Trip Log

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days. I've been mixing trying to get the basic tasks of the move done, with the even more basic task of trying to recover from the trip.

So, we left Phoenix late Wednesday to get out after most of the traffic cleared, and pulled into our friends place in El Paso at about 3am (420ish miles).

I was pretty wasted from the previous weeks chaos... So when our friends most graciously offered to have us stay an extra day with them, we most gratefully accepted.

Having well recovered with a decent nights sleep, and a good days company, we again decided to set off later than originally desired...

...this time because a major tropical depression had formed over the next major destination point on route, New Orleans... in fact, there was a full blown cyclonic storm stretching from Austin to the Florida atlantic coast.

Next leg, El Paso to Austin was about 580 miles, when we stopped for a late dinner around 10pm (the Texican in Austin, very good food, most of it house made not brought in, and excellent service), and waited another couple hours for the rain to clear between there and New Orleans.

We left Austin about midnight, drove down through NO (Mel had never seen it before), and stopped for breakfast with a friend in Kenner (just outside of New Orleans) around 10am (about 500 miles). He also led us to a great dogpark where we all played with the boy, and the dogs, for a couple hours of much needed off the road time.

From Kenner, it was a relatively short hop (220 miles) over to Pensacola for dinner etc... with another couple of friends, and a couple hours of socialization, before the final leg down to Lakeland.

That final leg was about 470 miles, and with the timezone change and fuel stops... and some slowdowns due to REALLY REALLY thick fog, we finally pulled in around 10am Sunday.

We've been running around the last two days doing the basic errands required so that we can sleep, eat, live, work etc... but tonight we can actually mostly relax. We only have a couple more "must do now or soon" things to deal with over the next couple days...

... then I think I'mna try to sleep for a bit..

You know... like... a couple weeks...

Trip Log:

Origination: Chandler, AZ- 05-07-0159z

Termination: Lakeland, FL - 05-11-1459z

Total time enroute: 97h 58m

Total engine on time: 35h 59m

Total rolling time: 31h 58m

Total en route miles: 2,222.22mi ctd.

Total enroute average speed: 22.9mph

Average driving speed: 69.49mph

Total fuel: 145.9 usgal

Average fuel economy: 15.229mpg

Total fuel cost: $559.78

Avg fuel cost per gallon: $3.839

Fuel cost per mile: $0.252

Food cost: $196.94

A Civilized Way to Travel

I actually grabbed a solid 6 hours of sleep last night, followed by a relaxed wakeup... Something I haven't been able to manage in quite some time...

Now it's breakfast with friends, repack, and get on the road.

All in all a very pleasant way to spend a day on a road trip.

Right now it looks like we'll be going through Houston around dinner time. If we stop for the night, it's likely to be around Metairie or thereabouts...

The wife has never been to New Orleans, and wouldn't mind breakfast down there tomorrow morning...

If we go straight through, or push on harder we'll probably skip up over New Orleans, across on the 12.

We'll see how we feel 'round dinner time... and how bad the traffic slows us down through San Antonio and Houston.

Down in that west Texas town...

Looks like we're going to stay in El Paso for the day, and head out in the early morning tomorrow.

Originally, we were planning to fuel and feed on the outskirts of the Phoenix metro area, then run the whole 430 miles in 5-6 hours, at a non-stop 80+ mph

At high speed cruise (around 78-82mph), we get about 480 miles on a tank before the warning light comes on, at appx 50 miles DTE. (Or, about 70 additional miles doing it at 74-76 instead of 80+. ).

When it comes to long hauls, we really love having a big diesel... Really should get that extended 56 gallon underbed tank though. We wouldn't QUITE get 1000 miles out of it at 75mph... But we would at 65.

Anyway, the speed limit is 75mph for all but about 40 miles of those 430, and when the traffic is clear, you can usually run 82 or so almost the whole way (and average better than 75 no problem). I've done south/west phoenix metro to El Paso in under 6 hours a few times.

Unfortunately, high winds and blowing dust along much of the 10 (by much, we mean pretty much the entire distance between Casa Grande and Las Cruces) had us crawling along well below the limit most of the time.

It wasn't particularly dangerous or low visibility, it was just nasty crosswinds, that you don't want to be speeding in. We never got pushed across a lane even, just some bobbling, but even then, you really need to slow down and be careful.

So we spent most of the trip at -2 to -5, sometimes even -10 (when the 18 wheeler traffic was heavy).

Between that, heavy traffic in the first hour (again, from the wind and blowing dust), and stopping to actually relax and enjoy dinner in Tucson (something we never regret doing while on a long road trip), it ended up taking us 8 hours to run the 430 miles we had planned to make in 5-6.

Losing an hour back to daylight savings time land (Arizona doesn't participate in DST), we ended up not getting in until 0230L, and not settled until well after 3... at which point my body decided, as it sometimes does... that it was too tired to actually sleep right then.

Four hours later, and I'm finally running out out my second wind. Hopefully I'll manage to get some sleep soon.

That's ok though... it just means we get to enjoy the afternoon and evening with our friends... and we should still be in Tampa in time for our other friends birthday party.

Sheared Clean off

So, we just drove 75 miles of twisty mountain roads, 180 switchbacks, 7 mile long up and down grades over 10%... In the dark... Towing a 28 foot 13,500lb trailer.

She actually rode pretty good, smooth and quiet, and not too much push on the downgrades... Good trailer brakes help a lot there, as does a good weight distributing hitch.

Did the last 10 miles on the freeway at 70, then a couple miles on city streets, light traffic, but through some busy major intersections.

Finally, we pull into our destination and see this:

Holy bleeding christ.

We were driving for god knows how long, with one wheel missing.

f you take a closer look you'll see, the studs were sheared clean off.

The really scary thing is... we didn't notice a thing wrong, nor did any of the cars that saw us on the road. The trailer rode fine the whole time, no weird sounds, no problems...

 Just... you know... 40 pounds of tire flying off in some random direction at 60mph...

...hopefully not in or into any of the residential neighborhoods we were passing.

 If we'd caused a car accident I'm sure we would have noticed that... I'm pretty obsessive about checking mirrors when I'm driving the trailer... But I couldn't see the tire the way my mirror was adjusted (I would have in daylight, just not at night).

 If it happened on one of those twisty downgrades... It very well might have killed us.

 I'll investigate further in the morning... It could have been any number of things.

 Scary...

I am sick of the last six weeks

The last six weeks have been double plus ungood.

This is a long story, but I really need to get it all out, at least to vent.

Ok... here goes.

So, just before we left New Hampshire, after a month of looking for a house and being repeatedly disappointed (a couple were sold out from under us, a couple weren't available 'til March or April etc... etc...), we managed to sign a lease on a house in Laconia.

Laconia is the biggest town in the New Hampshire lakes region, and largely the center of activities for the area. It's a nice place, an old mill town, and it still has a lot of the original 19th century architecture.

If you're a biker, Laconia has additional meaning, because it's the home of the third largest motorcyclist gathering in the country (after Daytona and Sturgis); Laconia bike week, held the week of fathers day every year.

The house wasn't exactly what we wanted (we wanted rural, or at least private, on some land if possible), but it was near the big lake (less than a mile from Winnepesaukee), pretty big (5 bedrooms, over 3000 square feet including the partially finished basement), in a nice quiet neighborhood but still close to everything, and it had a big fenced yard (important for the dogs). It even had a good sized pool off the rear deck.

So yay, new house.

Now all we had to do was drive back to Arizona, get our stuff and our dogs, then haul all of it, and us, back to New Hampshire.

How hard could that be, right?

**No, I wasn't silly enough to actually say, or even think, "how hard could that be" or "what could go wrong". After DECADES of extremely painful experience, I most certainly know better. Ask those questions, and they WILL be answered, THOROUGHLY.

Yeah... So that's when the REAL unfun started 

Actually, to be fair, the prelude to the unfun started on Christmas day, when Mels 93 year old grandmother (who lives with Mels dad) had a stroke, falling and breaking her hip in the process.

Now, our original plan was to drive back to Arizona over new years, spend less than two weeks with Mels dad (one week of which I was supposed to be at a clients site in Seattle), hook up the trailer, pack up the dogs, and head straight back to New Hampshire.

The second part of that got screwed up just before we left.

Mels grandmothers injury put her in the hospital for a week, after which she was transferred to a rehab clinic. The plan to deal with Grandmas injury was to have her come home from the rehab clinic the following week, and get a live in home care aide.

From a practical standpoint, what that meant to us, was that we couldn't stay with Mel's dad, because the spare bedroom would be in use by the home care aide.

So then, the plan was to stay with Mel's best friend (none of my friends in the area were in a position to put us up for a couple weeks). Unfortunately, her housemate (who is also her brother) objected to living with a two extra adults and a teething baby for a few weeks (understandably. It's a small house, and there's not a lot of noise isolation).

What we ended up having to do, was stay in a hotel; which should have been fine, since it was only supposed to be for a couple weeks anyway.

Sure, it's not cheap even in a room with a kitchen (it ended up being about $450 a week at an Extended Stay America. You pay more for the kitchen, but spend a LOT less on food and drink), but it's certainly tolerable.

So... then we actually set off...

The trip itself was pretty nice actually, minus the repeated ice storms. We got to hang out with friends and family we haven't seen for a while, and I got to meet family I hadn't met before; always good things.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the drive, I started coming down with something.

From about January 4th (when we checked into our hotel), I had a full blown flu. From the symptoms, likely H1N1 aka "Swine Flu", which has been widespread this flu season.

Meanwhile... 

...actually, while we were driving from NH to AZ...

...the client changed their schedule.

So, instead of being onsite the week of the 6th, I was supposed to be onsite the week of the 13th.

From one perspective that was a good thing, since I ended up being sick the week of the 6th and wouldn't have been able to fly out there anyway.

Unfortunately, we were planning on LEAVING Arizona the week of the 13th (we were supposed to take possession of the house on the 15th). Moving the onsite a week later, also also meant staying in AZ until at least the 20th, and for logistical reasons the 25th.

So, we changed our plans again, and extended our hotel stay to the 25th.

Then, the Friday before I was to leave, the client cancelled the onsite week entirely. So, yay, I didn't have to fly while I'm still sick, but we'd already prepaid for a hotel through the 25th (had to prepay or it was 20% more expensive), and rejiggered everything else to make the 25th work. We couldn't change it all back.

Turns out that the later date would have been necessary anyway however, for four reasons:

First: At the same time as my client was being fickle, our new house in New Hampshire had a pipe burst. A large portion of the house flooded, with significant water damage; and the house wouldn't be ready for us to take possession until at least the 1st of February, possibly later.

We planned on, and agreed with the owners to take possession of the house on the 5th of February (that way we could leave the Friday before, and drive over the weekend, giving us plenty of time to get there).

Second: The next week, the steering on our truck failed while Mel was driving it.

Thankfully no-one was hurt, but the entire steering mechanism and part of the suspension were badly damaged, and needed replacement (with a newer design, heavier duty setup from the factory).

The failure was due to defective tie-rod ends (which it turns out were subject to a recall). The tie-rods were covered under the recall, but the parts that were damaged or destroyed because of them (and the associated labor) were not. The repairs, all up, including a rental car for five days, ended up costing about $3,000.

Third: Money...

By January 31st, between repairs, hotel bills, additional meals, additional travel expenses, and unreimbursed expenses from work (they're being paid on my check this Friday), we had to lay out a HUGE amount over our planned and budgeted expenses for the month.

Then there's the AMEX bill, covering all the previous travel and expenses, and purchases from December (moving is EXPENSIVE).

Then there's the actual BUDGETED travel expenses, and all our regular bills and expenses (truck payment, fuel, food, insurance, phones, medications etc... also budgeted).

Combined, our total outlay Jan-1 to Jan-31 (which, to be fair, included paying most of the bills and expenses from December) was somewhere around $17,000 (and no, I don't make NEARLY that much a month. In part it was covered by expense reimbursement, combined with pretty much all of what I took home in January, and part of what I took home in December).

That's nearly double the outlay we had planned for the month.

That $17,000 meant we wouldn't actually have enough cash to complete the move ($4,200 in rent and security deposit on the house, and $2,500 in travel expenses for the drive. Hauling a trailer, 3 people, and 2 dogs 3000 miles is EXPENSIVE) before February anyway.

Fourth: At that point I was still sick, and getting sicker.

The flu seemed to subside around the 14th or so, which was good. Unfortunately, the flu led to a sinus infection and bronchitis, which was not.

The sinusitis and bronchitis hung on for a while, but I was managing the symptoms fairly effectively with medication (I take adderall, and a very strong anti-inflammatory anyway, and it just so happens that the combination makes a pretty effective treatment for the symptoms of sinusitis and bronchitis).

Unfortunately, I take those medications because I need them to function properly. When their effects are being taken up relieving symptoms, they aren't actually making me functional.

Worse, the medications also masked the fact that I wasn't actually getting better. I was just staggering along being propped up by the wonder of modern medicine.

Some time around Friday the 24th, I started getting sicker again.

MUCH sicker.

For the first week I thought it was just a combination of sleep deprivation, and a relapse of the flu.

Meanwhile...

We couldn't extend our stay at the Extended Stay America past the 25th, as they were fully booked. Unfortunately, this is the time that peak golf travel season hits Arizona, and rates at any of the extended stay/kitchen suite places went from $450 a week, to $700 a week, basically overnight.

Thankfully, rather than find a place for a week at a ridiculous rate, a friend agreed to let us stay with him 'til the end of the month (when we planned to leave for NH).

Unfortunately, he got sick that week as well (though not from me. I was past the contagious stage then, and it turned out to just be a bad cold or maybe a light flu for him).

And I kept getting sicker...

By Sunday the 26th, I was pretty much in bed 24/7. In fact, from the 26th until today (February 13th. 19ish days ), I've pretty much been sick in bed, minus changing the actual location of said bed.

A couple times I've felt better for a day or two, only to be slammed back down even worse afterwards.

Anyway, our friend was sick, and he needed his place free of a teething baby and two houseguests in order to rest.

So, we ended up transferring from our friends place to another hotel a couple days early, and swallowing the $700 for a week (six nights actually). At least it was a much nicer place than the ESA (a Hilton garden inn, with a 2 room suite. Funny thing was, it was actually only $40 more than the ESA would have been).

Unfortunately, I couldn't enjoy the nicer surroundings, because I was pretty much out of my head sick. By that point, it was clear that my Bronchitis had developed into pneumonia.

And then life got more complicated...

At that point it was ALSO very clear we wouldn't be leaving AZ until WELL after the fifth. So, we asked our new landlords if we could take possession on the 15th.

Initially they agreed. Unfortunately, a few days later, they insisted that we take possession on the fifth, and pay a full months rent for February, plus the deposit etc... and that they wanted the full amount by the 5th.

Apparently the husband (who had initially agreed to our request) was fine with what we wanted to do, but the wife wasn't, and she was making the decisions.

After I told them this was unacceptable to us, they agreed to prorate the rent from the 5th, but no further.

I told them I was perfectly willing to pay from the 15th, ON the 15th, whether we were there to take possession or not; but that we weren't going to pay a full months rent for a half months occupancy (or likely less, given that we wouldn't even be able to LEAVE AZ until at least the 15th... frankly I doubted whether we could get to NH before the end of February). I thought it was kind of silly to lose tenants over a matter of 10 days rent, and that if they agreed to the 15th I would be willing to send them half the security deposit immediately.

Well, that wasn't acceptable to them.

So as of February 1st, we were stuck in Arizona, no longer having a new house to bring our stuff and our selves back to.

We started looking for a new place immediately of course.

And we had to change venues again...

By the 1st, it was clear that Mels grandmother wouldn't be coming home. Between her injuries, the stroke, and her dementia, she can no longer be cared for at home, even with an aide. She's still in the rehab facility, but when they release her, we're transferring her to a 24 hour care facility.

This is really for the best. She needs 24 hour care that she can't get here.

That also meant that the spare room in my father in laws house would be available to us again (of course, it ended up being available the whole month, and we could have avoided wasting $2,000 for a months worth of hotel charges, and god knows how much more on a bunch of takeout/restaurant meals for when we didn't want to use the kitchenette... but we didn't know that at the time).

So, not knowing how long it would take to find a new place to live in NH, and rather than pay for more hotel rooms, on the 5th we transferred our operation back to Mels fathers house.

And I kept getting sicker...

The day we moved over my father in laws house, I basically collapsed into the bed, and I've barely left it since.

The last eight days have been really bad, with low to medium fevers, sweats and chills, lots of pain (particularly joint pain, and stomach pain), a nasty cough, myalgia, stomach and intestinal issues, sinus problems, photophobia... it's just sucked frankly.

Actually, yesterday (the 12th) was the first day since the 24th that I didn't have a fever.

The only compensation has been that for most of the past week, the pneumonia has knocked me out for 10 or 12 hours a day. For the first few weeks of this crud, it was bad enough to keep me from sleeping, but NOT bad enough to knock me out.

Oh and by the by, my wife, and my 10 month old son have ALSO been sick for the last three weeks (since the week with our friend), though thankfully it's just been a mild flu or bad cold (it can be hard to tell) and a touch of bronchitis for them.

...Of course, it's also kept THEM from sleeping  until the past few days as well.

Combined with the boys MASSIVE teething issue the past month or so... (he's cried more in the last six weeks than he did in the entire previous 9 months)... I pretty much hadn't slept the entire month of January.

Basically I was averaging about 2 hours of not particularly restful sleep out of every 24.

And then of course there's been the stress issue. The money, the mad rush, the uncertainty, the not having a place to live... You could say it's been a LITTLE bit stressful.

Between being sick, and not sleeping, I was pretty much a zombie for most of January (unless I was taking plenty of adderall, nasal spray, and anti-inflammatories, which you can't do all day every day).

Oh and of course, stress, sleep deprivation and exhaustion make illnesses worse, and make healing much harder. Frankly, it was probably the sleep deprivation and exhaustion that made it progress to pneumonia in the first place.

The bad news...

I just spent most of my second month (and half my third month) with a new employer, dead sick. For two weeks of that, I've been damn near useless.

I've been so sick, I've barely done any useful work in the last two weeks (I've been doing a lot of reading and research, and a little bit of writing), and I haven't been on anything billable for four weeks.

Also, I'm still in Arizona, a month after I was supposed to be back in New England, with at least a few more weeks to go before I actually make it back.

They're somewhat less than thrilled with me at the moment.

The good news...

I've got two pieces of good news actually.

First, the pneumonia seems to have broken. I haven't had a fever in over 24 hours, my coughing is greatly diminished... the only major thing really left is a particularly nasty sinus problem... and I think that's really a leftover, not a new sinus infection.

Second, we found a new house... and it's damn near exactly what we were looking for, at about half the price the Laconia place was (though it is MUCH more remote... which is both good and bad). Even better the owners are going to work with us on a lease to buy option. We're in the process of signing on it now (more on this house in a later post).

Ok, vent over... 

Totaling up the ENTIRE round trip

We left Arizona for New Hampshire on November 22nd 2013, and returned to Arizona January 4th, 2014

We ran an awful lot of miles in those six-ish weeks.

We started the trip at 31209.5 miles... I took a pic of it, but apparently deleted it.

We ran a rather unusual route, attempting to avoid ice storms, and instead ended up driving in them the whole way:

Kearny, AZ - Departure point
Tucson, AZ
Las Cruces, NM
El Paso, TX - Stopped for the zero night (5 hours after leaving Kearny)
Pecos, TX - Stopped for the first full day, with an ice storm closing the highway
Dallas, TX
Little Rock, AR
Memphis, TN
Nashville, TN
Knoxville, TN
Johnson City, TN - Overnight for day 2-3, Mels Birthday, spent with her aunt and uncle
Waynesboro, VA - Overnight for day four (short day, left J.City late)
Harrisburg, PA
New York, NY
New Haven, CT
Providence, RI
Braintree, MA - Overnight day five
Weymouth, MA - Thanksgiving, spent with my dad
New Hampton, NH - Destination, my aunt Helen

We hit New Hampton New Hampshire six days later, having driven 3151.5 miles:

Then, we spent the next month driving to hell and gone over New England, from Northern New Hampshire to Connecticut and most points in between.

By the time we started the trip back to Arizona:

We had managed to drive 2677 miles.

Our trip back to Arizona was once again fraught with unexpected ice storms most of the way, and complicated with both Mel and I having the flu, so this time we deliberately decided to take it easy. We also chose to avoid the interstate where possible, routing like this:

New Hampton, NH: Depart 12am day zero
Rochester, NY: arrive 7am day one, sleep til 4pm, dinner with friends, depart 11pm
Cleveland, OH: stopped early in nasty ice storm, overnight day 1, departed late, in snow
McComb, IL: Arrive late in nasty ice storm, overnight day 2, departed late in snow
Topeka, KS: Arrive early to avoid new years lunatics, overnight day 3, departed late, in snow
Hays, KS: Stopped for lunch in Blizzard, waited 2 hours, had lunch and departed late in blizzard
Colorado Springs, CO: Arrived 8pm for dinner, overnight day 4, left late after visiting with family
Santa Fe, NM: Arrived 7pm for dinner, overnight day 5, left late after working
Mesa, AZ: Arrive after full day 6, with timezone change, exactly 6 days to the minute after we left NH

Total milage, 3071, total time 6 days, 8 family members and 11 friends visited.

Finally, after picking up our truck from Kearny, we dropped the rental off:

Having driven 9083.6 miles total, using 458.55 gallons of gasoline (an overall average of 19.8mpg, though we generally got around 20-22 on the highway. The lowest price we saw, $2.92. Highest, $3.79). According to my expense calculations, we paid an average of $3.20 per gallon, so we spend about $1500 in fuel alone.

... and THAT is a major reason why we didn't want to take our own truck for the housefinding trip.

Another 9k in mileage and maintenance aside, we would have averaged 16-17mpg of diesel (we avg over 20mpg highway, but city and idling with the heater on aren't great for diesel mileage), which is $0.50-$0.60 percent more expensive per gallon. 535 gallons of diesel at $3.80, that's more than $500 extra in fuel alone.

The return leg...

So, we haven't actually died on the road, nor have we taken over two weeks to get from New Hampshire to Arizona... Mel and I were both hit with the flu, while we were on the road... which is always a joy; and have had a hard time shaking it off.

After the nightmare that was the trip out, we had decided we were going to try to relax more on the way back. Unfortunately, we left a couple days late because of work, throwing all our plans in disarray... and then the flu.

The first "day", we ended up not actually leaving North Hampton, NH til Midnight Sunday morning.

We decided to take the backroad route through New Hampshire, Vermont, and upstate New York; running most of the 450 miles between New Hampton and Rochester on twisty mountain 2 lane "highways"... which, late at night with no-one around, is... rather interesting...

It's surprising how well the new Explorers (that's what we rented for the trip) handle, and the V6 has a fair bit of grunt. I took advantage of the clear weather, and clear late night roads, and we made pretty great time all the way out to western New York.

We didn't actually get on an interstate at all until Schenectady; so about 200 miles on backroads at the beginning, and the last 40 were on state routes and county roads. 

Shortly after dawn Sunday morning, we stopped for the day at a friends place off to the west of Rochester. Mel had slept along the way, so she hung out while I slept for a few hours. Once I got up, we went out to a great dinner with four friends we hadn't been able to see in person in a number of years.

18 hours down, 4 friends visited, one good meal had with said friends... not bad...

Again, we didn't head out til quite late... around 11:30pm, but that was part of the plan. Well... 10pm had been part of the plan, but dinner with friends ran a little long. That said, we had made great time on late night back roads and deserted interstates, and figured we'd be able to do so again. 

... and then the ice storms came back...

We had intended to get to Columbus Sunday night (about 375 miles from Rochester), but some time before midnight, the ice storm we had been hoping to avoid closed in on us. We went from averaging over 70mph, to under 50mph... and a nervous 50mph at that. The black ice for the last 120 miles was scary bad

At one point, while stopping for gas in eastern Ohio, we actually slid down an entire off ramp, across the intersection, and partway up the onramp opposite.

So yeah, for safeties sake we decided to stop for the night at that point, and only made it to Cleveland (230 miles). That mean an extra 140 or so miles to reach Mels aunt and uncle in Macomb Illinois on Monday (580 miles).  

Did I mention that I was working the whole week? Yeah, I would work in the morning, start driving in the afternoon, and finish up my day before getting to sleep for the night. 

So, the ice cleared up around noon, and we grabbed lunch, and hit the highway again, for what was actually our first long stretch on the interstate during daylight.

We made it over to Gary.. actually Hammond, Indiana (345 miles) by dinner time (well... 7pm), and had a semi-famous smashed burger and a shake at Shoops (pretty good burgers and shakes actually... thus why Shoops is semi-famous). 

... and then the ice storms came back...

The 225 non-stop, and mostly non-interstate miles from Hammond to Macomb (driving right by "Ron Swanson actor Nick Offermans home town of Minooka) took almost 5 hours, most of them white knuckle icy miles in limited visibility at reduced speed.

At one point I watched a pickup truck actually spin on the road in front of me... and recover, managing to drive off safely. 

We finally pulled into Macomb a bit after midnight, and managed to get a good nights... well, 7 hours or so, which for me is a lot... sleep; and had a great morning through early afternoon with Mels aunt and uncle, their who's about Mel's age, and her cute little daughters.

Three days, four friends, and six family members visited... two ice storms weathered...

We left Macomb about 2pm, and were planning on hitting Kansas City (about 300 miles and almost none of it interstate) for dinner and to visit with Mel's middle brother and family, but we couldn't work a schedule out, and decided to push on to Topeka (360 miles). 

We could have easily made it to Salina, but this being new years eve, we didn't want to be on the road too late, and settled in to our hotel abou 10pm, again to get a good night sleep, prepping for the longer push to Colorado Springs the next day.

... and no ice storms were forecast for the next day...

We left the hotel 10am new years day, heading for a lunch meetup with my good friend of 10 years, Jeffro of the Poor Farm. 

... and then the ice storms came back...

By the time we made it to Hays, the ice and snow was blowing hard. 

The only good thing about the combination of 30 knot winds, heavy snow, and 12 degree temperatures, is that the wind is too high for the snow to   on the highway.

I've really got to stop saying "if the weather holds". Every time I do, it doesn't. We ended up spending about 2 hours sitting out the heaviest part of a mini-blizzard in Hays Kansas.

You know the snow is bad when you go in for lunch clear, and come out an hour later to 4" on your car.

You know it's REALLY bad when by the time you finish clearing the car, you've got to go back and clear where you started over again.

We had to get back on the road to make sure we made our hard deadline of Colorado Springs that night, and the snow started to let up, so we set off around 3pm from Hays (about 320 miles, and a time zone change). 

It cleared up about an hour out of Hays, and we managed to stay clear for... oh, all of about 2 hours. 

... and then the ice storms came back...

This time it was so bad that they actually closed I-70 down around us. The ice was so bad on the grade up to Limon, that a bunch of vehicles slid off the road.

Literally, as we were pulling off the Interstate into a truck stop in Limon, the troopers were closing the interstate for 20 miles both sides of Limon. Eventually they closed it all the way from east of Limon, over to strasbourg, on the approaches to Denver.

... only we were heading downgrade into the springs along 24, so lucky us, we could keep going.

24 was not significantly distinguishable from a luge run, and that's all I'll say about that.

But we made it to our family dinner... a little late... but we made it. The Springs was actually clear, and the ride into town was really quite pretty, with the lights and the hills etc...

A few things I had forgotten since I last slept in Colorado Springs:

1. Much of the city is at around 7000 foot altitude
2. 7000 feet is pretty high
3. There is considerably less oxygen at 7000 feet

Hypoxia aside, we had a great day in the springs, stayed longer to extend our time with some family... I may write about that in the future... and so I could get some work done.

Day five, 7 friends, 11 family members visited...

Our original plan was to leave relatively early, and make it one long day to our endpoint in Arizona. We ended up not leaving Colorado Springs quite late, so changed our plans, deciding to stop for the night in Santa Fe (335 miles), so we could have dinner and hang with another friend.

A few things I had forgotten since I last slept in Santa Fe:

1. Much of the city is at around 7000 foot altitude
2. 7000 feet is pretty high
3. There is considerably less oxygen at 7000 feet

As an aside, I can recommend the Santa Fe Bar & Grille, we had a great dinner there, with excellent service, and a great beer selection.

I can also VERY STRONGLY recommend Tecolote Cafe. It's honestly one of the best places I've ever eaten, and it's cheap, with amazing customer service to boot.

Again, I worked til about 3pm (in the aforementioned cafe in fact), and then we ran down to Mesa (460 miles), getting in around 11pm.

Six days down, 8 friends, 11 family members visited... 

So,  being sick the whole time, and having to work 'til the afternoon most days, not great.

Being stuck in ice storms almost every night... really not great.

Being able to take our time, visit and relax and hang out with friends and family we haven't seen in years... really great.

Mad Rush - Day 1 - Bloody Hell!

Well....

That sucked.

So, we slept in a little bit this morning, thinking we'd be well ahead of the weather, and still be able to make Little Rock, or at least Hope or Texarkana, before we wanted to bed down.

.... and we would have been.

But for this:

http://www.elpasotimes.com/latestnews/ci_24581851/border-patrol-agent-injured-rollover-accident-near-sierra

Which, by the by, is nowhere near the full or true story. More on that in another post, another time.

What it came down to, was that we were at a dead stop, or slow crawl on I-10 for about 5 hours.

Even better, we were in in a cell and data deadzone for most of that time. Thankfully we had plenty of gas, plenty of drinks and snacks, and audiobooks (and didn't need to use the bathroom).

We first came to a stop a couple miles past Texas state road 34, mile 87. We had literally dozens of emergency vehicles, mostly border patrol, but some county sheriffs and texas highway patrol, and some local ambulance and fire; racing back and forth by us for hours... Even worse, they were inspecting trucks and trailers for the first few of those hours (which, I suspect, is WHY it was hours, not a few minutes).

... as I said, more on that another time, in another post.

After crawling our way a few hundred yards at a time, with 2-20 minutes stops in between, up to mile 107; we were shunted off I-10 onto Texas 1111 in a "town" called Sierra Blanca.

It was after 3pm at this point, with over 4.5 hours spent moving those 20-ish miles.

Even better however, was that they were not allowing access to the eastbound lanes at all. They forced us into a diversion route. It took us almost 20 minutes just to make the turns from the off ramp, onto the state road, under the highway, then onto an unmarked road paralleling the highway, for 13 miles; with a Sheriff's vehicle or Border patrol vehicle blocking all egress from the road, and all access to I-10.

So, we made those 13 miles at about 30mph, in convoy with the hundreds of trucks that had been stopped, finally making it back onto the highway at Van Horn, about 40 miles from the I-10/I-20 split.

By now it was 3:45, 5 hours from when we had first come to a stop.

Now... the whole idea of leaving Friday night, had been to get through Texas before the nasty weather hit Saturday night; then through the southeast before the nasty weather hit Tuesday; and into New England before the nasty weather hit Wednesday.

Basically, were trying to run between the storm systems.

Unfortunately, by the time we got back on the highway, and particularly by the time we hit I-20 around 4pm; the weather had overtaken us, and we started to get some pretty nasty wind, ice rain, hail, fog etc...

By 4:45, we had passed 4 major injury or multi-fatality crashes (a couple we could see directly, others... I've seen a lot of accidents... barring a miracle, they were not surviving those), and the weather map looked like this:

On the ground, it was a hell of a lot worse. We were alternating between torrential rain, frozen rain, and near whiteout conditions; with over an inch of ice, slush, and hail on the roads, high winds, driving frozen rain, and ice fog. Our windshield wipers could barely keep up (though the heater had no problem keeping us comfy... It dropped from 39 degrees to 23 degrees in a matter of minutes).

So, the second we got data signal back, we booked the next hotel we could get into (in Pecos), and white knuckled it the remaining 15 miles or so.

Between the I-10/I-20 split, and our hotel (a total distance of 43 miles), we passed a total of 7 major injury or multi-fatality accidents, including 5 rollovers, and a three car multi-rollover (with one vehicle over the guard rail between the travel lanes of an overpass, crashing down to the roadway below). That doesn't include the half dozen cars we saw off the road (including one in front of us, and one across the median) , two we saw actually spin (one in front of, one across the median from us) and the several wrecked semi's pulled off into the median.

They closed both the I-20 and I-10 behind us, a few minutes after we got off the road. A T-Dot official came into the hotel while we were checking in and told everyone. Their crews were filling up rooms quick.

Every hotel room in Pecos was full before 6pm tonight; and the 18 wheelers are filling up all the local parking lots. There's at least a dozen of them in the Wal Mart parking lot alone; and there must've been 100+ in and around the flying J.

I found out later that they had pulled so many wrecks off the road in this sector of the I-20 alone, that their tow yard couldn't handle them. They used that same local Wal Mart as an overflow. I counted 11 total writeoffs in the Wal Mart parking lot when I went by there later... and who knows how many in their local tow yard(s).

I can say without any exaggeration; that was the single worst day of travel I have ever had, that didn't involve the death of someone important to me.

Mad Rush - Day 1

Starting out in El Paso this morning, 410 miles down, about 2500 to go.

As soon as I finish writing this we're going to head to the car and go, so we can figure a 10am start. We slept in a bit (since neither of us managed to fall asleep 'til 3 or so), and took the time for breakfast.

We're going to decide on the road whether we're stopping, or pausing, in Dallas. If we hustle, we'll make Dallas for dinner time, depending on traffic. Unfortunately, then there's dealing with Dallas traffic.

Basically, if we stop for dinner in Dallas, we're probably stopping for the night.

Otherwise, again if we hustle, we can get to at least Hope Arkansas, and maybe as far as Little Rock. That would be nice, since it would make tomorrows run to Johnson City a much more pleasant, short day.

Meanwhile... it's nothing but 800 or so miles of Texas...

Dog Sick and Swollen

So by around Thursday last week, Mel and I both started feeling a bit of the dreaded travel crud; but were able to stave it off (mostly) through sheer energy and determination... and the wonder of modern pharmaceutical medicine.

By the time we had to get on the plane Sunday though, we were both full on sick. Head and chest filled with crud, joint pain, light fever, the whole thing.

The fact that we were both running on serious sleep debt, to add exhaustion to the mix, certainly didn't help.

The last two days at least I've been able to sleep it off some; but Mel has ben working. She got sent home early today as too sick to work.

My added complication is that I wasn't able to take my diuretics most of last week (two days out of seven). Combined with all the sitting in cars and airplanes I did, I managed to gain over 30lbs, and swell up my hands, feet, and face, quite thoroughly.

Normally a few days back on the diuretics would take care of such a situation; but you can't take diuretics when you're sick like this, because they'll dehydrate you, and thicken your mucous.

At this point, my hands and feet are so swollen they actually hurt to touch; and I'm going to need to start back on the diuretics in the morning no matter what.

Oh and I have a final job interview for one of my potential new jobs tomorrow, so, yay...

Wish me luck or something.

Home, dry, and frikken exhausted

We pulled into our driveway at 1:30am today; 90 minutes short of seven days from our departure, having traveled about 2400 miles by plane, and another 1500 miles by car.

In the midst of that, I managed to get a TOTAL 6 night sleep hour count of 14; including two 40+ hour days (both of which also included several hundred miles of driving). 

More to come later. For now, Mel and I are going to collapse into our beds and not leave til forced by angry mobs. 

Don't call me today, or I WILL wreak vengeance upon thee. 

Homeward Bound

Well, it's 8:30 on a Sunday... beautiful out, sunny, breezy, cold... A perfect late winter New England day.

This has been an odd and interesting week, and I'm going to be writing about it a great deal in the next few days; but for now, it's time to finish packing up and checking out.

We're actually going to head to the airport twice today; first time we're swinging through, and picking up Ambulance Driver, to take him to lunch.

Actually, we're secretly hijacking him and taking him for a full Irish breakfast with my family, including fresh sodabread baked by my tiny Irish grandmother.

I figure AD, me, and my dad all in the same room ought to be fun.

Then we drop him off for the afternoon with TOTWTOTYR so they can hang out for the afternoon, before the second New England blog dinner of the weekend, tonight at Polcaris in Saugus.

Unfortunately, after a final afternoon visit with family, we will be flying out, just as they are all meeting up;  reaching Idaho around midnight local.

What a week man...

One hell of a long day... but in some respects, still a good one.

So, it's 2335 eastern, Monday.

My body, in theory, thinks its 2035, but in reality I'd say it has completely lost the ability to judge the passing of this strange thing called... Time.

Mel and I have been awake since 0735 pacific, Sunday; and have been traveling since 0300 Pacific Monday... No point in trying to sleep for a couple hours late Sunday night just to wake up more groggy and disoriented, and then have to drive to the airport.

37 hours.

She's finally asleep. I've probably got a ways to go, because although most of my days are now good days in terms of pain, inflammation, and edema; days that I spend 4 hours driving and 6 hours sitting in the torture devices they amusingly call "economy class seats" (there's three lines in one) in airplanes are most definitely NOT good days for those particular issues.

Basically from the elbows down I'm one big inflamed and swollen sore spot.

However, it was still a good day in one very important way:

I was able to make my father truly happy for a few minutes; in a way that wouldn't mean much to anyone else... but to me, to him... it means more than I could ever say in words.

I'd gladly deal with ten times the pain, to be able to do that. To do it in a week when there is so much pain, and hurt and anger going on in my life...

...Well, no matter what comes later, this is now a good week.

Anyway, I'll write about it some time later this week, hopefully with some pics. For now I've got to take my diuretics so I can deflate the waterballoons I call my hands and feet; and some anti-inflammatories and painkillers.

Hopefully after a few hours... removing excess fluid... I can try to get some sleep, so in the morning (LATE morning, trust me) we can get a running start at all we need to do while we're here in Boston.

Blogging from the road to Reno

Stopping outside of Travis AFB for dinner. It took me 90 minutes to get from the parking lot at the SF end of the Bay Bridge to Fairfield... and yes, for those of you not familiar with NorCal geography, that's a long time.

ProTip: never trust that the quadruple dose (my normal dose, but quadruble for most people) of extremely strong diuretics you took at 1pm has worked its way out of your system by 6pm just before setting out on a long drive in heavy traffic. You will be very, very unhappy if you do.

By the time I get to Phoenix...

Well... Chandler actually...

I'm heading down to our Chandler offices for the first full, in person, meeting for our new, now fully reorganized, uber-architecture group.

We architects used to all be in one group; matrixed out to the various lines of business, with shared management responsibility etc... etc...

Unfortunately, this resulted in diffuse goals and objectives, and diffuse accountability; such that no-one could really be held accountable, there was no transparency etc...

About three years ago, we reorganized for "direct accountability" so that each of the lines of business had their own architecture group aligned to them. We had our own management, and were separate form our lines of business, but out goals and incentives were aligned with the line of business.

Which worked great from a service delivery perspective; but in the larger view served to fragment our infrastructure and information governance and practices even further.

It just got too expensive.

In the meantime we had two other reorganizations and a major merger.

Now, we've reorganized again, as one big architecture group again; but this time instead of matrixing us out to the individual business lines, we will be operating on a consultancy model. Our management will be central, our tasking will be central, and our incentive structure and objectives will be central.

In theory, this will be the right compromise between diffuse incentives with little accountability, and direct alignment with the individual groups at the expense of the enterprise.

In theory.

We've been busy pulling this off ever since last August; and now we're mostly done,  it's finally time to all meet up in person.

Yay.

Actually I'm happy to meet up in person; since as of today I have only actually physically met ONE of the people on the team I've worked with the last almost four years, nevermind the rest of my newly reorganized team.

So, we're having our meeting in Chandler on the 19th and 20th. I'm flying in on the 18th in the afternoon/evening, and leaving on the 21st in the morning.

Thankfully, because I am disabled, with limited range of motion in my knees, corporate policy allows me to travel business or first class, on direct flights; and to rent a full size car, van, or SUV (already booked, just waiting for the expenses to be signed off).

Even better, the time zones and scheduling are working with me not against me, so I get to have half a normal day on each day, with a full nights sleep, and with plenty of time to get to and from airports etc...

So, it should be a pretty relaxed trip.

I'm going to take the opportunity to meet up with friends, visit my mom in her new assisted living facility, and get in some face time with my team mates.

Still have to put up with the joys of traveling in todays air travel quagmire, but at least its first class. You're still in a cattle car, but at least it's a more comfy cattle car and the food sucks less.

No one ended up in a jail, hospital, or morgue

So my brothers funeral was an unmitigated success...

Seriously, right now I'm cripplingly sore, exhausted, and drained, from the events of the last two weeks. We got home at 2am last night having been up and on the go for 21 hours, 14 of those travelling between cars and airports and airplanes.

Plus, I'm swollen up like an overfilled waterballoon from only being able to take my lasix intermittently since last wednesday.

I'll have pics and a full writeup later.

What we woke up to

Looks like 4-6" overnight. It's still snowing pretty steadily right now; though they say it should slow down and become intermittent in the next hour or so.

Glad we got a 4x4. I just hope this doesn't effect people coming to the memorial too badly.

Flying Out

So... good news bad news situation.

Bad news first I guess. Let me get the bitching out of the way.

Having just dropped literally all my ready cash on Christmas, legal fees, and medical bills; I had to pawn a bunch of guns just to get the money together to get out to Boston for my brothers memorial service, and the scattering of his ashes.

I'll be fine in a few weeks, it's just the timing of it.

To compound that, I haven't slept more than two hours uninterrupted since a couple days after Christmas; and not more than six hours in any 24 hour period. There are a number of reasons for this of course, including traveling to Canada and back, getting used to the CPAP machine, the edema (and the diuretics to deal with the edema which make me pee constantly) and of course for the last 8 days, my brother dying.

I'm actually trying to utterly exhaust myself right now. I didn't manage to sleep at all last night, so I decided to stay up straight through, and try to get to bed early tonight, so I can get some good sleep, wake up early, and then get some sleep tomorrow night, before we have to get up and go to the airport.

This has apparently weakened my immune system somewhat; and I'm feeling quite ill, with bad head and chest congestion, nausea, swelling and soreness of the joints, and a fever.

...And we need to get on a plane at 6:30 Thursday morning, which means leaving here around 3:30am; to connect to Denver with a four hour layover, so we can fly into Boston by Thursday night (at least we'll be getting in at a reasonable time... about 12 hours after we leave our house).

Oh, and somehow in the last week or so I managed to put a hairline fracture in my right middle finger. It's swollen and quite painful, and will be for a while.... and I don't remember doing it at all, just waking up one morning with it in screaming pain.

I'm really hoping that a little sleep will cure the feeling ill bit... otherwise this is going to be a much more unpleasant week than it already has been.

Oh and of course, I won't be able to take my furosemide all day Thursday, or my evening dose on Wednesday night, since I'm going to be sealed in a tiny aluminum tube for 8 hours, and I can't really stomach getting up to use the toilet every 20 minutes.

Of course that means by the end of the day Thursday, my edema is going to be out of control; and combined with the pressurization changes I'm going to be swollen up like an overfilled hot water bottle.

Oh and of course, to do all that, I'm going to have the privilege and joy of willfully disarming myself, then subjecting myself to the tender mercies of the TSA.

Joy.

Alright, bitching done...

So, the good news.

My brothers memorial is in my home town of Milton Massachusetts; which means we will be going back to my home town, which is where he wanted to go.

Mel has never seen my home town, nor met most of my family. The circumstances are horrible, but she'll finally get to meet most of the family, including my father.

For that matter, I'LL be seeing family I haven't seen in years; and I'll get to see a lot of old friends, who will be coming out to pay their respects.

Other than my mother, my brother, my grandmother for a couple days in 2004 (when she came to AZ to help my mother), and my father and my uncle David for a few hours in 2005 (when I flew in for my HS reunion); I haven't seen any of my family since early 2000.  Other than my HS reunion, I haven't seen any of my Boston friends in that same time.

10 years... man it goes by quick.

Also good, we got an amazing deal on tickets, a hotel, and the rental car.

Funny thing... the lowest quoted far for the day was $738 per seat, including fees taxes etc. The hotel was going to be $96 a night for four nights. the total was going to be just about $1900.

Frankly, I didn't have it, and there was no way I was going to be able to get it in time. We were actually looking at not being able to go; however, we looked at the combo package flight and hotel fares, in the hopes that we might save a couple hundred bucks, and be able to swing it.

The difference was incredible. When we booked the ticket with a four night hotel stay through Travelocity, we got both the $400 hotel room, and the exact same flight they were going to charge us $738 for... for $493 per person.

I honestly don't know how that works exactly, but from now on I'm going to be checking the combo fares whether I need a hotel or not.

So... anybody feel like giving me a few thousand United air miles so I can try to wangle an upgrade... economy seats are 18" wide, and my pelvis (just the bone, never mind the muscle and fat)... isn't?

Just kidding folks, we're alright with the way things are going to be. It's going to be uncomfortable no matter what we do, and I'm not going to inconvenience anyone else with this. 

Falling over, but at least into our own beds

It's amazing how fast the miles are eaten up, when you've got the cruise control locked at 84mph.

No matter how fast though, there are still 1500 someodd of them, between the reception hall, and home

No matter how comfortable, smooth, fast, and well appointed your car is, it's still not very fun having to spend 24 driving hours in it.

Doing it for the second time in just less than a month, while still recovering from pneumonia... Yeah not fun at all.

So the numbers... 1522 total miles (including a detour or two), at an average road hours speed of 65.6mph. We did it in 24 on the road hours with about five hours in gas and food stops, for 19 hours actual drive time; so our actual driving speed average was just about 80mph (which is about right, since I wasn't kidding about having the cruise locked at 84 almost the entire way).

That's actually a lot better than we'd planned. It's pretty hard to make a road hours average of much more than 50mph on most trips; and an actual driving speed average of 80 is DAMN good.

Our average mileage en route was 24.4mpg, for a total of about 63 gallons of gas burned; which was also a lot better than we'd planned. This is especially true, because we were doing 84 the whole way (including through the mountains, both up and down). During some stretches where we were limited to 74 (I kept it to plus 9) I was seeing sustained 28.7mpg.

We did two overnights, taking it a bit easier than the last trip; so our total time enroute, was 41 hours, for a total trip average of about 37mph.

However, even taking it easier, and much more comfortably; we still managed the trip in 7 fewer driving hours, and 13 fewer hours overall than with the truck and trailer. Don't even need to talk about how much better average speed, or how much less fuel etc...

Oh and no blowouts, and no mechanical damage.

Overall... It was a much better trip than the first time. The kids were great, the car was as comfortable as any car can be for so much time in it, and we enjoyed some audiobooks along the way.

The kids are freaking out about how awesome the new house is, and the dogs are freaking out at how awesome it is to have the girls back.

We're just exhausted, and are about ready to fall over for a day or so.

Blowout

Just lost 3 hours to this:

Location:Blackfoot,United States

I brought THREE jacks with me: a 12 ton high lift bottle jack, a 4.5 ton low profile high lift floor jack, and the normal screw jack that stows under the seat of the truck.

The bottle jack decided that it wouldn't take any load at all. Seems like a bad seal.

The floor jack work fine, until it was about 2/3 up to its full extension; when suddenly it wouldn't lift any more.

That's usually a symptom of a jack over its weight limit, but there is no way a 4.5 ton jack should be overloaded by a max 5 ton trailer (ok, lets say it's overloaded, and it's 6 tons instead of five... STILL).

The one that actually did the job, was the little screw jack that comes with my truck. In fact it worked perfectly, quickly, and easier than the floor jack... It weighs about 2 pounds, the floor jack weighs over 100...

The reasons it took 3 hours were threefold:

1. I tried the floor and bottle jacks first, and NEITHER decided to work
   
   
2. I didn't think the jack that came with my truck would WORK for something like this, so didn't try it until I had already workd a dozen different angles on the other two jacks
   
   
3. I refuse to run without a spare, so we stopped by a tire shop off the next exit, and got one (which took about 45 minutes, including the time for the detour. The tire shop took 20 minutes to mount and balance the tire on our existing (and thankfully still good) rim.

I made a half joke after remounting the new spare on the trailer tongue "Now we're good, so long as we don't lose two at once"...