A Trip to the Great Plains to
Attend FMCA Convention

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
Spring 2001
Page 3

Friday 3-30

W e were up and out of the campground by 9:30 local time. Before leaving I visited for a while with the owners of the campground. I wanted to know where the lowest priced gasoline could be had. So, on our way out of town we stopped at the Love’s truck stop on the west side of Gallup. With a full tank of fuel we found our way back to I-40 and headed east once again.

Gallup is in a narrow valley surrounded by rocky hills and mountains. The highway gently winds its way through and around the rock formations. It wasn’t very long until we were back out in the open desert. As we drove along, I decided I would play it safe and call ahead to the KOA campground in Tucumcari where we would spend the night.


Heading east through Gallup

The trip to Albuquerque was uneventful. I thought we would be stopping there for lunch. As it turned out, we would drive right through Albuquerque. It seems that the highway is always under construction when we come through here. The lanes had been made more narrow to accommodate the construction and portable crash barriers. With all of this going on it made for white knuckle driving as we made our way through a noon time rush hour. The distractions kept us from finding a place to get off the road to have our midday meal.

As we found ourselves leaving town on the east side, our motorhomes began to climb the long incline over the mountain pass. At one time this was a very rough ride, but it appears as if some new paving had been put down. The rough ride in the past made this stretch of highway seem to be a long ride. With a smoother surface, the ride up the slopping road does not seem to last very long.

Once on the other side of the mountain we would be driving downhill most of the way to Oklahoma City. Since we had passed through Albuquerque without getting lunch, we began looking for a place to stop to take on some nourishment. Along the road we saw a billboard advertising the Lotaburger in Moriarty with a picture that looked very good. Thus the town of Moriarty, New Mexico became our target for lunch.

When we were a few miles from Moriarty, I noticed that a vibration in the front of our motorhome became stronger. This vibration had been with us from our first day, but it was minor enough that it didn’t seem to be important. I had looked around the front suspension and front tires without seeing any reason for the faint vibration. It gradually became more noticeable each day. It became too much to ignore by the time we arrived in Moriarty.

As I followed Kevin to Blake’s Lotaburger I could here a thumping sound coming from the right front of the motorhome. Also, it felt as if the right front tire was very loose. After finding our place in the Lotaburger parking lot, I brought our RV to a stop and turned the wheels all the way to the right. This allowed me to get look at the tire tread.


A good place for lunch

There was no doubt what was causing all the noise and rough ride. There was a noticeable bulge in the middle of the tire tread. The plies had separated and produced a small balloon on the tire. It was a "Flamingrock" brand (Think about it) with less than 5000 miles of wear. In a way it was a relief to know what was causing the problem. I had imagined all kinds of trouble from simple tire problems to expensive suspension problems.

Now it was time to find out about the Lotaburger. As it turned out, the Lotaburger was a good sized hamburger with all the usual condiments. It was a good hamburger that I would not hesitate to recommend to travelers along the I-40 route.

After our meal I looked for a place where I could get the right front tire replaced with the spare tire. We found a small garage with a sign over the office door that read, "A & V Tire Sales and Auto Service." I pulled our motorhome up to one of the rollup doors and went inside. I found two young men busy at work. One of them stopped what he was doing to take care of my needs. He replaced the right front tire with the spare tire.


That’s our rig getting a front tire changed

While this was going on Kevin had parked behind us next to the street. He asked the second guy if he could repair a bent tow bar. The damaged piece of hardware was taken into the shop and work began to reverse the bend in the metal. It took awhile but the end of the tow bar was returned to its normal position. This had been a good stop for both of us and the amount charged for the work was very economical.

Now we were once again on our way heading roughly toward the east. The spare tire that was now on the right front of our motorhome had been worn unevenly when it was retired to the spare position. Now I had to depend on it to get us to a place where I could buy a set of front tires. The right front tire was originally damaged by a bad shock-absorber and the front suspension being misaligned. About 80 percent of the tread was good, but on one side the wear pattern was uneven which resulted in a small amount of shimmy at low speeds.

I figured I would look for tires on the way to Oklahoma City. I thought we might find tires in Santa Rosa. When we reached the Santa Rosa it was getting late due to our delay in Moriarty, so I decided I would continue on to Tucumcari to try to find tires.

Out in this part of the state the land begins to flatten. As we drove along Tina asked if this was the flat land I had told her about. The landscape was made up of flat topped butts and mesas with shallow valleys in between the plateaus. I told Tina that this was land that was fighting to no be flat.

In this area, I told Kevin and Tina that I found the local radio stations to be interesting. Many of the stations carry programming only in the local language of the indigenous people.

Shortly after leaving Santa Rosa behind we passed a place that always fascinates me. It is the town of Cuervo which is more like a ghost town than a thriving metropolis. There might be an interesting story behind all the abandoned buildings that have fallen into disrepair.

From the mystery of Cuervo it wasn’t very long until we were approaching Tucumcari. We took the off ramp on the west side of town pulling off of I-40 to enter the KOA campground on the outskirts of town. This was another familiar place for us to spend the night. Kay and I have stayed at this campground several times on previous trips.


Mickey is watching Kevin set up the satellite antenna

As usual, shortly after arriving at our campsites, Kevin was busy setting up his satellite antenna. This time Mickey positioned himself in the window to check out his new surroundings. At times Mickey leaned so far out of the window that I was concerned that he might tumble to the ground below. For his size it would have been a long fall. He was able to maintain his position until Kevin was finished with his task and Tina closed the window.


Kevin is very good at aligning his satellite antenna

After dinner we all piled into the car to go for a ride through town. I wanted to look for a possible place to buy a couple of tires. I was told by the people in the KOA office that there was a good tire store only a quarter of a mile into town. Kevin followed Old Route 66 as we looked for the tire store. We ended up at the other end of the business district without seeing the tire store. We did find a grocery store however.

The store was part of a chain of stores that Kevin and Tina recognized, so we stopped to get some supplies. I find it interesting to shop in stores in small towns that we visit. I often see things that are not common in the stores near our home. In this store I noticed a lot of food items that led me to believe that this store was frequented by the indigenous people in the area.

After leaving the store we cruised back toward the campground once again trying to spot the tire store. I was told it was next to a particular motel. When we reached the motel, Kevin stopped at a gas station so I could ask about the a tire shop nearby. Yes, I was stopping to ask for directions.

I was told that the gas station next door sold tires. It was closed and the sun had already gone down. That is part of the reason we didn’t see the tire store. It was disguised as a gas station, the lights were all turned off, so it just didn’t show up very well from the street. We decided to come back the next day.

It was getting late, so we returned to our motorhomes. I watched TV for a short time, mainly to check on the weather forecast for the next day. It had been an interesting day.


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