Sun, Jun 9, 2013

STATS
Departure: Gallup, New Mexico
Arrival: Flagstaff, Arizona
Miles: 185 miles Travel
Time: 4.5 hours

I thought I was going to write about another traffic jam we experienced today. I thought I would tell you that we left Gallup this morning around 11:00 o’clock. I figured I’d follow that up with telling you that the RV handled very well today—no hint of rough running or loss of power. Until, that is, we were near Flagstaff, and the engine started losing oomph. I would have told you that we found ourselves in a long line of stopped traffic again, that lasted over 8 miles and 45 minutes. I was going to say that the engine ran fine all through that time and that it wasn’t until we got through it that the engine started to run out of steam. I probably would have followed that up with telling you that I checked the gas cap when we got to the RV park, and there was an intake of air when I opened it, just like yesterday.

I was also going to tell you that we saw many dust devils today, and they kept chasing me. I would have let you know that I managed to avoid most of them, but some were sneaky and shed their dust, leaving only the invisible wind to hit the RV and try to knock us off the road.

But I’m not going to tell you any of that. We had even more fun today.

So over the last week or so, we’ve been seeing ants inside the RV. They’ve been around the kitchen sink, in the bathroom, and up on the bed deck above the cab. There were mostly just one or two at a time, and we figured we picked them up from some campground along the way, which we probably did, and these were the stragglers. But tonight there seemed to be more than we’d seen before, and we started thinking (something I don’t do much of). We keep the dog food in a small storage area on the bed deck, along with empty plastic bags and sundry items. The dog food has been there, out of sight, for a couple of weeks. We wondered if the ants might have been in the dog food bag when we bought it. I reached up there and pulled it out from its hiding place, and it was alive with ants. There were thousands—millions—GAZILLIONS of ants crawling on the outside of the bag. I didn’t look in the bag, I just threw it out the door. Most of the plastic bags went out, too.

After getting everything out of the storage area, I looked in there and saw hundreds more, laughing at me.

What do you do when you’ve been invaded by ants? We don’t have any ant spray or stakes. But we do have Lysol Spray Multi-Purpose Cleaner. That stuff stops them in their tracks. Then you just wipe them up and throw them away. No muss, no fuss. Unfortunately, the spray doesn’t actually kill them, it only stuns them. Once the stuff starts to dry, they wake up and laugh at me. We used almost a whole roll of paper towels to clean up those little demons. Then, we realized, the now-only-stunned ants are in the garbage, and they will wake up when we’re asleep and wander all over the rig, laughing at me. So we decided to take out the garbage, except we didn’t know where the trash bins were. So it’s 9:30, totally dark, and we’re wandering around through the trees trying to find a garbage can. I brought a flashlight with me, but the batteries were old, and the light almost reached down to my shoes. It was okay, though. We just followed our noses, and the trash bins presented themselves.

By some miracle, we found our way back to the RV. Now we still see ants, but again they’re pretty much on their own. We hit them with the Lysol, wipe them up with a paper towel, and throw them in the garbage.

I know, I know. They might wake up in the middle of the night and wander the RV, laughing at me. At least they’ll be clean.