As I've said, this was a great trip, but there were a few negatives. Probably the biggest was delays due to road construction, which we encountered almost everywhere we went.
Signs on the way into El Paso advised through traffic to use the loop - good advice that we ignored. Single lane traffic on I-10 in that city added about an hour to our drive. We also encountered major delays elsewhere on I-10, on I-17 and at the top of Red Mountain Pass on US-550. Of course, summer is the best - in some cases the only - time to do road maintenance, so you have to expect it.
Speaking of delays on I-10, we were a day ahead of some major delays in Arizona. Blowing dust from a huge, freshly plowed field closed the highway completely for several hours for several days in a row. Spraying water on the field only helped for a little while, and it was dry enough the next day to once again cause zero visibility on the interstate. The Phoenix TV station reported that the state planned to spray the area with GORILLA SNOT - Yes, that's a real product, check the link. I guess it worked since we didn't hear any more reports of dust closing the highway.
If you're wondering why the farmer didn't do something to correct the problem, so was most of Arizona. The TV station said the spread was owned by a foundation which was owned by a TV evangelist, and all attempts to contact them had been met with silence.
For the most part, we had great weather, but once back in Texas, we did have one full day of driving in pouring rain. That wasn't much fun, but at least it was on good roads that we had almost entirely to ourselves.
The road past our house is too narrow. It is almost impossible to back the trailer into our driveway without the front wheels of our truck leaving the paved surface.
It happened when we got home, and the ground was so saturated that I got stuck - had to get our good neighbor to hook on with his one ton Dodge and pull us out. Another two feet of paved surface, and I would have made it fine, but we eventually did get in and got the trailer parked beside the garage.
I'm thinking of having a truckload of gravel brought in to widen the road, but I've said that before.
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