Pictures from JP Aerospace's DSS3/Oklahoma flight

Day 2: Tuesday, March 19, 2002

by Ian Kluft

Tuesday March 19 was our second day on the road enroute to Oklahoma. The day started in Bullhead City AZ and took us to Albuquerque NM.

Apparently we still hadn't learned our lesson about getting on the road early. We were ready for breakfast at 7:30AM MST but again the group wanted to go to the Laughlin casinos for the cheap buffets. But crossing the river made it 6:30AM PST and the buffets weren't open yet. We waited, had breakfast overlooking the river for an hour, and went back. With the time zone change, now it's after 9AM MST. A long line at the gas station got us out of Bullhead City at 10AM MST. Sigh.

(As you can probably tell by now, I thought the whole detour to Laughlin was a waste of precious hours. I'm not a fan of casinos anyway.)

We stopped to refuel and get to-go lunches a little before Flagstaff. Actually, the place made some pretty good Sub sandwiches which I thought shouldn't be eaten while driving. Since the trailer had to go slower anyway, we decided Al and I would stay behind for a few minutes to wolf down the sandwiches and then just catch up. The 5 minute delay in departure led to 30 minutes to catch up with them, which was exactly what Al and I predicted. (Actually, that one's an easy calculation - they got a 5 mile head start. We could go at the speed limit of 75mph so we were driving 10mph faster. 5 miles takes 30 minutes at 10mph.) As the trip went on, Al made more and more complicated predictions like that and I didn't try to figure them all out. But he was almost always correct down to the minute.

We stopped in eastern Flagstaff to check some potential problems with the van. It turned out OK and we continued.

Finally we made some good time in the afternoon and evening. The key to doing this is to get everyone in the convoy to help make sure that whenever the convoy stops for any reason, everyone gets every reason for a stop out of the way right there. That way the convoy can continue as far as possible again before the next stop.

We reached Albuquerque NM by 8PM. John Sr had called ahead to arrange rooms for us at Kirtland AFB, since he has that privilege as an Air Force retiree. Though there were delays for security checks to get in the gate, the rooms were quite nice and a refreshing change from the previous night's accomodations. (I estimated that a comparable room in a commercial motel would go for $100/night or more. Of course we did have to pay for our rooms but the price was more reasonable than that.) The "Air Force Inns" system is primarily for active military personnel, particularly those visiting the base or who haven't arranged permanent accomodations yet. But apparently retirees and their guests are allowed to occupy unused rooms.

We had a late dinner in Albuquerque where we made the plans for the next day's trip. We didn't like the idea of leaving at 5AM. But the van/trailer had to do so at the speed it goes. So JP and Norm would leave at 5AM and the rest of us would be out at 7AM to catch up with them by Oklahoma. Or so we thought...

(1536x1024 2039K) (500x333 27K)	These were among our first sights on the highway in Arizona. We're on the road again Tuesday morning enroute from Bullhead City to Kingman to get back to I-40.
(1536x1024 2228K) (500x333 44K)	Norm (JPA's Chief Engineer) smiles for the camera at the food & fuel stop west of Flagstaff.
(1536x1024 2201K) (500x333 37K)	While Al and I finish our sandwiches, the rest of the convoy goes on ahead. We caught up with them within half an hour.
(1536x1024 2064K) (500x333 31K)	Meteor City, Arizona. Had to take a picture of it on the way by... (photo by Al Differ)

Back to Ian's Pictures of DSS3

Copyright (c) 2002 Ian Kluft. All opinions on this page are my own. For official info from JP Aerospace please see jpaerospace.com.