Well, today I saw more money than I've seen in my whole previous life or will see during my whole lifetime (well, not quite -- they say it's not REALLY money until it's turned over to the Federal Reserve).
Dennis and I visited the Ft. Worth facility of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, where over 1/2 of US currency is printed. Very nice facility, including a visitors gallery running above the whole operation. Each visitor is loaned an audio player programmed with comments unique to the various viewing locations. VERY impressive operation. Too bad it's being so abused by this administration: The claim is that 95% of the bills printed are replacements. With "Quantitative Easing" rampant, I seriously doubt that percentage -- much more is NEW MONEY -- with nothing to back it up but our children's and grandchildren's futures -- Gross inflation, in other words.
We were finished before noon and continued toward Carlsbad Caverns. Lemesa, TX came up at about 6 PM, so here we are, full of Mexican food from the most popular place in this town of 9000 or so. We're at the far, dark, corner of a VERY quiet WalMart parking lot, all alone.
The coach showed itself today: Performed beautifully except for a couple of minor problems: To find a replacement for the lost gas cap, we spent 30+ minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic to get to an AutoZone which didn't have the correct cap. Enroute to the NAPA they directed us to, we found O'Reilly's and bought the cap -- which required modification to fit. :-(
Then, somehow, the "dead man" switch for the toad brake got tripped. On the wet pavement, the coach would hardly move, and when it did, it felt as if it was dragging all 4 toad tires. I only had to move about 100 yards in that condition to get clear of traffic and correct the problem.
Before and after that, I ran on the Main fuel tank and never had a hiccup. The plastic filter still shows clean. I'm baffled by the one glog of debris that shut the engine down; sure seems like it should have persisted longer. I'll just be thankful for small blessings.
On to Carlsbad in the morning.
Oh yeah, Dan, before you praise Texas roads again, come to GA! The worst of our secondary roads is better than the best of Texas' freeways!!! We kept to I-20 all the way to Sweetwater. I won't say 180 was BAD but I won't call it good, either. Sure glad I was in a GMC rather than one of those pickup trucks that kept bouncing past us! :-)
Ken
Oh well, 180 was good when we traveled from Mineral Wells over to Carlsbad. But, I was really speaking of the farm roads. Everyone we travel seem to be nice and smooth with no traffic. Took them from up around I-35 to Sweetwater 2 years ago. Our daughter is moving to Payson next month so won't be traveling that route anymore. Mostly I-40 from now on I guess. Have fun at the Caverns. There is a nice little campground nearby.
ReplyDeleteThanks for keeping us updated.
Dan
Ken,
ReplyDeleteKathy and I are presently at Hueco Tanks State Park, just east of El Paso. If you are heading this way, it is a beautiful place and well worth the stop:
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/state-parks/hueco-tanks
We are leaving tomorrow, but were happy for the stop here. We stopped at Carlsbad Caverns on our way to San Antonio, but if we had it to do over again, we would have gone there on the way back and stopped here for an overnighter. As it was, we decided to stay an extra night after a 10 hour drive on Thursday..
Guess Hal was right, before Big Spring was too early for a GMC to cut off i20 to 180. Hope 180 'l be better tomorrow.
ReplyDelete