Travel to New Mexico

April 16-17, 2012
We got up and started packing up the rig for travel. Pack-up went smoothly until I got out the tire gauge. The "problem" tire was at 45psi out of a max 85. We got out the green machine and started inflating. The green machine is a great piece of portable equipment, it's a spare battery, a jump starter, a flashlight and an inflator. The only problem is that it takes forever to use the inflator. Like 15 minutes to gain 5 psi. Missy started complaining that I hadn't let her bring our big air compressor. I replied that this massive underinflation should be an anomaly. Plus, we're retired, so we've got time to wait for the slow inflate. 2 other tires were slightly low, but Missy and Jeremiah were too impatient to use the green machine and decided to take care of that at a gas station.
The rest of the trip will be bullet points and might not be sequential, since I'm typing this 5 days later.

• Tennessee is fricking looooooooooong. It takes like 100 hours to get all across it
• We stopped for Missy to get a DQ, and Jeremiah was getting gas. He heard that frickin ominous "hissssssssssss". There was a massive screw in the problem tire. Goddamnit! Jeremiah changed it (correctly this time).
• Going thru one urban area (I thought it was Little Rock; Jeremiah thought it was in TX) we saw a swat team surrounding and advancing on a house (kinda a depressed neighborhood). Not even 30 seconds later down the road, we saw 2 young men dash dangerously across the freeway. One almost got hit by a semi. Missy thinks they must have been the targets of the swat team.
• TX is flat and boring. It is also incredibly windy. Jeremiah was apparently aware of this fact, as he had been battling for 3 hours to keep the truck/rig straight. Missy and I were shocked when we stopped for gas and got out and almost got blown away.
• -Jeremiah did all of the driving, and at the end asked one of us to take over. Missy and I got into a fight over who had to drive. Luckily, Jeremiah did us a solid and got in the driver's seat again.
• We left TN at 10 am on Mon morning and we got to Santa Fe at 87 pm on Tuesday. We pulled into the KOA and crashed for the night.