Thursday, October 18, Sweetwater, TX

Hi bloggoheads, I'll bet you thought we croaked somewhere back in New Mexico.  Not so, today was a much better day.  We managed to make a full 289 miles in spite of a fairly late start at(10 AM) -- and the loss of an hour due to time change in TX.  That included a slow and strenuous 2nd gear climb out of the Pecos valley east of Roswell.

Our leaky leak is on the vertical section on the left end of that manifold.  Streaks on engine are from blown coolant.

We did a little work on the leaking manifold in Roswell first thing.  A little patch of JB weld around the manifold did no good, the leak continues unabated.  It's not all that bad, we lose a quart or two of water every 100 miles.  But it's making our lovely engine look pretty ratty.  The water hits the manifold, and is blown back against the firewall. So far it's just a cosmetic problem, my only concern is if it gets worse, we may have to stop on the side of the road and fix it while being checked over by coyotes, javilinas, bobcats, and armadillos.

We didn't run out of gas or lose a needle valve today.  No tail winds either, winds were very calm all day.  No vapor lock. So that's real progress.   Running out of gas yesterday got our attention.  We now stop about every 100 miles or less for fuel.  Gas is a bit cheaper here.  Good thing, because the best we do is 10 MPG.  The car ran great.  Ken drove it for quite a few miles, Buick was not fussy at all today.

THE ECONOMY IS COLLAPSING!!  This is obvious, everyone is fleeing the country to find jobs and filling up all the luxury hotels in TX.  We were shocked to find that with about 5 big box hotels in Sweetwater, we could find only two rooms in separate hotels.  Not cheap either, these rooms are $122 each.  Them's real dollars too, not those lousy, devalued New Mexican dollars....Seriously, we have had problems finding rooms on this trip, Roswell was crowded too.  I really didn't think this would be an issue in October, not exactly peak season for vacationers. 

Anyway, all is well in Sweetwater.  Got great service and delicious meal at a local cafe.  Tomorow morning we will  take another crack and fixing the crack in the water manifold.  And then we will tackle a tough 50 miles of I-20 to take us around and through Abeline, TX.

See you all down the road.  Now check out this actual unretouched movie of some of our trip...