Month: June 2016

I’ve been having issues with motel rooms lately. When I was at the Pioneer down in Laughlin last week I ended up in a room with a connector door, the kind that lets you expand a room into two. They put a couple of teenage kids in the other room and all these boys did was watch TV with the volume up, which poured right through the double doors, into my space.

Tonight I checked into the Super8 in Logan, UT and they gave me the first room on the bottom floor. Cool, right next to the ice machine, the pool and hot tub, and the breakfast room. Also right next to the pool generator room which blasted out a stupid hum through the wall. By the time I noticed it, I was all settled in and not about to change rooms. What to do?

I came up with a solution that blows even my old mind. I hooked my Amazon Echo up to the motel wifi and used my Amazon Fire tablet to teach her a new skill: how to play background noise. I’m now listening to waves crashing on the beach, loudly, with little gurgling sounds as the water rushes back out. Fills the whole room with sound and I can’t hear the pool machine. Man, sometimes I just love myself…

Driving the 50-mile strip mall known as Salt Lake City is always a challenge. Utah drivers here drive hot and aggressive, I suppose they figure their Mormon god will protect them from each other. Today as I was driving north through the strip I saw a giant dark cloud directly in front of me. I had heard on my scanner that thunderstorms with hail were in the area, and here I was driving straight into one.

I briefly thought about exiting the freeway and finding an overpass to hunker down under and take a nap but talked myself out of that wimpy plan and kept on driving. Hey, I am a pro after all. Um-hmmm…

The storm hit with a vengeance: heavy rain, lightning, and large hail that I really thought stood a chance of cracking my window. I kept my cool, and my lane, with a big buffer between me and the vehicle in front of me. I spotted a speck of blue sky far off in the distance and knew I could ride it out.

Suddenly, a tractor pulling two gravel type containers merged onto the freeway from my right and proceeded to hit standing water right next to me. Like a slow-motion movie, I saw him start to lose control. The rear trailer began to drift into my lane so I backed off and watched as it did, right in front of me. I told myself that what I did in the next five seconds would determine wether I lived or died.

Visibility to my left and rear sucked so I couldn’t trust it. As soon as the rear trailer started drifting the other direction I gunned it forward and shot by the tractor just as a gut-wrenching noise happened as the gyrating trailers pushed the tractor into my lane and I’m sure it kissed my ass as I rolled on by. I thought this big boy was ready to roll but when I checked my rearview he was still upright and swerving all over the freeway. I really hope nobody got hurt.

As I continued down the road I took stock of my body. Not to my surprise, because I’ve noticed this reaction before, my heart rate was normal and I had no adrenaline rush. Nothing! I don’t know why this is but the bottom line is, my truck and I survived…

I’m hunkered down now in my motel in Logan, Utah and the TV weatherman is saying he has never seen hail as large as today in the decades he’s been doing the weather here in the Salt Lake area. Sheesh…

Ok, here it is Sunday night and I’m just about done here. It’s been a fun stay, my back feels better and my skin is brown. I drove down to Lake Havasu this morning and the weather was great, the boardwalk pristine, waiting for customers as usual, and the Sunday Market was nowhere to be found. I asked around and the story is they don’t even attempt a market in the hot weather. Hmmm, makes sense…

Back at the ranch I headed down to the pool for one last soak and ran into Millionare Gary one more time. He was full of sage advice again and talked about women who consider their special area as gold and use it to manipulate men into lavishing money on them just to get some of it. You know, I can’t disagree with his logic, he has been married three times and they all went after his money when it ended. But, when he started referring to them as flattened tacos I wished him well and headed to the hot tub.

I’ll be loading up my truck tonight for an early morning getaway and I should land in Logan, Utah tomorrow afternoon. I’m meeting up with a canopy guy I’ve been in contact with and maybe I’ll have a new used topper come Tuesday morning…

My daddy used to say: Don’t Drive, Drink! I never took the first part of that advice, I’m well over two million miles now and as my older and wiser days evolve, I don’t combine the two. My dad, who is long time gone (died of substance abuse), was the first person to put me on his lap and let me take over the steering wheel.

At the time, I didn’t know he was my dad, I thought he was my mom’s cousin because that was the story presented to my brother and I when he showed up at our door in the rural Siera Nevada mountains demanding to see us. My first contact with this stranger is when we went for a drive. A few years later my brother spilled the beans to me that mom’s cousin was really our dad, the stepdad found out we knew, and it went downhill from there. Oh well, all of those parents are dead now, and I’m alive and well and traveling. Rock on…

Update: I’ve been hanging out at the pool/hot-tub for the last couple of hours with a retired millionaire named Gary who knows all of the owners on the Laughlin strip. Great stories and great camaraderie, us old guys do think alike, and he’s living here at the Pioneer for a while because he can. Kind of like Howard Hughes, but on the ground floor, with a few less zeros.

On Gary’s advice, I went across the street to the Tropicana for dinner. I had the southern style blackened catfish with a baked potato, hush puppies, and coleslaw. Hmmm, best meal I’ve eaten in a restaurant in a long time!

I mosied over next door to the Golden Nugget tonight, down the escalator, hung a right and entered the weird world of Buba Gumps. Gee, what do you think this place is all about? I sat at the bar and ordered the Cajun Shrimp appetizer, with a happy hour cocktail, for $9.50 and I have to say, it hit the spot. There were little pieces of sausage mixed with the shrimp and some garlic bread to sop it up.

As I sat there and took pictures I remembered I’d been here before and had posted similar photos on the blog. Not sure if I had the shrimp. though, and I’m too lazy right now to search…

There’s a fascinating piece of desert south of Vegas which mysteriously continues to call me. I don’t know what it is, the place is ungodly hot, it ripped the canopy off my truck last trip and the place is full of desert rats. Speaking of canopies I drove slowly along the highway that heads into Bullhead City this morning and couldn’t find it…

I shot a couple of videos as I drove. They’re raw and unedited and convey the experience from my driver’s seat. The first is just landscape while the second captures the huge solar electric plant that helps feed the Las Vegas power grid.

For some reason, I can’t see these videos on the Pioneer Hotel paid connection. If you can’t see them either then I need to fix some code when I get back…

Video 1  Video 2

update: I may have fixed that first video…

Today’s drive down I-15 from the top of Utah, through the Virgin River Canyon of Arizona and on into Mesquite, NV was long, beautiful and hot, with Salt Lake City being a fifty-mile long strip mall that you just need to get through without getting hit by Mormons with their prayer book in their lap.

Rolling down into the southern desert today my sweet little truck was indicating displeasure at the 3200 RPMs I was asking of her, to maintain 70mph when the temp was at 108°, but she handled it well and is now sitting in the shade at the Virgin River Casino, by the pool.

Me? I’m ready to shoot this post out to world and head to the hottub down there, which was unoccupied last time I looked :-)

Update: Just spent an hour chatting with a couple of retired guys at the tub (younger than me) and the general consensus was: Hillary needs to be smashed into the ground, and even though he’s a character, Donald needs to win. I hear this everywhere I go…

Woke up to a beautiful Teton sunrise through my office window this morning, like a message from the travel gods to get ready to get hot! A few hours later I splashed down in the 112° pool at Lava Hot Springs and got a good soak in before my room was ready.

I’m enjoying the afternoon here, not too crowded yet as Summer begins to unfold. Heading back to the pools in a bit, then tomorrow, Mesquite, NV!

Here’s the weather forecast for the next seven days across my three different travel destinations next week.

• Tuesday: Lava Hot Springs, ID, 84 – 56, Clear.
• Wednesday: Mesquite, NV, 113 – 75, Clear.
• Thursday: Laughlin, NV, 108 – 78, Clear.
• Friday: Laughlin, NV, 101 – 75, Clear.
• Saturday: Laughlin, NV, 102 – 73, Clear.
• Sunday: Laughlin, NV, 100 – 74, Clear.
• Monday: The Desert, 105 – 76, Clear.

…and I’ll be soaking in hot water daily. This is to make up for every day my fingers froze when I pre-tripped my bus last winter at thirty below.