Traveling after 500 miles

Posted on December 29, 2007

Cleared 3 inches of snow and an eighth inch of ice from the cars and trucks and left Wichita just before noon today. The roads in Wichita were sloppy (they barely understand the concept of snow removal and seem to rely upon the solar method). Once on the Interstate it was cleared but wet, with a stiff, slightly above zero wind which immediately froze the spray onto the windsheilds of the trucks, even though they had warmed up for over half an hour.

The first twenty miles revealed that the previous owner of the ‘07 suv they just bought felt that straight water was OK for the windshield washer. The older suv also turned out to be out of fluid (even after the local Jiffy Lube had done an oil change with the instructions to check and top off all the fluids - they seemed much more interested in convincing us that unless the trans fluid and the grease in both differentials was changed that disaster was imminent).

About 30 miles out of Wichita, after three stops to deal with the washer fluids we decided to stop at a WalMart /Subway for the bottomless pits (the boys). We also filled the washer fluid on both trucks.

Was then uneventful until we were on I70 west of Salina and decided to fill the trucks. I was enjoying listening to the Audio Book (Double Cross by James Patterson). Neither of the boys wanted to ride with me - which was probably for the best since it was prone to more motion than they probably are used to. So no one got car sick. The dogs also made it through the trip without incident.

Stopped in Colby, Ks for fuel - a little ahead of schedule because they had a Starbucks in the Petro2 Truck Stop.

Took C 86 from just north of Limon to Kiowa and Franktown, saved about 35 miles and who knows how much in tolls by ignoring the GPS suggested rout of I-70 to E-470 toll road.

Considering all the snow that has fallen between Denver and Wichita in the last few days the roads were all pretty good. The first few miles of C 86 showed evidence of previously drifted snow and some areas that were close to black ice but no slipping was evidenced but we did hold significantly below the posted 65 limit in that area (the old motor home towing small suv with no lights obviously felt need for extra caution as he went past me at about the 65 limit over a double yellow and barely cleared my truck before crossing back in front of me).

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