January 8 - January 15, 2025
WINTER 2025
This wasn't our first long road trip south in the winter.
Winter 2013 - 2014
Winter 2014 - 2015
Winter 2015 - 2016
STATES Michigan - Ohio - Tennessee - Kentucky - Arkansas - Texas - New Mexico - Arizona - California
Weekly Recap Jan 4 - Jan 10 Best Coffee
The links above will take you to the detailed posts.
The day we left was listed as the coldest day of this winter so far.
Crossing the border was easy other than we missed the Duty Free.
WEATHER
It was clear leaving Toronto, we saw some snow as we drove west on the 401 and encountered snow squalls around London ON.
We then had snow for the next couple of days.
Dayton OH on the first day as we headed to our hotel.
Day 2 Nashville was clear and cold when we arrived.
The next morning was a different story!
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Pulling out in Nashville.
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We were very impressed with the snow clearing in Tennessee and Kentucky.
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The snow was so pretty shimmering in Kentucky.
It was still with us as we crossed into Arkansas and and leaving Conroy the next morning.
Mississippi River.
Surprisingly we saw some snow as we headed to Plano/Richardson, a suburb of Dallas TX. But that was it.
Driving through Dallas the next morning was all blue skies and clear roads.
We were in Texas for another day's drive.
New Mexico
Arizona
California
CAR
This was the navy Hyundai's maiden major road trip.
GPS Guy (GG) did a good job as our old GPS finally died.
4,805 KM
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I should have added this to the spreadsheet. The fee for crossing the Ambassador Bridge into the States is $9 US.
We learned that the adaptive cruise control feature, will not work properly as the system relies on the camera to detect the distance to the vehicle in front of you, and a blocked camera prevents accurate readings, causing the cruise control to disengage or malfunction.
This is south of Nashville TN as John cleared the ice and slush from the grill, it didn't matter as it was soon blocked again.
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We saw a new message on the GPS - create a rescue lane.
A new to us road sign.
Texas had tolls, but how do we pay?
Pay by mail? Address? How much do we owe???
Most days we were on the road around 9 and off the road between 3 and 4. We usually made at least two stops on the way. You have to have bio breaks, potty breaks, pee stops, powder your nose, see a man about a horse, bathroom, restroom, toilet, WC water closet, bano, loo.
"It's giving" potty time made no sense to me, either. So I found this explanation on Reddit.
Redneck Peter here from Lee County, Alabama. So Buc-ee’s is a gas station chain primarily located in the South East US that has quite a reputation. Every location of theirs is MASSIVE with up to hundreds of gas pumps, a cafe, gift shop, convenience store, etc. Part of their branding is using modern slang, in this instance using the phrase “it’s giving ____,” which is used as a way to describe something. For instance, while eating a bucket of movie theater popcorn, you could say “it’s giving butter” or “it’s giving salty.”
Once we got away from the snow we made some longer stops to sightsee.
We stayed in Hiltons except in Nashville it was a Quality Inn.
The Quality Inn was freezing, we used towels to block the cold coming through the door.
Hotels no longer supply pens! I only collected one.Alarm clocks are also disappearing, not that I'd be sorry as someone always leaves an alarm set to wake us at some stupid o'clock time.
FOOD
All the hotels, except the Doubletree in Tucson (Reid Park) and Hilton Dallas (Richardson/Plano) provided complimentary breakfasts.
The Quality in Nashville had the worst breakfast ever.
I had baked and packed a gluten free cranberry loaf for John, knowing the free breakfasts seldom/never have GF options.
We stopped in Abilene TX for a Cracker Barrel breakfast.
We like hotels that have restaurants on site. Tru, Quality and Hampton do not have restaurants, in that case we picked up food (cheeses, salads) for dinner.
Hilton has a daily stay food and beverage credit that can be applied against a dinner or breakfast.
We were comped our breakfast at Hilton Garden Inn Conroy when I complained about the noisy fridge that we unplugged.
We were also comped a hot breakfast in Hilton Garden Inn Odessa after John had an awful dinner the night before.
We had lunch in Lordsburg for a Mexican lunch at Ramona's.
It is a popular local spot, busy even at 11:30. We had Mexican coke, so good as it is not as sweet as American/Canadian. We both agreed there red and green sauces had no spice, they were flat.
John had the chimichanga with ground beef which he enjoyed. We both agreed the rice was mushy.
But I am still traumatised as I was looking forward to huevos rancheros as I love them in Mexico. I had asked for no beans, but got them anyway. I couldn't find the eggs, they were buried under beef in tomato sauce. There was also another large serving of beef with green sauce in the middle. When I questioned it she said we also add beef. There is no mention of meat in the menu description. I did not want meat!
The snowy weather curtailed side trips on the first three days as we just wanted to get to our destinations safely.
We had nice weather, chilly, in Nashville when we arrived and ventured out around our hotel and then over to the Grand Ole Opry although it was closed.
Odessa TX
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Texarkana
Van Horn TX
Akela NM
Yuma AZ
You have travel some miles.
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