road trip USA

Keep on truckin' - nashville to st louis

Gasoline Alley blues

In the news here (when I can find a news program). Gas prices: on 28th April, truckers are converging on Washington to protest that Diesel prices have broken $4 per gallon.

I talked to Joe Trucker in Hagerstown, and he felt his world was caving in. Just shows that everything is relative - he couldn't conceive of the $10 gallon, which we now have in England. (In Scotland, I hear you are being spared that pleasure because your one refinery has closed!) Something that not a lot of people know is that the US Gallon is smaller than the British one (theirs being 3.7 litres, and the English gallon being 4.5 litres). Initially no one I asked could confirm or deny this: and Joe Trucker told me that the US wet gallon is also 8 pints. It was Kendra at Super 8 who looked up the US pint and discovered that it is about 80% of the British pint: so she looked up the US gallon and found it to be 3.7 litres. Thanks for clearing that up, Kendra.

So when my car is making 30 mpg (US) it is 36mpg as we understand it in England. (And if anyone in England tries to tell you that they really believe in metric, ask him/her what the fuel consumption is in their car - I defy you to find an Englishman who will quote it in litres....) The knock-on implication of the different gallons is that US gas prices are not quite as low as they seem. Still low: but about $5 for an English gallon, rather than the $4 that we assume from the news. And: because very little of the US gas price is tax (it varies, but is around 12%) it means that world oil price rises feed almost $ for $ into the US gas price. The news today reports diesel up from $2.90 twelve months ago to $4.36 this morning.

When did this place close?

Whilst in Nashville, Mr T has an interesting chat with a couple of truck drivers who are stranded here by breakdowns. One fellow expressed his frustration because his "EGR Temperature Sensor" keeps failing: it failed on his own truck, which he said was brand new (only 31,000 miles) and having been given a temporary replacement with only 86 miles on the clock, the EGR has gone on that too!

Larry Klein (aged 57) comes from Illinois, and has been here since Saturday. His electrical system had been degrading - initially he lost his interior lights and other non-essentials, but now has no aircon, high beam or wipers. He is waiting for a "fuseable link" which he thinks is a $6 part, and he has now been marooned here 4 days. Larry is an easy conversationalist and I quiz him about other stuff that interests me. He is an employee driver, so fortunately for him, the gas price (diesel of course for trucks) doesn't directly affect him. However, he reckons he buys 100 gallons of fuel per day (which puts into perspective the grief being expressed last week by Joe Trucker in Hagerstown - Joe was an owner operator, and said he was spending $50-75 more per day on fuel). His truck averages 5-6mpg, and he says they can drive around 500 miles per day. He's not sure of the engine displacement, so I make a note to keep that question live for future reference. I mentioned the Big Rig Lullaby in a previous page, and apparently some states are becoming active in trying to curb this - New Jersey has apparently passed legislation trying to prevent truck engines being idled all night.

Larry's truck has a function that cuts the engine in and out as needed to manage the aircon and temperature. (How easy would it be to sleep if a 12 litre diesel engine starts up under your bunk bed?) As an Illinois man he also has an informed view on Barack Obama's campaign, and the impact of his preacher. I hadn't appreciated that Preacher Wright had been part of the Obama campaign team until quite recently, which makes the link stronger than I realised. Larry's view is that the two democrat candidates will exhaust each other, and McCain will be the next president. You heard it here first...

The airport incident prompts Capt T to shift his flag across town, and a cheap and cheerful Howard Johnson does the trick. Very tired old building on a busy road. In fact, it's so tired as to be photogenic.

Has a nice looking outdoor pool outside the front, so if you don't mind bathing beside the main road (think A4 coming out of Slough, with a freeway 50 yards behind it for good measure) it would be fine. Christal (bless her) after admiring my accent (3rd time now!) found me a room on 3rd floor at the back, so not so noisy.

Although the building is very old fashioned (in the worst sense!) the room is big, with a king bed. Although fittings are tired, all seems very clean (so far). But within 10 minutes discover water - or something - coming through the ceiling above my basin area, and dripping into the coffee maker, etc. Obvious suspicions about bathroom above. She sends their maintenance man to sort it out. I follow him up (don't want any Unknowns this time) as I want to be very clear what I'm dealing with here, and discover a huge family (and I mean huge! I saw at least 8 faces there) panicking because they've blocked their loo – very apologetic - and I think – oh man...

Mr Maintenance picks up the phone and says Christal Hun, you've got to move this gennelm'n raaaaaght away into another room. So I go downstairs and by the time I get there she has already prepared keys for the room next door, which is fine. (And also has a fridge and microwave, which the 1st didn't.)

Apart from some very dodgy looking activity going on under the canopy of the disused nightclub below my window, there is little else to report. (What? Oh, just a shady looking character sitting in a deckchair all day, and about every 10 mins a different car would draw up, quick chat, shake of hands, and off it would go...!)

Take the fast lane to Clarksville...

- but then take R24 signed St Louis. Crossing briefly into Kentucky, it starts to rain. (I'll let you know when it stops!) On into Missouri, and I had no idea that there are so many big rivers out there. Conditioned as I am by the size of the Thames, it comes as a bit of a surprise to cross rivers that I've never heard of that are hundreds of yards wide. The Mississippi is of course the grandaddy of them all.

The weather gets worse, and it rains hard, very hard, or torrentially for the whole 300 mile journey to St Louis. Decide to seek out one of the new-fangled Shell Garages with free wifi so that I can find a motel this side of St Louis for the night. Pay a 10% premium on the gas price (over $4 per gallon - shocking!) for this privilege only to find that their wifi isn't, in fact, working. Resort to good ole paper and read the Super8 Chain Guide. Find one of their Premier List is 12 miles this side of the city. Check in goes smoothly, with the desk clerk allocating me a room at the rear AND reassuring me that they don't have a runway nearby.

Unknown Unknowns, Pt 2.

Returning at speed (on foot in the rain) from supper at Houlihans across the car park, am dismayed to find a heavy goods train thumping its way ponderously past my bedroom window, no more than 20 yards away. (In fact, I have an irrational love of trains left over from my youth, and will return to this subject on a sunnier occasion, but this is too much even for a train-spotter - after all, it's too dark for me to make out the locomotive.) Luckily, this is the only rail activity that night.

Unknown Unknowns, Pt 3.

Woken at 5-15am as the previous occupant of the room has thoughtfully set the alarm for me. Decide to give up trying to manage the Unknowns.

St Louis

More attractive and interesting than I had been led to expect, even though the famous Gateway Arch was shrouded in rain cloud when I arrived. Rain cleared briefly to allow a quick photo shoot. Took the elevator to the top, had a wander around, pleased that I'd brought an anorak from England. Got thoroughly lost. Had a late lunch at the legendary Blueberry Hill Diner, which is adorned with classic St Louis musical and sporting memorabilia. Despite being an interesting stop, it's apparent that there's a lot of poverty in some of these neighbourhoods, and one of the reasons that it's easy to park is that there are so many redundant pieces of old industrial land.

I Found my Thrill...

Rider on the Storm...

Headed out of town (in the rush-hour, in the rain) to look for a motel, and found that the main Interstate westbound was closed for repairs. Got thoroughly lost again in a series of very complex detours through a construction war zone. Rescued by Mrs TomTom. A fulsome accolade to this Angel of the Road will follow in a future edition of Mr Tripper's Ripping Yarns.

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