Happy Anniversary!! Today begins month 5 of the big trip. 🍻

I headed to the bus for a quick run out for supplies and wtf I can’t get out of park. In the past the back door interlock has kept the bus from starting when the slider is extended; I’ve never tried this dish. Not too much time to savor either as we have to leave in an hour and the store is 13 minutes away. 40 minutes later along with plenty of sweat and verbal stuff too, I find a placard which states that if the lift has power, the bus won’t shift out of park. A flick of a switch later and we are ready to roll.

My gentle reader will have no doubt already recognized this is an issue for the house power plan: if the bus won’t shift when the line I’ve been planning on using is active, that means no fridge while we are in motion. Back to sourcing a 12′ red 4 gauge wire it seems.

A 4 door truck with a full size bed was parked close to where the bus yesterday. Interestingly, their lengths were the same. I had assumed the bus was just plain longer than any non commercial vehicle.

When cruising at speeds between 55 and 60, the bus gets a whopping 16 mpg. How about that? At closer to 70 and 100 dB, slightly more than 11.

Really, the bus needs suspension help along with muffling the mighty engine. As in I can see my passengers bouncing up and down far too often and for sure a smoother ride would reduce some of the banging right?

One of my plans when we’re in Albuquerque is to tend to these and other maintenance and improvement matters. If the Nissan’s “heavy duty” shocks were $750, I wonder what the bill will be for the bus?

We left Denver a bit after 2, headed for Crestone and the most serious mountain passes yet. These are multi mile ascents and descents with turns, lots of cars and 7-9% grades. Temperatures in the low 90s. Plenty of opportunity for a modestly experienced driver used to managing a mini truck to make things exciting.

While the bus had plenty of power for the hills, I’m not confident with what is the safe upper operating temperature range. Today we pushed it higher than ever and lord the intercooler was roaring.

Going down, I stayed in 2nd and at times became the lead for quite a train. Unlike other drives where I was much more casual, the elevated focus made plain the generous collection of dual wheel skid marks decorating the road. I’ve read the big rigs can total 80,000 lbs, dwarfing my paltry 11,000. Much props to the focus and patience those drivers must possess.

We keep looking around for the mamos. Especially when we’re boarding. Sadly we are all alone for now.

At 8 pm, we pulled into Crestone greeted by another fabulous sunset and enjoyed a meal with new and old friends.