On the Road, Finally

Yesterday afternoon the UPS shipment I had been awaiting arrived. I finished moving stuff into the rig, trimmed my beard, took a shower, packed the dish and was on my way at 3 PM. First stop was to buy propane in Truckee and then I got on 80 and headed east towards Colorado. I thought I was going to buy gas for the rig in Reno but I kept going and finally saw a station with easy access and filled the tank. It came to almost $80 at $2.80 a gallon. I pulled over in the station to check the GPS and discovered I had pulled over at Mustang Ranch Road. It’s a little strange that a road would be named after a whorehouse but then a lot of streets and roads and towns have strange names. I didn’t see the whorehouse but I will remember the location.

The MS Streets and Trips GPS receiver is working really well. I thought it would from previous testing at my home. After reading several posts on Yahoo groups, I thought I might have problems with the receiver locking onto satellites. The posts had been from folks who found it necessary to place their receiver on the roof of their rig or just below the escape hatch. Their reasoning was that the metal skin of their rig was interfering with satellite locking. Their receivers must be old or faulty because my receiver works just fine laying on the dashboard.

At sundown I found a good place to park behind a vacant building but decided to keep going for a while. I think from now on I will locate a place to park for the night while it is still daylight because it was kind of stressful trying to find a place to park at night. Finally after driving about 170 miles from Truckee I found a place beside the road that was level and I could be safely away from the traffic on 50. I made myself a meatloaf sandwich and went to bed around 9 PM.

I didn’t sleep too well. I lay awake thinking of all the things that had finally come together to allow me to take this trip and composing this post in my head. Finally I got some sleep and awoke just before dawn around 6:30 AM. It rained a little last night and this morning as I drove the 36 miles into Austin, Nevada where I am now parked writing this post. I went to the International Hotel, Bar and Café for a piece of peach pie and a couple of cups of coffee which really hit the spot. And you could even smoke a cigarette afterwards.

I have found a unsecured WiFi network but there isn’t enough strength to upload this post.

I had to drive on to Ely, Nevada where I am posting this via cell phone at 1 PM.

Here's hoping to see you On the Road with Gary.