Day 4 started out good and early, headed from the Pine Springs Rest Area on 62 to the TX/NM border before taking a right (right at the border) to 652 which leads into Orla. We were warned that this stretch gets into oilfield traffic and it did hold true. The first section was good and quiet. But dang it got hot early! We took a break (my hours are rough because we transitioned from mountain time to central time at some point in the day) from around Noon to 4ish. Watched some downloaded Netflix, I did my chores (which I'll describe more about) and chilled for a bit. Then once it started to cool a bit, she took off for her second chunk of miles for the day still on 652.
She has picked up some awesome presents along the way...first the 10 pesos coin for my services and today it was we think a dog toy - a purple squeaky hippo with tags on still. We dubbed him Henry the hippo, our mascot.
So what do I do all day, you ask? :) Well, a few things. After I find a good stop along the road somewhere near the distance we agree for me to meet her, I plug in the solar panels to charge the battery that runs the fridge. I may wash dishes from the meal or two before hand, hand wash some laundry as needed, refill water jugs from the 2 6 gal containers we have in the back, sweep out the van, refill drinks in the ice chest, bag and update our toilet bag (yes, we have a toilet on board and it is AMAZING!), tidy up the van, get ready prepping for the next stop of what she may need food wise, get the step stool set up and maybe her chair, charge electronics that need it....I think that covers most of it. Oh, and we brought 8 lb dumbbells so I have been trying to get a few workouts in every so often, so far shoulder day and bi's/tri's. In evening, I boil water for the shower and get that set up for us. Three square meals a day...damn, I sound like a house wife, lol! We were joking about that yesterday. I had my morning chores list (on our awesome white board my sis-in-law let us borrow - thanks!), and then had some afternoon chores to do as well. I did get a bit of downtime and watched part of a Netflix show and tried to blog to no success yesterday. I ended up taking an 8 minute video tour of our van set up - little lame but hopefully it memorializes most of what we did to make this happen (mainly Keith made it happen) with the van.
Rebecca's second chunk of miles in the evening is when the oilfield traffic was felt the most. Mainly the 18 wheeler sand trucks flying by - they picked up as we got closer to 3541 (Armamdo was right! :)). And the one lane construction zones - UGH! We had a long one during the day, but closer to Orla there were three more. I saw 2 18 wheelers completely blow through the lights since there wasn't traffic on the other side. So I warned Rebecca to be careful - she took headlamps to navigate through on the other side of the barrier thankfully. We called it a night and parked at the Chevron oil field station/lodging about 10 miles from Orla. Total of 41 miles for the day! She is doing great - just some general soreness...oh ya, I do Airrosti now, too!
Ok, got to go catch up to her. I will hopefully have service near Mentone later to give an update on how Day 5 is going - so far so good!
