Dory 2023 trip to quartzsite hamfest and palooza

[Rock-N-Ruth]

Originally Posted by joeblack5

Morning Chris, yes, that is why I put 265 on Dory, to get 1 more clearance. Luckily they fit under Elfie with minimal modification.

Chickens on their first outing

Love the chickens on leashes. I'd have never thunk it.
We're off of I 10 after ya leave Texas and before ya got to Deming. I think ya got our number.

[joeblack5]

Rock-n-ruth,. Will sure try to stop by.. a day rest would be good..
We managed to get thru Dallas. Last night at 3am on I20. Was trying to reach the second rest area on the other side of fort worth.. did not make it, to tired,so pulled of at a shell gas station.

Amazing contrast.. the place is spotless, an older gent is walking around picking up trash, washing the pumps etc.. yesterday we were at a casino / truck stop.. a young kid, nice enough, driving on a golf cart to check the trash and.. yes the cans were empty but around ..everywhere trash.. in the grass,against the fences.. but still he kept fiddling with his phone and did not come of his golf cart. We ended up cleaning the area around our parking..curious if notices the difference.

Johan

[joeblack5]

Turf,. Wow snow, hope you make it ok, be careful.

Thursday? I thought monday 23 Jan??
Safe travels.

Johan

[s2mikon]

Thanks for the trip updates, and the pictures. I like your traveling chickens idea. You be safe out there.

[joeblack5]

Hi S2,
You are welcome,

From where I was to tired to drive and stopped to sleep to the Sweetwater WASP museum turned out to be a couple of hours.

We almost did not make it because one of the professional truck drivers decided to pass us without noticing that the left lane was obstructed by a driving road block.. ehh it was exciting, he clearly had not seen anything..he pushed thru at 75 mph and I guess wanted to go pass the truck in front of us as well..then he saw it but he could not get back to the right lane. I thought he was going to slam right into the moving road block truck. fortunately the road block truck saw that he was not going to stop in time and moved his truck of the road giving the pro idiot another 150 yards to get his truck to a standstill.. there was a lot of honking going on.. and after that it was empty for a bit on the interstate..and we lived to tell another day.

This is the second time that a trucker does not see a road block.. these road block people have a stressful life.

We ended up in Sweetwater museum at 3pm.
Quite a bit of these women died ferrying planes from the factory to their final destination.. I guess the planes fresh from the factory were not thoroughly tested and that showed up in their first flights..

The B29 bomber had engine overheating issues causing fires..nicknamed Widowmaker.. colonel tibbets needed to prove to the crews that the planes were safe so a couple of female pilots from the wasp program were asked to fly the planes. ..under the motto..this plane is safe ,even women can fly it.. the women received three days of training and had an engine fire that they were able to put out..

Oh well.. people have strange ideas even still today..
We played around with Morse code and rivet making..
Nice plays for 2 hours.

[joeblack5]

Hi S2,
You are welcome,

From where I was to tired to drive and decided to sleep.. to the Sweetwater WASP museum turned out to be a couple of hours.

We almost did not make it because one of the professional truck drivers decided to pass us without noticing that the left lane was obstructed by a driving road block.. ehh it was exciting, he clearly had not seen anything.. he could not get back to the right lane because in front of us was another 18 wheeler.. fortunately the driving road block truck saw that he was not going to stop in time and moved his truck of the road giving the pro idiot another 150 yards to get his truck to a standstill.. there was a lot of honking going on.. and after that it was empty for a bit on the interstate..
We lived to tell another day.

This is the second time that a trucker does not see a road block.. these road block people have a stressful life.

We ended up in Sweetwater museum at 3pm.
Quite a bit of these women died ferrying planes from the factory to their final destination.. I guess the planes fresh from the factory were not thoroughly tested and that showed up in their first flights..

The B29 bomber had engine overheating issues causing fires..nicknamed Widowmaker.. colonel tibbets needed to prove to the crews that the planes were safe so a couple of female pilots from the wasp program were asked to fly the planes. ..under the motto..this plane is safe ,even women can fly it.. the women received three days of training and had an engine fire that they were able to put out..

Oh well.. people have strange ideas even still today..
We played around with Morse code and rivet making..
Nice plays for 2 hours.

[s2mikon]

How is your MBE doing with your 11000 pound toad? You have to be 40K gross?

[joeblack5]

Hi Michael,
If I remember correctly 23000 for dory and 11000 for Elfie, so only 34000 total.

To me it does an impressive job. 6th gear 55 mph at1700 rpm .general highway inclines it keeps at 55. Some steeper ones it drops back into 5 gear and hold at 45 to 50.
First fuel measurement came back at 9.5 mpg.
The 55 mph is computer limited.. never tried to take it out and frankly 55 is fast enough for me.. a problem is on real hills when it has to go back 4 the gear then the factory put in a torque limitation. I think to prevent standing passengers from falling over.. that is a bit of a problem on steep hills.

Johan

[Ronnie]

That seems like really good fuel mileage. My new bus has the MBE906. I am curious to see how it does.

[s2mikon]

Your fuel mileage sounds about right. Mine is 31k and change fully loaded and my toad is 5k for a total of 36k and @ 60 mph it will clock 9 mpg. At 65 mph it drops to 8.25 mpg. At 70 mph it drops to 7 mpg. So speed is very expensive. Running solo at 60 mph it will get 10.4 to 10.6. Mine will pull down on a hill until it gets a couple hundred rpm above peak torque and then just pulls like a freight train. It looks like you are having a great time and a good trip. Keep bussing!

[cadillackid]

Originally Posted by s2mikon

Your fuel mileage sounds about right. Mine is 31k and change fully loaded and my toad is 5k for a total of 36k and @ 60 mph it will clock 9 mpg. At 65 mph it drops to 8.25 mpg. At 70 mph it drops to 7 mpg. So speed is very expensive. Running solo at 60 mph it will get 10.4 to 10.6. Mine will pull down on a hill until it gets a couple hundred rpm above peak torque and then just pulls like a freight train. It looks like you are having a great time and a good trip. Keep bussing!

ive found the same with speed.. although in my case engine RPM seemed to affect speed moreso than speed itself unkess I was driving in head or crosswinds that are more than 10 MPH..


my red bus with its old transmission used to get a paltry 7-8 at its max speed of 70 MPH... the "powerstroke 7.3" running at 2600 RPM...


after the trans swap in 5th gear at 70 MPH (6th is mostly unuseable) it tach about 1900 and gets 9.5-10


at 65 it tachs about 1650-1700 (5th) and gets 11-14


if I take back roads and frive 55-60 im closer to 14 unless i go through a lot of towns.. that bus tends to do worse when it stops and goes..




the DEV bus at 65 gets 7-8, at 2600 RPM... at 60 im taching in the 2200-2300 RPM and gets 9-10..it seems to go up a little when I drive 55 but not as much as youd think..



diesel engines seem to very much have their own individual sweet spots where if you run them there they get great MPG.. if not then they just suck the fuel

[Ronnie]

Originally Posted by cadillackid

ive found the same with speed.. although in my case engine RPM seemed to affect speed moreso than speed itself unkess I was driving in head or crosswinds that are more than 10 MPH..


my red bus with its old transmission used to get a paltry 7-8 at its max speed of 70 MPH... the "powerstroke 7.3" running at 2600 RPM...


after the trans swap in 5th gear at 70 MPH (6th is mostly unuseable) it tach about 1900 and gets 9.5-10


at 65 it tachs about 1650-1700 (5th) and gets 11-14


if I take back roads and frive 55-60 im closer to 14 unless i go through a lot of towns.. that bus tends to do worse when it stops and goes..




the DEV bus at 65 gets 7-8, at 2600 RPM... at 60 im taching in the 2200-2300 RPM and gets 9-10..it seems to go up a little when I drive 55 but not as much as youd think..



diesel engines seem to very much have their own individual sweet spots where if you run them there they get great MPG.. if not then they just suck the fuel

This is what I have noticed both in my old bus even though it is gas, and also both my old Dodge trucks with the cummins. Engine speed really matters more. 2200-2300 or so for the 5.9 was a happy mix for power and economy. Pulling a trailer that is. I had enough gears(5 and a 3 speed aux.) to do 80 at 2000 rpms if I wanted, so could really tailor the rpms to what I was pulling.

[turf]

made it here!

over in the family section

trip went smooth. i may post some engine tiks on another thread..other than that, easy peasy.. stayed just ahead of the snow.

went from northeast colorado, to Albuquerque the first night. i stopped at camping world and did some repair work. second night was near seligman AZ. last day was easy drive but lots of shopping, errands.

drove thru lake havasu city and really enjoyed that route.

maybe tomorrow i'll go back and check my mileage. i think its about 7mpg.
towed my toad so i'm sure it wasnt much better.

stop by if you'reinthe hood.... yellow bus, green fiat toad.

[joeblack5]

Turf, that is fast, how many miles a day did you drive?
We arrived today in Deming and hanging with Rock-n-Ruth. Having a good time..tomorrow we will start towards quartzsite and hang with HAM crowd. Are you planning to be there the whole next week?
We were thinking to stop at palooza for a day with Elfie only.
Fiat? What kind are you towing?

[turf]

we did like 400, 400, and 200 as far as miles go. we were keeping ahead of a storm that dumped at home. home looks to have gotten 10 inches of snow.

i took offf about noon on tuesday, the snow started about sunset. peublo colorado to raton pass was a white out mess, i drove until we were out of snow and parked for the night. in the morning we woke up covered with the fresh white stuff.
the next day going thru flagstaff was the same, snow and slush. at selgman we were out of the snow, and again woke up the next day with a cover of the white stuff.

we have no plans here... going to stay at least thru the weekend, not longer than next thursday. sunday we may get out in the toad and see quartzite. just going to see what happens.

[cadillackid]

Love the Toad!.. I had one of those a few years ago.. was a blast to drive

[joeblack5]

I left a day out.. after the wasp museum we stopped in Midland,TX and visited the Permian basin oil museum.
Visited 4 yrs ago as well and now it felt even worse.. very outdated and overly simplistic. The outdoor area with vintage oil field equipment is kind of cool .
The inside has a nice mineral rock collection / display. Also a classic race car section.. kind a cool. The kids, and we to crammed ourself in a full skale mockup.
Then there is some art painting displays and a huge " hall of fame" for oil hotshots who wanted their name on display, similar to a regulars display at your local watering hole

If you stop by, do not go in and pay the ricilous high entrance price but do roam thru the outside part of the museum. Or let's say we won't visit again.

On the way out of Midland it started to get very windy. It kept me uncomfortable busy behind the wheel so we stopped for a couple of hours.

[joeblack5]

So yeah, yesterday we arrived at Rock-n-Ruth. After we believed our gps better then Rocks description we ended up on the wrong side of the mountain in someone's( Owens) backyard.
45 min later that was corrected and we had a good time with Rock and Ruth.
Beautiful area, nice sunset, freezing cold at night so I plugged the battery warmers in. The dogs were very happy with being of the road for a bit and loved the sand. Chickens were happy to..
In the morning rock and I worked a bit on a solar system he was building. Unfortunately we found some panels with broken bypass diodes. That put a little bit of a damper on the joy but we were still happy that we diagnosed and we're able to get procedure to fix the problems..
We left after our goodbyes around 1 pm.
Not even a mile later the side wind loosened one of the access panel to the roof HVAC.. no serious damage, fixed and moved on.
Rock had given us directions to a cheaper local diesel station..$4.09/ gallon
After filling up $300 I even got a free coffee from the gal behind the counter.. a real trucker with obvious bigger tanks did not get offered any so it must have been my nice looking suspenders. Lol

[turf]

lolol
i checked the receipts and im getting about 8.5 mpg.
the closer i got to here the more expensive fuel got. its close to $5, last fillup.

there is probably 200 or more buses here today. campers, vans, trailers, nice class a rigs, but mostly buses. today it has filled up.

now, i grew up in Mildland, and as a cub scout, protected president Ford, as he dedicated the opening of that museum circa 1974.

as a kid in the area, i remember Balmorhea and Monahans state parks. the museum was the best we had for entertainment back in the day. as an adult, i want to go swim at Balmorhea again just to see the how big it is...... i know how remember it.

[joeblack5]

Thanks Turf, to have some perspective. The rest of our trip to quartzsite was uneventful. We arrived at sunset so we're unable to explore the area for a good spot . Made a connection at 146.55 with the ham club to verify we were somewhat on the right area.