Livin' the Sunbird Life: Tailwinds

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Tailwinds

April 26, 2011
Amarillo, TX

I haven't figured out our fuel mileage heading east yet, but I'm guessing it'll be way above our historical average. We've had strong tailwinds ever since we left the coast. Our route took us back down US-101 and CA-126 to I-5. After a short segment south, we picked up CA-14 heading to Lancaster/Palmdale, and took the Pear Blossom Highway cut-off to CA-118 and CA-18 over to Victorville. From there we took I-15 north to I-40 in Barstow. We'll follow I-40 all the way east to Memphis.

The winds have been almost non-stop, night and day. I'd planned to stop overnight at the last Rest Area in California, just before Needles, but it was closed. Apparently, I need to get near-real-time updates on Rest Areas as we travel these days. Anyway, we motored on another 50 miles to the next Rest Area, on the Arizona side. No worries.

Monday, we continued our journey east on I-40, through Kingman and climbing to Flagstaff (at over 7,000 feet), then descending across the high desert. We made a fuel stop in Winslow and continued on to Albuquerque. It was interesting to finally catch up with the rest of the country by switching from Mountain Standard Time to Mountain Daylight Time as we crossed into New Mexico. We stopped for the night at the Route 66 Casino just west of the city. There were plenty of other RVs already there so we just took our spot in the designated part of the lot.

Today, we were back on I-40, for a shorter driving day. We were off the road around 2:00 PM, even accounting for the loss of another hour as we entered Texas and the Central Time Zone. We're staying at the Oasis RV Park just west of Amarillo, and I planned for a two-night stay so we can do some things in the area tomorrow (Cadillac Ranch, Palo Duro Canyon, The Big Texan to see if someone eats the 72 ounce steak). After showering off the "road grime" from the last couple of days, Geri's well on her way to knocking out the accumulated laundry. The winds are so strong, we pulled in the slides on the windward side for now. The park had a small cafe so we'll dine there tonight (Brisket and Ribs, I suspect).