I drove my little truck 420 miles on the weekend to visit my 95 year old Ma and have a late Christmas with her and my sister. The weather was awful, 90 degrees F on Saturday, and my poor little "Poverty Pack" truck has no aircon, so drove all the way with the windows down. Could have been worse, I saw quite a few guys on bikes with all the safety gear on, they must have been melting. The road to one town I usually pass through was blocked by the police and we were detoured around the town. Turns out a motorcyclist and a car collided and the rider was killed.
Anyway, arrived safely and had a good night with my Ma and big sister, who'd just come back from Hawaii where she'd had Christmas with my American niece, who lives in California. Drove back early to miss some of the heat, and had a much more enjoyable drive back, as the temps had dropped 10 degrees or so. The little truck drove like a champ and I was happy that it was averaging 33 MPG, as fuel is super expensive at the moment because it's still the holiday season and of course the oil companies like to gouge us for every penny, whenever they can. I probably could have made it there and home on one tank, but filled up again on the way home because fuel was cheaper in the country than in the city.
By 11am, with an hour left to drive home, the rain came crashing down. It's flooding in several areas here, so I'm glad (again) that I decided to drive the truck than ride any of my bikes. Hopefully the rain will go away by Wednesday and I'll get some rides in. I brought back a little electric/hydraulic wood splitter that I'd bought for my dad when he was still alive, I'm thinking of using the hydraulics to convert my bike lift to electric, rather than have to pump it up by foot, or take forever to raise it using the compressed air option. Regardless, the little truck is still going great. I need to strip the horrible black paint off the rims and paint them the original silver, I might do that this week when the sun comes out again.
Triton Sunday 7 January 2024 by
Terry Prendergast, on Flickr