Six weeks in the Florida Panhandle... wonderful. But that part of Florida can be cold, windy, and wet simultaneously during Winter, so... BUG OUT TIME.
Fourteen weeks in Phoenix... great. If you spend time there you can easily understand why old farts like me spend Winters there. In the 3+ months we were there it rained three days. Temps this year never dropped below freezing. Normal days we experienced 65 degree highs; 45 degree lows, with humidity generally running 20% or so.
Nearly perfect weather, but we Midwesterners began to yearn for a raucous thunderstorm about the beginning of March!
We rented a Toyota Corolla for the trip home and decided to take an extra day in hopes we'd not be so exhausted when we reached our destination. I also decided to take different route home.
In the past we have driven South via Tucson/Deming, NM, El Paso/ Dallas-FTW/ Little Rock/and home.
We've also traveled via Holbrook, AZ/Albuquerque/Amarillo/Ok City/Tulsa/Springfield/and home.
Both those drives are long and, for the most part, boring. This time I decided we'd head North out of ALB and drive up the East face of the Rockies, hoping they'd be snow-capped and beautiful.
We were not disappointed.
The Corolla was comfortable. It drove nicely, got about 35mpg at 75mph, and had "smart" adaptive cruise control, (which henceforth will be a requirement for any future rental choice!)
We did NOT order a GPS option, and that turned out to be a mistake when I depended on memory as we headed North out of Colorado Springs...
Thank God I realized I was lost early on; stopped at a Fire Station, and a fellow Public Service worker got me back on the proper path home!
Motels we stayed in:
A "Comfort Inn", a "Super 8", and a "La Quinta". Since all we require in our temporary housing is a clean place to sleep and bathe, (and breakfast of some sort is also nice), we generally go the "budget" route for accommodations. All our stays were satisfactory, but I was surprised our normal choice, the La Quinta, had NO breakfast offerings at all.
The trip was uneventful. After gratefully spending the night in our own home and bed we returned the rental car and came home to resume our normal routine.
Scooter and truck started without fuss. But while I was sitting in my pickup allowing the battery to get it's first charge in months I caught a glimpse of movement to my right and saw either Mickey or Minnie sitting transfixed on the passenger seat. After a few seconds, MM decided to beat a hasty retreat into the bowels of my Ram/Cummins pickup somewhere. It was after a little searching that I noticed the roll of toilet paper we leave in the truck for emergencies had been well-used for nesting material.
Last night I set the trap... on the passenger-side floorboard, with peanut butter as bait. Investigation this morning found the trap gone! I searched beneath the passenger seat... beneath the driver's seat...
Nuttin'. But further investigation beneath the extended-cab jump seat revealed the trap with a half-eaten mouse lodged against the rear bulkhead of the truck.
So the question now is-
Did Mickey get a bellyful of Minnie...
Or Vice-versa?
4 comments:
Mice love to nibble on wiring insulation.
Boy do they ever, WSF. I had a practical example of this last year... same truck. The cruise control quit working. My Mech. found chewed wiring.
And stupid me parked it same place, same way as Winter started.
I deserve my punishment, sir.
If you live in or near farm country, ask around (feed stores, county extension agent, etc) as to how parked equipment is protected. That $300,000 combine used one month a year has as much wiring are your truck I bet.
Glad you enjoyed AZ. As a transplant to the Valley, I do enjoy our cool 'winters' and now with temps heading into the 90s, not looking forward to the hotter summer.
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