Picking up the Roost, Report Three:
The Fatal Flaw: OK, it's not fatal, but it's wounding indeed to notice that the Subaru
just lacks a few HP for going up steep hills - for example, going over Sonora Pass [CA 108] today,
we were the second car of the season - I have a pic of the guy unlocking the gate for us - we let the
guy with the Forunner go first...well, it's a 26% grade up this little pass. We were forced to resort
to first gear several times, and going down, we were insanely pleased to have trailer brakes.
That being said, we do rather have to flog it hard at altitude but at least it goes.
From Ruidoso, we headed west and ended up camping in Arizona where we had temps down to 20 degrees -
our water system froze and we got up and got the heck out of there, and headed towards Tucson, AZ for
a few days visit with my parents - we got to sleep in a king bed and use a private shower for three nights!
We did get one nice accessory - we got a 1.5" thick TempurPedic pad to go on top of the stock mattress -
although it's warmer and reduces foot clearance somewhat, the added comfort was seems to be worth it.
We decided to take at least two days to get home and headed towards Death Valley, sticking to all back
roads to avoid truck traffic - it's a desolate place, part of it, but we got into DV about 7:30 PM and found
a no power site at Furnace Creek - woof - it went all the way down to 80 and it was NOT very comfortable
without A/C [no power].
We had hoped to camp in Yosemite tonight but Tioga Pass had not been opened, so we ended up coming all
the way home instead. Bay Area traffic sure was a surprise after 3 weeks of relative sanity on the roads.
I'm going to post some pictures in the next day or so, I want to get them onto my photobucket page rather than
putting them on this system, but here's a teaser.....
