We aren't where we expected to be, but we are better!

Well, we left the hotel in Brigham City this morning about 7:30 under clear skies and great conditions.  The trip was uneventful until we were about 50 miles from Pendleton, OR, our planned stop for the night.

It seems that we were going to arrive there about 2:30 after a 500 mile drive.  That would leave us 213 miles to go Saturday to get home.  Carol suggested, and I concurred, that it is so early in the day, why not go further.  It seems that the 80mph speed limits in Utah and Idaho really made a difference plus we gained an hour with the time change to Pacific time.

So we pushed on.....and after 23 days, 5,802 miles, 13 states, 10 hotels, countless restaurants, and a zillion gallons of gas, we arrived home tonight at about 7:15pm.  We drove 713 miles today in a little under 12 hours.

We would have arrived in Portland in peak traffic hours, so instead, we stopped in Cascade Locks for dinner.  Carol wrote about that on FB, so I won't duplicate it.  But the food was just OK, the scenery was great, and the company was fantastic.  When we did go through part of Portland on the I-205, there was no Friday traffic at all.  We arrived home safe, and sound, and everything here was great.  No major problems at all.

This really was a great trip for us.  We went to places we had never been before, met some great people (I'm thinking of how I can kidnap some to bring back here to teach people how to behave), and learned a lot about RVs.  Also saw the Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville at the Marshall Spaceflight Center (Part of the Redstone Arsenal).

My favorite part of the journey was seeing how the systems (electrical, hydraulic, plumbing, etc.) are installed in our new RV.  Carol's favorite part was watching all the bare chassis being driven about by guys either standing or sitting on temporary seats with absolutely nothing else on the chassis.

No more blog entries until we go to get the new RV.  Check back periodically for updates!  Thanks for reading.

Neither Rain, nor Sleet, nor Snow, nor Wind, nor Tornadoes, Shall Keep Us.....

Today we left Sidney, NE about 7:30.  We planned a 558 mile day to get us to Brigham City, UT.  I checked the weather radar (app=Weatherbug) on my cell phone and our immediate area looked good.  It was not raining where we were, so we quickly loaded up and got on the road.

Well, turns out we were surrounded by nasty weather and as we left Sidney, we ran into some heavy rain.  Carol took all the pictures below with her phone as I was driving.

This picture shows us driving just outside of Cheyenne before reaching Laramie, WY.  It is at the top of a pass and the visibility varied from about a quarter mile (shown above) to just about zero.  The real problem was when passing trucks.  They throw up a lot of road spray as they slowly climb the hill.  Your choice is to either go less than 30mph for quite a distance or try to pass them and go blind by their road spray until you go in front of them.  Almost like flying an airplane on instruments.  It was a very tense 20 minutes or so.  We had heavy rain, snow, wind and Lord knows whatever else.  Had we gone one of the alternate routes we considered, we would have added tornadoes too!  I think overall we made the right choice.

Fortunately after a few hours we were out of the rain.  Actually it was just about 10 miles out of Rawlins that we lost the rain, though the picture above was after entering Utah.  As we drove on, the sun started to come out and the road dried up as shown above.

And as the drive went on, we were rewarded with some great clouds in the sky.  When we left Sidney, the temperature was about 39 and at the summit of the pass, it was 34.  But above, the temp was in the mid to high 60s!  A very pleasant and welcome change for sure.

We entered Utah and as we left I-80 for I-84, we had some great rock formations surrounding us.

This road winds through the hills to eventually get to I-15.

Now you can see the Wasatch mountains in the distance.

Another great view of the mountains.

As we joined I-15, we had a good view of the Great Salt Lake.

We arrived in Brigham City at 4:45pm after a 558 mile drive.  Tomorrow should be a shorter 508 mile leg to Pendleton Oregon with another time change in our favor.  

Half Way to Somewhere or other

This post is just to catch up on our travels...

On Tuesday, we left Fulton, MS at 7:50am and headed home.  We went on I-22 through Memphis, TN.  Memphis did not impress us and there were a lot of signals when I-22 ended.  Memphis is a major transportation hub, so there were 100 million trucks to contend with.  But once we exited the city, speed picked up.

We went through Arkansas, which was the first time either Carol or I had ever been to that state.  We were very impressed by the quality of the roads and the fantastic welcome center.  We then entered Missouri.  We drove 500 miles and ended up in Clinton for the night.  We had a great hotel at a reasonable price.  It had a pool and hot tub which we took advantage of.

Today, Wednesday, we again left at 7:50.  Just a habit I guess.  We went through Kansas City, but our timing was good and we missed the commute traffic.  We then went up through St. Joseph, on I-49 and eventually went through the lower left corner of Iowa.  Then we took state highway 2 over to I-80.  Once on I-80, we headed to Nebraska and ended up in Sidney.  We actually traveled about 600 miles today which is more than we planned.  But we gained an hour due to the time change, so we arrived about 5pm or so.

So far an easy trip with no problems.  If all goes well, we will be home sometime Saturday!