Day 5

This was not one of the better travel days. It started out with a sprinkling of rain as we were hooking up to leave. We dealt with rain all day long. Sometimes a light rain and other times a downpour. When it was raining heavily the rain collected in the ruts in the road. Where this happened you could see the road oils collected on top of the puddles. Not ideal conditions to pull a trailer in.

Besides rain there was a head wind. The wind blew constantly for the whole trip. At times it was very strong. It and the elevation changes (see later) caused us to get the worse mileage I've ever recorded pulling the trailer, 6.8 mpg. Couple that with some high fuel costs and this was an expensive day. Part of the reason for the fuel costs was the isolation of the road. The rest was the "excise tax" that the Navaho tribe puts on fuel sales. Apparently it isn't enough that they get the casino concession. They also get a lot of government money. We were passing large tracks of government built housing and schools for the tribe all day.

The roadway itself was another challenge. We passed through 3 states (UT, CO, and NM) today. All three were rebuilding the road. This made for lots of speed limit zones, rough roadway, and delays caused by flaggers. I'd say that at least 75 miles of the 260 we covered were under construction. That's not to say that the construction wasn't needed. The road is old and has been beat to hell by the trucks. Some portions are so deteriorated that I had to slow well below the 60 mph that I usually travel.

Lastly there were the trucks. The elevation of the road varied from 5500 ft to 7000 ft. We must have gone up and down between those two points at least 8 times during the day. The trucks were all exceeding the speed limit down hill and doing 20 or more mph under the speed limit up hill. This meant that we would pass them going up and they would pass us going down. It was just a pain in the ass.

OK, enough bitching. We aren't going to see much of Gallup. In order to make an early start tomorrow we left the truck connected to the trailer. This means that all we see of Gallup is a short section of route 66 that parallels I40. It looks like any other comparable street in the US. It's lined with chain motels and fast food joints. No character at all. Things might be different in the center of town, but we won't be going there.

Tomorrow we head to Roswell. If I see any of those big eyed, pointed chinned, green guys I'm going to shoot one and mount him on the wall.