Saturday Oct 15, 2022 - Sylvan Lake State Park CO to Mancos State Park CO

 

Deb’s first day to drive the van!! We had morning coffee and tea, then hit the road. Breakfast would come later at Micky D’s so we could get some wifi and look online at window coverings. We had no window coverings last night but at our age, who cares?! But given that SOME people might be offended, I guess we should get some or Officer Friendly might come knocking some night. Another version of Alice’s Restaurant maybe?

I drove us out of the park on the long rough dirt road which was a good jiggle test to see what shucks and jives in the various storage places. There is one little rattle somewhere I’ll have to find when the two of us are in the van at the same time. We had a long way to go today so I jumped right on I-70 and headed to Grand Junction. Somewhere on the interstate there was a McD’s so we uploaded the blog, and checked out window coverings, but decided to stay exhibitionists for a while longer (too many choices!!).

Deb drove the next 3 hours (I-70 to RT50 south). She has guided a bunch of hiking tours for Country Walkers and VBT and had to drive van loads of people around, so she is used to the longer wheelbase. I had issues with the 159” wheelbase compared to the 109” wheelbase of the RAV4 so I may need a little practice.

Another bluebird sky day with aspens turning or turned and even more snow on the mountains than a couple of days ago. Very light traffic once we got off the interstate. I think all of those towns on I-70 have been discovered and it seems busier every time we drive through there.

We stopped in Montrose to switch drivers and had a cracker & cheese lunch in the grocery store parking lot. Then Deb bought me my afternoon coffee in the RAV4 while I waited in the parking lot and figured out what 40 or 50 of the buttons in the cab did. I got the cruise control to display mph instead of km/h and I figured out how to reset the odometers. I got the clock to display on the dash. Managed to cross link the dilithium phaser coordinator so it stays in only one time-space. And I figured out how to run the radio from the steering wheel and gave up on those last buttons (I think they make the radio in the car behind you change stations, I hope).

The rest of the afternoon was twisties. Coloradans like to go 55 and 60 on roads that normally should be taken at 45 or 50, but I did my best to let the crowd go by when they piled up behind me. And I finally figured out the gas mileage (now that the dilithium coordinator was synced) and the last leg over the twisties gave me 21.4 mpg, which is not bad since this rig is 9 ft high. We drove into Mancos State Park at 5:15 so had another hour of sunlight. Then we cooked rice, beans and steak tips on the induction stove (just under 3% of battery) and made a salad (0% of battery).

Nerdy engineers report:

The 2022 Promaster has a new transmission which they advertise as being responsible for 10% more fuel efficiency. They advertise 22 mpg and I got 21.4 so I’ll assume it is true.

We rented a 2021 with the previous transmission, and the cruise control (which I use all the time) was very clunky. The new transmission makes the cruise control much smoother, almost as good as the RAV4, which has a really nice cruise control.

I went through and turned stuff off and on to determine how much current each thing used from our 200 amp-hour lithium batteries.

0.0 amp = nothing but USB charging plugs on (4 plugs, nothing plugged in).

0.8 amp = Kitchen lights

1.1 amp = inverter with no load (quiescent current)

2.5 amp = Cabin lights full on (they are dimmable so I assume 0-2.5 amp)

6.2 amp = Entry lights (not dimmable. Seems really high??)

6.2 amp = Water pump while it is pumping water

68.2 amp = tea kettle

I’ll have to catch the refrigerator and induction stove next time..