Morning
thoughts: The truck seems to have anti-freeze issues when towing the
camper…not overheating issues just heater issues. It’s obvious when it needs to
be checked because the heater blows cooler air and this morning it was cycling
every few minutes from warm to cool.
Definitely not the day to have cooler air blowing on my feet…outside
temperature was 11o when we left the hotel at 8:15 a.m. and had
dropped to 7o in two hours. There’s no snow so that’s a plus but
sometimes that snowless cold can be especially brutal. Adding anti-freeze usually solves the problem
but we’re on a section of road with few exit options so we’ll have to deal with
the hot and cool until we get to an exit with a gas station. **Note:
My weather app indicates that it’s a few degrees warmer back in
Charlevoix. However, it looks like Charlevoix
will stay in the teens while the local forecast is predicting temps to get into
the mid-20s today. Seeing that it’s
already noon and the temperature has only risen to ten degrees I think the
local forecast may be wishful thinking.
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Last night we’d been settled in the room for over an hour when the quiet
was broken by Rapunzel saying, “Go west on (some road), then turn left.” What the hell?! Nothing prompted this random bossiness---which
was actually kind of creepy. Was she
just talking in her sleep or is there something afoot in the world of AI?
----------
Today
I plugged in our destination, looked at the route options and selected one
without toll roads. Then because I was
wary of her changing routes on me again, I checked to see if it had
changed. Yes, it had. Did this little dance with her three more
times, getting angrier each time and finally ended up calling her a nasty name
before Kim suggested I set her up to avoid tolls. Well, I wasn’t sure where the app had hidden
that feature but I had the time to investigate so I started pushing buttons to
see where they would lead me. Found the
settings, pushed the appropriate switch, set the route again and life was
calmer.
Later
in the day thoughts: Well, the no toll road thing was short lived…Kim got
confused on a roundabout leading to the Kansas Turnpike and before you know it
we were committed but still confused so we ended up not getting a toll ticket. And I thought Rapunzel sounded a little too
gleeful when she said, “In a quarter mile merge onto US 35” and “Stay on US 35
for 15 miles”.
It
became evident that Rapunzel was trying to keep us off the toll roads when she directed
us get off the Turnpike at the earliest opportunity---at the exit for the
“Scenic Area--Bazaar Cattle Pens”. Not
knowing what we were getting into we followed her directions; it was a gravel
exit leading to a cattle loading area with several roads branching off that had
signs stating “Authorized Vehicles Only”.
She was insistent that we turn left but there was nothing to the left to
turn onto. Although Kim was willing to
work with her, I really couldn’t see this ending well so we got back on the
toll road to see what the next exit looked like.
 |
| Kim paying the toll |
Well,
the next exit looked better simply because it was paved but we eventually came
to an unmanned tollbooth that wanted us to insert our ticket and
pay the toll before it would lift the barricade. We had no ticket.
Kim was looking at the options on the
tollbooth while I was looking for a way
around
the barricade because backing up wasn’t an option and we..had..no..ticket.
After a moment he noticed a ‘Help’ button
which was good because I didn’t think he’d go for my idea.
😏
A
very polite lady answered our call for help and several minutes later we put
the required amount of money in the slot, the barricade lifted and we were on
our way to Newton. It was an unplanned thirty
eight mile drive on a road less travelled through rolling Kansas farmland but
at least the road was paved.
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As long as we were going through Newton, KS, we made a Roadside America
stop…a Beatles mural on the side of a building. It was easy find and we were
back on US 50 in less than 15 minutes.
There were several other murals on buildings in Newton that didn’t get a
mention in Roadside America. Wonder why
that is.
Roadside America’s blurb about the mural: According to a news story in Harvard County Now, the owner of
the building, Kelly Hayes, wanted a mural painted on its outside wall for his
60th birthday. When the artist, Mark Pendergrass, asked what he should paint,
Kelly answered, "Hell, I don't know. The Beatles."
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We’re surrounded by oodles of wind turbines which means it’s windy. I can feel a gust pushing us sideways every
now and again but nothing that Kim can’t handle. From previous trips I remember
the wind of Texas and the hundreds, maybe thousands of wind turbines dotting
the landscape but I don’t particularly remember any along this route through Kansas…and
I know we’ve been this way before. Are they
in rows or just randomly placed? It’s time for a Google search.
The following is just one section
of an article found on the website sciencedaily.com. The article is dated April 1,
2014; it details research done at John Hopkins University; and is entitled “Wind
energy: New insight into best arrangement of wind turbines on large
installations”.
How Wind Farms are Currently Designed
Many considerations go
into the design of a wind farm. The most ideal turbine arrangement will differ
depending on location. The specific topology of the landscape, whether hilly or
flat, and the yearlong weather patterns at that site both dictate the specific
designs. Political and social considerations may also factor in the choice of
sites.
Common test cases to
study wind-farm behavior are wind farms in which turbines are either installed
in rows, which will be aligned against the prevailing winds, or in staggered,
checkerboard-style blocks where each row of turbines is spaced to peek out
between the gaps in the previous row.
Staggered farms are generally preferred because they harvest more
energy in a smaller footprint, but what Stevens and his colleagues showed is
that the checkerboard style can be improved in some cases.
Specifically, they found that better power output may be obtained
through an "intermediate" staggering, where each row is imperfectly
offset -- like a checkerboard that has slipped slightly out of whack.
Not sure what I was seeing: rows,
staggered or intermediate staggering. I
just know it was miles of turbines.
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Heading west when the sun is setting is
killer on Kim’s eyes. Add to that a
dirty windshield (both inside and out) and it made for an intense hour or
so. Kim had informally set a mileage
goal and now that the sun is just a reflection on the horizon, it might be
attainable with minimal eye strain.
----------
Overall, I never saw the temperature get
above 23o but the sun was out all afternoon and that made all the
difference. The cab got so warm the
heater had to be turned off. It was a 12
hour travel day and we put over 600 miles behind us. We should much easier drives tomorrow and Friday because of it.
We’re staying at a Best Western in Dalhart,
TX---home of one of the largest cattle yards I’ve seen. In my opinion its nearest competition would
be The Red River Feed Lot near Maricopa, AZ.
Both yards are massive…feeding the cattle and tending to the manure
would be full time jobs for several people.
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Spending hours on the road as a passenger
offers me the opportunity to just let my thoughts wander wherever they will. Earlier
in the day I had made a comment and from that a half-baked idea kept by dancing
around in my head but it never got close enough to grab. Tried writing it out
but the result of that was just a good workout of the ‘delete’ key. Then the phrase ‘purpose statement’ took root
and after puzzling that through I realized what I had been trying to articulate
with my writing was a purpose statement about our adventures but I was using
very clunky language. Gave that some
more thought and finally came up with this as a purpose statement for a Kim n
Karen Adventure: Staying open to finding the new in the familiar. It’s not clunky, it’s concise and kind of
clever and it serves absolutely no purpose other than it kept my brain and
hands occupied for the better part of 3 hours.
Such is the struggle to stay entertained on a long drive. 😎
