The new tires just got wet…
We both have been layed low by a bug of some sort which gets in the way of getting back on the road.
In the interim I applied some aluminum wheel polish to try to protect the new wheels (it’s my impression aluminum wheels have a more fragile finish than chromed steel) plus applied some ‘dressing’ onto the sidewalls of our new Michelin tires. Buoyed by having gone 6 hours without an urgent trip to the bathroom and sorta-protected tires we opted for a Sunday drive on Saturday afternoon.
I’m still totally lost why the new tires seem to have done everything I had expected only from a properly done wheel alignment. I can only assume there was an internal issue with the right front or with the right rear duals. All those old tires were properly inflated and had seemed to have near-new tread depth. So it would have to be internal to those Firestone Transforce HT casings. Whatever the issue, it wasn’t visible while the tires were on the RV.
So off we went at about 2pm to the town of Safford, AZ in SE Arizona confident that any bathroom emergency was covered. We’ve been thru Safford before in order to get to Show Low, AZ. It was a poor choice of route for that earlier trip (we were dodging forest fires) but we learned it was the regional center of a farming area complete with the only hospital anywhere in the area. This time we saw what it is that the farming is about…
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| Cotton fields just east of Safford, AZ |
With apologies for the reflection in the windshield, that is a harvested cotton field on the east edge of Safford. Plus the Admiral saw a sign for a cotton growers co-op. When we left Safford 2 years ago via the west exit we saw pasture land and some farms with something that wasn’t cotton. So it must be mixed.
We did a U-turn in Safford and headed back hoping to avoid the expected T-storm. But you can guess all the hoping in the world isn’t going to stop lightning or rain when it’s ready to fall. But I t did hold off awhile.
South of town is mostly the usual Arizona desert landscape, this just before getting off the Interstate and into Benson via Pomerene Road…
We managed to get to Willcox (about 25 miles from Benson) and fuel-up at the TA station before things got serious. As feared, it took about 35 gallons to feed the beast- over $100 and less than 10 mpg… Aaarrrrggghhh!! Actually I shouldn’t whine like that: that’s about what we got for mileage with our diesel-fueled Ford F-350 which pulled our 5th wheel. Yeah, diesel is cheaper than gas but it’s a lot of $$ per mile either way. And the weight of the Vegas is about 40% of the combined weight of truck-plus-5th wheel so it ought to be better than this. Guess it’s down to air drag and poor efficiency of the Ford 6.8L V10 engine (a real beast- huge amounts of power).
We did manage to get through the west-bound section of I-10 repairs outside Willcox just after the crews quit for the day sparing us the detour. As we headed up the grade toward Texas Canyon (why call it a ‘canyon’ when it’s at the top of a grade with land sloping off on 3 sides?!) we saw the lightning: cloud-to-ground and cloud-to-cloud. Quite a show! Then the down pour and wind. It eased after the top of the grade and we dropped down into San Pedro Valley with just sprinkles.
It all worked out well till we stopped for mail inside the park and - ta-dah!! - the passenger side wiper blade fell off. It managed to tangle itself with the wiper arm so we didn’t run over it nor score the nearly new windshield. Fortunately I got the wipers stopped ASAP and there was no damage I could see.
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