Mar 082011
After watching the weather report last night I knew it was going to be another windy day. Since I am heading east and northeast the wind out of the west would be at my back so I decided to hit the road. Plans were to go to Monahans Sandhills State Park which was about a 3 hour drive, visit the park and stay there for the night.
When I got to the exit on I-10 the winds had picked up to a constant 30+MPH and the dust was flying. Since Monahans is 3800 acres of sand dunes I figured it would not be a very pleasant place to visit with the winds the way they were so I just drove on by. I had no plans on where I was going to stop for the night and I just drove on.
I stopped to fill up in Big Spring TX and when I figured my fuel milage I was getting almost 12MPG. Yowzer, that's a 30% improvement over the 9MPG I normally get. Decided to press on to take advantage of the tailwind. I ended up making it to Santo, TX which is about 50 miles west of Dallas/Fort Worth. It ended up being a bit over 7 hours of driving, more then any other day I have done so far, but I figured saved $30 in gas today.
Going this far today puts me in range of Hot Springs AR tomorrow where I plans to stay a couple of days before I head out east again.