Baby, it's hot outside!

August 4, 2008
Salina, Kansas

Today was a generally uneventful driving day, and we're at our scheduled overnight stop (another Flying J truck stop). We got an early start and essentially had no traffic all day. It was a short hop down I-55 and the combination of I-270 and MO-370 took us around St Louis and onto I-70 with no problems. Early in the day, we usually check the state of the world according to XM Radio by listening to CNN Headline News and The Weather Channel for a while. What do you know: there's a heat wave! You'd have thunk we were in Phoenix, except it might actually have been a couple of degrees hotter here. We ran the generator and the roof air conditioning most of the day (the dash A/C works up to about 85°F, then it just can't cool off the whole inside of the coach), and every rest stop was like walking into a blast furnace upon opening the door.

The outside sensors on the coach indicated temperatures between 103°F and 106°F, but they're notoriously unreliable because they pick up heat sources from the motorhome itself. It was so hot that we threw an alarm on the tire monitors for high temperature (I have it set to alert me at 160°F), but everything seemed OK. We stopped for the night around 5:30 CDT, a little early but we're where we're supposed to be and there's no advantage to pushing on.

It looks like we'll have a bit of shopping to do when we get to Colorado tomorrow. I put up the satellite dish and it looks like the wireless router is failing - again. We seem to have to replace them at least once a year. I guess they can't handle the vibration, even though they're generally powered off when we're traveling. It shouldn't matter, since there aren't any moving parts. Anyway, we'll have to find a Best Buy in addition to the Home Depot (plumbing parts). And I can't justify carrying a spare since it would vibrate along with the primary as we drive down the road. Darn it!

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Addendum

Did you ever think about doing something different and say "Nah, don't bother", only to have your instinct proven out? Well, when we stopped for the evening, I had a passing thought that I should wait to fuel up in the morning. This would allow me to top off the tank a bit more, accounting for the fuel used by the generator (we'll be running it for the A/C all night). I just went to lower the blinds for the night and - don't you know - the price of diesel dropped 2 cents in the time we've been parked here? Darn it - again!