First Day of Fall

Saturday, September 21, 2013 

 

What a beautiful morning!  It is cool – 53 degrees and it is going to be a great day.  Feels like fall again this morning.  Yesterday, we got some much needed rain. 

I had taken my jeep into Discount Tire on Wednesday because I had gotten a piece of metal in the driver’s rear tire on the trip back from Southern Illinois.  They took a look and told me that it was a wide cut and could not be repaired.  They also told me that the tires were the original tires.  Even though they looked new, they are in fact eight years old.  Too old to take to the Southwest this winter, so new tires are in order.  I made an appointment for Friday to put new tires on.

Took it in on Friday, and within an hour the tires were on.  They are Falken, size 30X9.50X15LT Rocky Mountain all-terrain tires. 

Took it on a ride up to 55 mph to test them out and the ride has improved tremendously!  Before, the jeep made loud street noise while going down the road and there was a definite wobble around 55 mph.  Being my first jeep, I thought this was just how it was with small vehicles with tall tires.  The ride now is just great!  I am so happy to spend $446 to fix the handling problem.

I have also gotten several other thing for the trip over the past month.  For my birthday, Dolly bought me a Kindle Fire HD.  I can use it to Google Map locations for campgrounds and State Parks as we travel and it is great for Kindle books.  I recently downloaded “Hiking Big Bend National Park”.  This will be a great tool for knowing where to hike once we get there.

I also bought a CD of “Microsoft Streets and Trips - 2013” software which is a great tool for creating my travel plans.  I can put in starting time and how long I want to travel, when to get gas and how often I want to take breaks and the software will place them on the map for me.  I can then find overnight parks near the end of the day and map to them, so I can go directly at the end of the day.  Can’t wait to try it out.

This is my tentative travel plans to Big Bend National Park in Southern Texas and then on to Phoenix, Arizona.

Only three months till we leave.  I am hoping to start out right after Christmas.