Westbound to Grand Junction
Once again I am heading West towards California. Nothing special, comparatively speaking, but a different route than the past few trips; back to the I-70 / Hwy-50 route so I can re-visit some places as well as visit Colorado National Monument for the first time.
Today, I left home in the early afternoon. The plan was to simply make it into Grand Junction, CO to camp in the Walmart parking lot to ensure Internet connection for my hours of work on Sunday morning. Once work is complete, I will roll the additional 2 miles into the East entrance of Colorado National Monument and out the West side.
From there I bee-line to Moab, UT to decide if I can get a camping spot in the Needles section of Canyonlands Ntnl Park. If I can get a camping spot, I will head into the park for 1 or 2 nights before coming back to some BLM land near Moab. I may stay a few nights there, or none at all… I dunno… I’m winging it at that point.
Wildfire near Glenwood, CO
Anyways, the drive over the Rocky’s via the I-70 corridor went smooth, minus one scare; Coming down-hill I had to apply the breaks sharply as traffic was backed up. This caused my oil pressure warning light to light up. I know I have a full load of oil onboard (I checked before driving out) and can only assume that “down-hill and hard-braking” swashes all the oil to the front of the oil pan. Considering the oil pickup is at the rear, it is unable to pump any oil in these situations. This is not something I am comfortable with and will look into some solutions. I will be getting a fresh oil change before continuing the rest of the drive, just for some peace of mind. Other than that, I took my time and stopped as often as I pleased. I watched some rafters from a rest-area, had dinner of rice and beans at a Visitors center in Parachute, CO, and just simply relaxed as often as possible since I had no real time-line of arrival in Grand Junction.
Rafters navigating the Colorado river
Once I arrived in Grand Junction, I did fill up the fuel and calculated 13.8 MPG which is fantastic for the terrain I was climbing over. Once I get a stretch of flat-land interstate driving, I am hoping to get 15+ MPG, which is a significant improvement over last year’s 12.7 average.
