The Big Road Trip – Day 2

So, here I am, waking up in Centerville, IN – Hoosier country – at a small, 50s/60s style motel carrying the Super 8 brand. I covered 400 miles yesterday over about 7 hours. I took care of a little business while driving along. My Cadillac RV worked out just great. I had my water and travel vittles handy in the cooler on the floor in front of the passenger’s seat. My GPS led the way, but I had my handy road atlas near at hand.

It was a hot day. The temperatures were around 90 most of the afternoon. It was a clear, sunny day full of bright blue sky. The traffic was light to moderate and I missed the rush hours through major cities. My big treat for the day was seeing the White Castle sign as I was passing through Columbus, OH. I grew up with the little White Castle hamburgers being a family treat in my hometown of Clifton, NJ. So, while I’m watching what I eat and especially while I’m traveling, I couldn’t resist. I pulled off the interstate, found the little White Castle, placed my order for a “sack” of the little morsels (10 to a sack) and have, thus, enjoyed my culinary side track over three meals. I’m now satiated on White Castle for a long time to come.

The car has been handling magnificently. I used the Climate Control over a good part of the trip, but while the AC part of the system was blowing wonderful cold air and keeping the interior of the car at a constant 73 degrees while it was 90 outside, there is a problem with some part of the fan/blower system that I have not been able to figure out. It’s like something is dragging and making a lot of noise somewhere in the system. The part of the blower system distributing the cool air in the car was working ever so efficiently, but this other issue was creating a lot of very irritating noise. Toward the end of the day I began to smell what seemed like electrical components burning, so I turned the system off, opened the sunroof in the vent position and cracked a rear window and created a perfect airflow that was just about as comfortable as the AC. I’ll try the system again this morning.

I have been shooting some video from a dash-mounted camcorder as I go along, to document the trip. I’m also capturing a few stills as I go along. I’ll be posting some of them as I travel. I’ll also take some pictures of the car as I have it configured for this trip and post those, too. I’d sure rather be cruising in a motor home, but so far, I’m having a blast.

By the way I filled the car with gas in Winchester, VA before I left for Keyser, WV on the evening of May 25^th. It cost me $2.59.9 per gallon. It was $2.75.9 to $2.79.9 per gallon in Keyser. So, I had plenty of fuel and decided to look for less expensive gas along the way. Good move! When I got to OH, I found gas for $2.54.9 per gallon just after I entered the state. Boy, what I happy. But, when I made my White Castle stop, I found gas for $2.38.9 per gallon. Oh well, that’s life. Now that I’m in Indiana, the price is higher, again. I believe I have more then enough to traverse Indiana and get into IL and maybe it will be less there.

Today’s travels take me to Iowa. This will be my first time in Iowa – so, I start seeing “virgin” territory, to my eyes, anyway. I may have an opportunity to meet, eyeball to eyeball, with a fellow audio producer/recording engineer who I’ve known by e-mail and phone for about 13 or 14 years. He lives here in Indiana and before I pack up to hit the road in a few minutes. I’ll call Randy and see if we can meet along the way. This is another plus of being “free” and being able to take these opportunities. I’ll also give my son a call while he’s still trekking around Europe. I suspect he may be in Spain right now.

Well, that’s all for this posting. Time to pack up and hit the open road again. I’m hoping to get about 10 hours on the road today and about 500 miles behind me – even allowing for a short visit with Randy if that works out.

More in the next posting.

Enthusiastically,

Ed