Um, no

Wet and dry

Once again I lucked out with a free shower at the Flying J in Ehrenberg AZ. If the tall guy with glasses and light brown hair and beard waits on you, maybe he'll give you a free shower, too. Otherwise, it's $12 without the pro driver rewards card.

After getting myself clean, it was time to do the same for my clothes and bedding. I was the only one at Country Wash Coin Laundry on the east end of Hobson Way (the main street) in Blythe CA. The machines aren't the newest, and some are out of order, but the place is clean and there's plenty of counter space for folding.

One of the joys of doing laundry in an arid climate is clothes (especially jeans and towels) dry quickly. That means fewer coins in the dryers or time hanging on a line. It means getting to La Paloma Cafe sooner for one of their burritos.

A bit if bliss

Pleasant temperature, clear sky, almost no wind, and total silence (except for the ever-present whining in my head). The ocotillos are also starting to bud. My need to wander is dormant. At the moment.

Desert wildlife

Fortunately, the Rolling Steel Tent is inedible

My money is on the scorpion

I ain't afraid of no dragon

Layering and unlayering

As the graphic says, a dip in the Jet Stream is causing lower temperatures here in the West. That means the shorts get packed away, except for the hardier or crazier of us. And it means chillier nights.

The past couple of nights, as I was settling in and binge watching Berlin Babylon on Netflix, it felt like it would get uncomfortably cold in the Rolling Steel Tent. So I got out my down sleeping bag to augment my bedding. Mmmm, toasty.

Too toasty. But both nights I woke in the middle of the night overheated, almost sweating. I fiddled with the combination of quilt and sleeping bag, trying to find that Goldilocks-and-the-Three-Bears just right combination. And both nights I ended up with the sleeping bag shoved to the floor. The quilt is just fine at retaining body heat. I only need to give it enough time. Feather power!

Storm's a'comin'

Near Borrego Springs, California

It should be a day filled with answers

Bob Dylan said the answers are blowing in the wind. Despite today's van-rocking, dirt-drifting, just-stay-inside winds in the 30 miles per hour range, I feel as clueless as ever.

This is what happens when you don't keep yourself hydrated

Sunset looking east

Road test

As I’ve mentioned before, I suspected my old ties were out of round. It might have been the steering, but that would’ve been a side-to-side shimmy (which disappeared after everything was adjusted). This was more like the up and down vibration you get from an unbalanced tire. But the machine said it was balanced. It became more obvious at about 70 miles per hour, the vibration acting like a speed limiter.

After getting the new tires, I took I-8 from Yuma to the California desert. No vibration, just pavement irregularities. I headed back to Yuma today and the ride was so smooth I discovered I’d zoomed to 80 miles per hour coming down the on ramp. Oops. I caught myself before the Highway Patrol could.

Guard duty

Tomorrow my friend Swankie has an early medical appointment in Yuma, a city she's not very familiar with. She left this evening so she wouldn't be late.

I moved over from where I was camped in order to watch after her trailer and bicycle. This act of neighborliness also reunites me with the rock spiral around the ocotillo. Swankie had unknowingly swiped the spot from me.

May this happen to no one

They were all out of these in 245/75R16

Man of letters

A Valentines Day present to myself

As you can see in the picture above, misalignment of the steering had caused one side of my tires to wear much more than the other. There was too much toe out—the front of the wheels pointing away from each other. In a rear-drive vehicle, there should be just a hair of toe in, because the wheels want to push away from each other when you drive. I had the alignment corrected last week.

Besides the uneven wear, the tread was getting rather thin. And the tires weren’t truly round, which caused vibrations similar to a slightly unbalanced tire.

After researching the hell out of it, I decided to get Cooper Adventurer H/T tires. They seemed to be the best compromise of several factors. Pep Boys was having a special on them, so I drove from the California desert into Yuma this morning, thinking I’d have to make an appointment and return another day. But they were just finishing up on another vehicle and could take me right after that. Excellent. A little less than an hour later I had a all new rubber and lots of even tread depth.

Manny, Moe and Jack supervise the installation