rush hour. We won’t get home on Friday evening, either. We put ourselves a half-day back to make the passage through Dallas and Denver better. That only leaves Oklahoma City, and after all, …… how bad could that be?

We left Baton Rouge right at rush hour. But hey, it’s only Baton Rouge. We turned left to the freeway onramp, and were met with two lanes of traffic, completely stopped. Just before these two lanes joined the interstate, they merged. So here we were, creeping our way forward, wondering how many people were going to have to get hurt before we got our fifty-foot rig, towcar included, merged into the other lane of traffic. Well, we sure do like the way people drive in Baton Rouge. A car in the next lane, actually a little ahead of us, recognized the situation and backed all the way off until there was an effortless merge for us. Right after blinking a “thank you”, it was time to line up the next merge into the right lane of traffic. I looked in my mirror and saw a white van had dropped way back in anticipation of the event, and again, it was effortless. After that, every lane change to stay on the freeway, or to get off the freeway, as appropriate, was only met with complete cooperation. My only concern is that I might have imposed significant wear on the headlight switch, blinking it on and off for “thank you”, like trucks do.

I’m remembering something about the brake buddy that I think is funny. I found the world’s greatest understatement. To set up the brake buddy, you position it in front of the driver’s seat, and attach the arm to the brake pedal of the car. You plug the box into the cigarette lighter for power, and it fills a compressor. Now it is ready to use. A mercury switch inside tells it when you’re decelerating and it’s time to help. When it is time to help, the arm attached to the brake pedal is thrust forward by compressed air. The compressed air tank is refilled by a small compressor. Normally, with the engine running, there is a vacuum assist, and you don’t have to press very hard on the brake pedal. But this system is designed to operate on a car that is not running, and it mashes the brake pedal pretty hard. Probably a lot harder than you can press on the pedal with your foot. If you pressed on the brake pedal like that while the engine was running, and there was vacuum assist, you would just lock up the brakes completely.

Here is the problem. There is a vacuum reservoir. Even after you shut the car off, there will still be a vacuum assist. Here is the solution. Every time you hook up the brake buddy, you have to remember to press the “test” button several times after you shut off the engine. By doing that, you will bleed the vacuum reservoir, and the brakes can just operate manually after that. There is a warning in the operator’s manual. It says: “remember to push the test button several times after the unit is in place, or excessive tire wear may result.” Excessive tire wear? I had to think about that a little. What do the brakes have to do with tire wear? Then I realized, that if you didn’t bleed the reservoir, you could drive off down the road, not realizing that the first time the brake buddy kicked in, it would get full vacuum assist, and you could end up with a tow car behind you, at about sixty miles an hour, four wheels locked up, howling like a dog. There’s the understatement. Excessive tire wear may result.

The route is easy. Drive west on interstate 10. Turn north on interstate 46. Drive through Natchitoches, not to be confused with Nacogdoches. That’s in Texas.

Earlier, we described how expensive it was in the Keys. Even the State Parks cost twenty five dollars a night. Not all State Parks in Florida are expensive, though. Up in the Panhandle, the island state park was only fourteen dollars a night. Seems like it is just the ones in the Keys that are expensive.

Now we’re back in Texas. Know how each state has it’s own theme for rest stops? They put out picnic tables and shelters. In New Mexico, the shelters have to also serve as wind screens. In East Texas, each shelter is shaped like an oil derrick.

We’re back to the pine forests. They have a pine tree here that has really long needles. In Colorado, the pine tree with the longest needles is the Ponderosa Pine. They’re not nearly as long as the needles on this tree in Texas. I like the name. It’s called the Long Leaf Pine.

How expressive can a dog’s face be? Judy and I were sharing some Oreo cookies while we drove. Annie was watching. Pretending she wasn’t watching. Judy asked if she wanted a cookie and she shifted her gaze directly to the Oreos. Seeing that Judy was going to cave in and give the dog a bite of a cookie, I acted swiftly. I grabbed a cookie and gave Annie the whole thing before Judy could do anything. That’s when the expression struck. Not the expression of disbelief on Judy’s face that I had made a preemptive cookie strike. The expression on Annie’s face when she suddenly found an entire Oreo cookie in her mouth. Has anyone seen the movie “Star Man”? There is a scene in which Beau Bridges, as a space alien, has his first bite of apple pie. His mouth falls partly open, the pie still in it. His whole face goes slack with an expression of disbelief. He almost drools. It tastes so good. That was it. That was the expression. She didn’t bite down. She just sat there, cookie in her mouth, expression of disbelief on her face, almost drooling. Then she looked around for a place to go savor it, and we didn’t see her again for an hour. She just jumped down from the dash, Oreo intact, and went off to enjoy it quietly.

We stopped for the night at Tyler State Park, just off interstate 20. We have a wonderful winter woodland campground all to ourselves. Lakeside site. It’s cold and cloudy. No reason for anyone to be here. That leaves the entire park just for us.

Rags got a nice long walk tonight.

Four hundred miles. Driving.

Tomorrow. Oklahoma City.