We arrived at our planned stopping point of Ft. Stockton, Texas at about 4pm Central time – the second day in a row that we lost an hour. We started the day filling our gas tanks at a Fina station in Las Cruces – a pretty good-sized sign on the pump said no methanol added. After the fill-up the coach was running a little rough for the first minute or so – I think the choke was still active and the engine was warmed up enough to not need it – fallout from the blocked crossover on the intake (GMC tech jargon – sorry).

The weather was wonderful for traveling – cloudy and a little rain. The day went by without incident and the coach ran well. We made it all day without needing more fuel – first time that has happened in a while. The daily fuel consumption numbers show we did better than 8 mpg – we barely beat 6 for the past two tanks. Improved fuel mileage could be because of the non-ethanol fuel (who are we trying to fool with this ethanol stuff?) and/or because of the improved engine vacuum (see yesterday’s post). Our fill-up in Ft. Stockton was with the normal crappy gas so we’ll be able to tell at the end of the day tomorrow if anything is still better.

Our windshield wipers – original GMC wipers leave a lot to be desired – are not working very well and, between yesterday and today, we have gone through several heavy rain storms and needed them. I don’t know what is up with them and I should convert to modern electric wipers but that is another $300 that I didn’t feel like spending – not a lot of driving in the rain in Arizona. We stopped at a WalMart for groceries and I bought some Rain-X and treated the windshield – now it probably won’t rain again on the trip.