New England B.S. Thread

Totally fine. Didn’t even realized what happened for a few seconds before seeing a big bow tie emblem in his rear view mirror. Moron never even attempted to stop and smoked him from behind. Bend the entire frame and destroyed the rear end.

 

This. When my Tacoma needed a battery, a stock from Toyota battery was cheaper than any parts store.

 

No problem!

 

Hope he got out and smoked the bellend behind the wheel!!! WTF

 

Jeez, hell of a way to lose your truck

 

Day Two of travel to Austin.

A couple of corrections to Day One. Gas in Sturbridge was $3.94, not $3.49. We traveled on I-81, not I-18. Total mileage was 627, which I forgot to include.

Day two, total distance was supposed to be 660, but ended up at 674. We left Harrisonburg at 07:30, which was a half hour earlier than planned. Weather was iffy, with some rain forecast. Good news was that there was no road construction because of the weather. Bad news was rain dogged us all of the way to Jackson, TN which is where we are overnighting.

Good news is that there is a Walmart gas station in Abingdon, VA right off of I-81. $3.81/gallon, which was about $0.27/gallon less than the other five stations there. I had about half a tank, so decided top off. Headed south through Roanoke and then turned west onto I-40. It had been raining as I said, but it was bands of heavy rain, then nothing, then light rain, then clear. We went through that cycle 5-6 times over the day. The worst was somewhere near Knoxville, TN where we had so slow down to about 40MPH because the rain was so heavy that there was standing water on the road. Mixed in with lightning and even some light (soft) hail. Even at 40MPH it felt like the front tires were floating a bit. Weird feeling.

We stopped along the way for a bathroom break and the Exxon station had gas for $3.74/gallon. Topped off again since that was the cheapest price around. May seem silly to track this, but it ads up with all the miles were putting on.


We cleared than and about 4:00PM we came to a dead stop on I-40. No reason, but Waze showed "Object on Road." Turns out that the Vice President was coming into town and they closed I-40 for about an hour. We sat there and waited. Waited some more. Finally they opened the road. If we had known, we'd have taken I-840 north of the city and avoided the whole mess. By the time we found that out, we were about 100 miles west of Nashville. A lady at a gas station told us that she had seen it on the news the night before.

At least we had eaten earlier in the day. Chik Fil A for those who care.

As it turns out there are no news radio stations like WBZ in Boston. The TV news station websites mentioned that she was coming into town, but nothing about road closures. Great.

Continued west and around 6:00PM stopped for dinner at a truck stop. Arby's, again for those that care. We were still over 100 miles from the hotel, so we slogged on through light rain.

I tried to keep to 75MPH, but in TN the average speed is about 80, so I did a lot of lane swapping.

A note about the adaptive cruise control. I've come to like it a bit. I play with the sensitivity (range) of the radar depending on weather and traffic. It works well, but there are times I'd flick it off and just drive like normal. Especially in heavy traffic. Even my slow reflexes are just a bit faster and more flexible than the radar controlled speed adjustment.

Somewhere around Knoxville we passed into Central Time, which screwed me up for a few minutes because I thought that we had somehow picked up an hour. Nice dream.

One thing I figured out after following signs for gas or food and got off the highway. If you can't see the gas station or restaurant from the bottom of the ramp, get back on and go to the next exit. It's easy to waste 15 or more minutes trying to find a place that is miles from the exit. Eff that.

We finally got to the hotel in Jackson, TN at 7:30 Central, which meant that it was 8:30 Eastern. 13 hours on the road.

Tomorrow we do the final leg to Austin. 725 miles according to Waze and about 11 hours. Which means another 12-13 hours on the road.

On the way back, we're going to do three nights, not two. I think we'll stop near Little Rock, AR the first night, then south of Nashville for some possible relocation scouting, then some where in on I-81 in VA. Probably north of Harrisonburg to make the last day a bit shorter.

I think the next Austin trip will be in the air and then rent a car there. Or, a three night drive. Three days of driving is a real grind. On the road back, I expect we'll run into road construction which we didn't today.

One last thing. While running the defroster today there was what I'd call an burnt oil spell in the truck. It went away after about 10-15 minutes and got better when I turned the temp control colder. My only thought is that the cabin air filter needs a change. I don't know if it was ever done before, although I might have done one somewhere along the line. The AC works fine without any smell. If anyone has any thoughts on that, I'd appreciate them. I know how to change the filters as my wife's '07 Highlander has one and I've changed it a number of times.

The day three travelogue might have to wait until Sunday depending on when we get to Austin. Our daughter has come down with COVID, so we might drop our stuff at the hotel and go right to her place to check on her. Mild symptoms, which is good. She was going to call her doctor today, but forgot, so she's not very ill. Which is good.

On the way back I might have a "Driving 2,000 miles with COVID" story, but I hope not.

 

Seth @Sloth I need to do my "prison cell" workout. I call it that because I have to do them at my hotel room in NY and the room is very small. Anyways do you have any good workouts I can do in very limited space without any weights or anything???

 

Can you bring a yoga mat?

 

I could but I won't. Lol

 

my ex used to bring trx equipment with him to hotels. i think you just throw it over a door

 

also i think actual prisoners just do a lot of push ups and dips according to my extensive research, aka 60 Days In

 

Yeah what rolls Royce said.

Dips, push ups with varying foot heights (can use bed, tables, walls), body weight squats and lunges, sit ups, leg raises, flutter kicks, etc.

 

Far from perfect, but I'm not a professional and it's not a show truck. Not getting any closer than this.

 

Looks great!

 

I need a Hello Kitty patch!

 

Looks clean. VT winters did a number on those sliders huh

 

I gotchu

 

What is your average MPG so far?

 

All the armor is hurting. I'm planning to pull it all off and sandblast it all, then repaint it in the next few weeks here.