1. A day and a half with just the kids making our way to Atlanta.
2. A day and a half in Tybee, GA with friends at the beach.
3. A day in Pensacola, FL touring the Naval Air Museum.
4. Two days in New Orleans.
5. A day in Houston touring the Space Center.
6. A day in Carlsbad Caverns, NM
7. A half-day in Roswell, NM (passing through, might as well).
8. A day and a half in Albuquerque, NM, visiting family and touring the Petroglyphs.
9. A day in OK at the National Cowboy Museum.
10. A half-day in Arkansas at the Crater of Diamonds (in the morning before it gets hot).
11. A day at Graceland in TN.
12. A day at Mammoth Cave National Park, KY.
13. A day at Natural Tunnel State Park, VA.
14. A day and a half in Whitmer, WV, visiting family.
15. Finally a half-day at home to unpack and do laundry, then a full day of sleeping in and doing nothing before heading back to work.

Very good to know.  We found that out after making our reservation, and they don't do refunds.  We were just going to rough it that night - and hope the temps fell low enough to be comfortable with a fan or two.  I'll mention that campground to my wife, we might just eat the $17 loss at the in-park campground to have A/C.

Well, if I don't show up at the Hilton Sunday morning there will be problems...  if you can tell me how to get there without going into the center of the city let me know.    At least it will be Sunday morning and not a Monday afternoon. 

Looking forward to Tybee and a quick trip into Savannah.  The girls and wife want to see the home of the person that started Girl Scouts so we'll be there for a few hours one morning.  But we'll spend about a day in Tybee with my best friend from college who now lives just north of Atlanta.  I spent two years about 3 hours north of Atlanta in Murfreesboro, TN.  Only made one trip south when the Dead played Atlanta one weekend.  Wasn't much of a Dead Head but some friends were.

My wife has started a blog to track this, and future major trips...

Yup, it drove us inside about an hour and 1/2 ago.  Didn't sleep well last night (my oldest has an ear ache so I was up putting drops in her ears at 3:30), so I'll probably go to bed a bit early.    

My wife just made another blog post, but here is my 2 cents.  We spent about 11 hours on the road yesterday driving from Tybee to the Walmart just north of the Pensacola Naval Air Station.  They wanted us to park to the rear (a normal request) but I wished I had parked on the northern side instead of on the southern side.  After getting plugged in with the generator running I realized there was project housing not far away with a path that dumped out right at that corner of the lot.  I was a bit worried but said a prayer and went to bed, in the end we had an uneventful night.  We were up at 7:15 when the genset ran out of gas, 8 hours after I filled it.

The National Naval Air Museum was top notch, and we really could have spent 2 full days absorbing everything in there.  Unfortunately even though we were there on a Wednesday, the Blue Angels are currently grounded due to the budget cuts.  They practice right there on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  They said 11,000 people showed up for their final practice before they stopped.  We were there right as the museum opened so we got space on one of their flight-line bus (trolley) tours.  There are several dozen aircraft in unrestored condition over there, plus you can see several in a hangar actively being restored.  Some notable items there are the only C-130 ever to take off and land on a carrier, and the only non-fighter aircraft that was in the air when everything else was grounded after 9/11.  In the museum itself there are interesting pieces like the first plane ever to cross the Atlantic (hint, it wasn't Lindbergh's), a full set of Blue Angels in formation hanging from the ceiling, and one more on the ground.  The cafe has most of the pieces from the officer's club on the Naval base we had in the Philippines until 1992.  One thing that amazed me about this museum is unlike so many others there are few barriers around the exhibits.  You walk around and under the planes the whole time and except for the ones hanging from the ceiling you are able to touch them.  The only barrier I saw was around a Lunar Excursion Module mock-up, necessary due to the lightweight foil that covers it which would be easily destroyed.  After 6+ hours my wife and the kids were done so we headed across the street to the light house since my wife loves them (I like them too).  Unfortunately a heavy storm front was rolling in so we only got a few minutes there before we were back in the car.

Several hours later we made it to New Orleans, and we'll spend the next 2 days exploring the area.

My wife's phone has a different voice and they named it Jessie.  When they realized mine had a different voice than my wife's they had to come up with a new name for it.  We were all getting a little slap-happy on the trip home, venturing through some back alleys on the edge of NO trying to get back to I-10.  We ended up going right by the Superdome so that was cool to see up-close.

My wife's new blog post is about to go up.  Today's adventure was the French Quarter again, but the main goal was riding the Natchez up the Mississippi while eating lunch.  After that we wandered around to more shops, stopped for a drink, etc.  Tomorrow is a fairly long day of driving to Houston.

We weren't even in Texas yet, but we struck oil.  As we were finishing up this morning, ready to leave NO for Houston, I noticed a large oil puddle under the truck.  That is not something you want to see near home let alone 1000 miles from home.  I checked the oil and it was at the lowest mark on the dipstick, so we tracked down the local Chevy dealer.  I hoped they could see us at all with no appointment, and then hoped if it was a big problem (like a seal or cracked pan) that they could do it before closing time today.  I didn't want to hang out until Monday afternoon as much as I liked New Orleans.  

Major kudos to the service manager, she got a mechanic out to the parking lot for a quick diagnosis within 20 minutes and we were back on the road within 45 minutes at a cost of less than $7.  No labor cost, just 2 quarts of oil.  Apparently the oil filter was loose - 13 turns too loose.  I don't know how it wasn't squirting oil all over the place.  I can only guess that my mechanic back home didn't tighten it enough, maybe at all, when he did a full inspection and maintenance work just before we left for the trip.  We made it to Houston this evening even with a 3-hour late start (we grocery shopped and ate lunch too).  Earlier I sent a glowing review to the dealership so hopefully the service manager and mechanic get pats on the back on Monday.

I haven't finished worrying though.  Before today the oil pressure was always rock-solid on 40 psi.  I don't remember seeing it anywhere else even over the last week of hard towing.  Today on the way to the dealer and then the rest of the way here it would fluctuate between 30 and 40 while moving and would drop as low as 20 when stopped.  I looked around online and everyone says the numbers are all normal, but that isn't reassuring me much.

On to see the Houston Space Center tomorrow.  I'll check the oil level before we leave and look for an oil spot under the truck...

Added the blog to my sig, good idea.

Still issues with the fridge.  It won't stay cool going down the road on DC or gas mode.  It won't cool at all in gas mode actually, even sitting still.  It will cool down to 39 in AC mode.  A week ago I tried wiring one of the two fans "on" permanently but that didn't help at all.  Today I wired it back to normal, and pulled the burner assembly apart looking for blockages.  Blew some air up the chimney and tested out the burner - it ignites with a nice blue flame and re-ignites immediately if I blow it out.  I'm stumped.  Obviously the ammonia cycle is working fine since it will cool down properly in AC mode.  Since it has problems in the other two modes I can only guess that the control board is bad.  But I can't see how that would affect the gas mode since the flame is burning normally...

Sitting in Roswell, NM right now, next to an alien.  Seriously.  Our camping neighbor has taken an alien all around on their 7 weeks of travels this summer and it is sitting next to their camper.  My wife will get a pic of it up on the blog.  Loved Carlsbad Caverns today, and only had a short drive to the campground tonight.  We'll spend some time tomorrow morning around town and then on to Albuquerque for 2 nights.

P & M, I let her know, thanks!

As for the fridge, I don't think banging or inverting will do anything, since it works fine on AC mode.  The ammonia absorption cycle is operating properly, or even AC mode wouldn't work.  I tried DC mode again today on the road and it did worse than gas mode had been doing earlier in the day.

I tested out DC mode last night and it turns out it is working - while sitting still.  So AC and DC are ok in-camp.  DC doesn't keep it cold on the road, and gas doesn't work at all at this point even though it has a good flame.  Won't have a chance to hit Camping World before we leave, we are having breakfast with my uncle at 8 and then on the road for about 10 hours to OK.

We went to the Petroglyphs and Pueblo Indian Museum today.  We are fortunate that the temps are so far below normal, it has made the whole trip the last few days very comfortable.  Off to bed soon.

We've been getting to camp late the last few nights plus I'm starting to drag a bit, so I've been less active online...

Odd about the blog, we've received comments from others.  We were at Diamond Caverns RV park last night.  Got up late today and did the New Entrance tour of the cave 12:30-2:30, then walked down and into the Natural Entrance just to show the kids what it looks like.  You can actually walk in a few hundred feet before you hit the security barrier.  We did see the Vette Museum as we passed by, no time to take it in this trip (along with many other things).  We are now at Natural Tunnel State Park and will be here all day tomorrow, we scheduled it in as a bit of a R & R stop.  Next and final stop is my wife's cousin's place in WV.  That will also be a bit relaxed but there are plans to tour the big radio telescope facility in the radio-free zone and take in a steam train ride near there.

A few random comments.  First, we lost our spare tire cover somewhere in OK a few days ago.  It was always on there tightly so I do wonder if it "walked" away instead of blowing off on the highway.  Looks a bit naked back there now.

Finally had to get more propane yesterday.  We didn't start off with much from the start but showers in truck stop lots finally took it lower than I wanted.  They purged the tank in the process since I wondered if air in the tank was causing my fridge issue in gas mode - nope.  Got up to near 70 on the road yesterday even though it started off around 39 while on AC overnight.

The roads coming to the latest campground (Natural Tunnel State Park in VA) were the steepest so far.  The mpg meter got down to 2 mpg when it never went below 4 out in the Rockies.  It was also struggling at the two worst parts, I hope not a symptom of a problem.  I don't expect any struggles with over 300 hp and torque and a trailer less than 3000 pounds...

I can only guess the struggle was due to very high grades - I think the 2 spots I had a problem with were over 10% - and I have been running the tranny rather warm due to the generator box up front (a problem I'm going to fix before I use the box again).  

We did tour Green Bank, my wife hasn't caught up on the blog posts due to being in the "national radio-free zone" around it.

Back home safe around 5 today, time to get to bed!

Some stats from this trip.  I kept notes at each fill-up of the miles traveled, gallons bought, money paid.  I'll crunch all of those numbers later to get my own measured mpg numbers per leg and the totals for the trip.  In the mean time here are the numbers from the truck's computer, including towing and side trips:

5841.6 miles total, 9.1 mpg, 643 gallons, 120 hours 46 minutes of run-time. 

I believe I've solved the fridge problem when in gas mode.  Today I pulled the burner assembly out (still attached, just loose) and blew a strong blast of air on it. The flame was then much stronger. Where it wouldn't cool at all during the trip, right now after about 4 hours in gas mode it is now reading 34.5 F.  Yay! 

I also opened the chimney and pulled out the diffuser, then blew air down there, but it was all clean so I'm sure that wasn't the problem.  The diffuser didn't have any carbon or dirt on it.

We don't keep the freezer divider in place, but the temperature sensor was on the top shelf.  With the temperature control set to 5 it got down to 29 degrees the next morning, then I changed it to 1 and it went up to 45 when I got home from work.  Set to 3 it held in the upper 30's.  All of this time the outside temps were in the 60's and 70's.

While on our trip AC mode would hold around 39 degrees with outside temps in the 80's and 90's.  DC mode was a bit warmer in camp and would rise up to 70 degrees on the road.