Friday and Saturday consisted of a long two-day trip from Rolla, Missouri to Scottsdale, Arizona by myself in a 1984 Ford Econoline van. 1400 miles in all. The first 400 miles down through southeastern Missouri and Oklahoma were non-stop fun in tornado conditions. Of course the van is just this big box with wheels so a brutal crosswind like the one that dogged me through western OK made my already terrible gas mileage even worse.
The second day of travel, through the rest of Texas, across the ratlands of New Mexico, and into Arizona, was really hot. In fact in the middle of nowhere western NM I started having problems with the van bucking and losing power on gear transitions. At this point there were still 300 miles to go. I stopped it and poked around under the hood, changed the oil etc., but the problem persisted so I just took things real easy and didn't try to push 70. I took to patting the dashboard and talking to the van as if she was the worn-out but trusty horse and I the crapuccino cowboy on some long cattle drive across half the continent. Or at least it felt that way--maybe my steady diet of crapuccino and crackers had something to do with this. Anyway just to make things interesting there were terrible hill climbs around Flagstaff. Somehow though we made it all the way to Phoenix where I konked out immediately in the room.
Posted by Alan at May 20, 2003 09:42 PM