Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Hello from Prescott, Iowa

Hello from Prescott, Iowa

Tuesday evening  May 22, 2012   (Second travelogue of this trip).

Thursday morning we left North Platte about 10:00 and got to Corning about 4:30.  That was just in time to temporarily park the bus and join Pat's cousin so that we could go Jeanne's mom's nursing home annual barbeque.  After the barbeque we drove the bus over the Bill and Jeanne's farm where we parked in our “reserved” spot (map) .

I thought I would go back and discuss the wind that we encountered both days of our travel.  We have only been in worse conditions one other time (they closed the highway to high profile vehicles that time).  The wind was so bad that it blew our rather heavy engine door open twice.  That is not a big deal, but it really got our attention.  In addition, one of our clearance light covers blew off while I was fueling (and getting sandblasted!).

Thankfully, the bus handles pretty well in the wind.  It was a south wind and each time we went by a hill, underpass, or trees, I had to quickly adjust the steering wheel of the change in wind velocity.  Passing semis was a bit of a challenge, but I did not feel at risk.

The car and tow dolly seemed to do well.  I am not completely happy with the wheel strap system, so I have ordered a couple of pieces of hardware that should make securing the car quite a bit easier.  The tow dolly has surge disc brakes and that makes quite a difference in the braking.  Of course, we are getting better mileage since we are pulling a light car vs the heavy service truck (9600 pound).  We are fortunate to have a very powerful engine in the bus, so it is hard to tell the difference in performance, but the improvement in mileage is welcome.  I have attached a picture of the bus/car combination.



The weather back here has been great.  Warm in the day and quite cool in the evening.   There has been no recent rain, so the humidity is low.  The lack of rain is not good for the newly planted crops.  Bill finished up the last of the beans on Friday.

Pat and Jeanne have been working on Jeanne's mom's house to get it ready to rent to her nephew and his wife.  Bill and I have been getting some work done on some vehicles.  We installed a new roof air conditioner on Joel and Nikki's motorhome and we have been working on the AC in Bill's semi truck.  That AC is acting very strange according to my gauges and we will have to continue to sort out what is going on.

Sunday we went to the auction at Pat's uncle's facility.  It was not a huge auction, but I did manage to buy a few tools (pretty good bargains).  They have another auction next Sunday that sounds like it will have some pretty neat stuff.  We always enjoy the auctions!!!

That is all for now.

No comments: