http://www.busdriverjim.com
Traveling around the country
It’s a good thing I don’t gamble or I might have been pissed off after booking a room at a Fort Mohave casino, only to discover the bulk of the place was missing! There’s a couple of historical markers here to read, just so you don’t have to drive there, and a sad weather forecast for home.
I shot a weird video driving through the Virgin River Gorge, which is a narrow section of Arizona that lies between St. George, UT and Mesquite, NV. It makes you wonder how the state carved out this area of rock formations for their own.
My apologies if some of the video is a bit upside down…
I’m here. Checked into the cool place on the river. Went to the pool, went to the beach, no comprende…
It’s a good morning in the desert. My clock says 0445 but I picked up an hour somehow, so it’s 0345. My new little single cup coffee maker works fantastic, hot tasty and strong, the way I like it. I’m watching Fox News live which is a treat since I’m off the grid at home and only catch recaps. I got my Echo hooked up to the motels internet last night and, hold on, Alexa, what’s the weather? In Driggs, a high of 61 and a low of 33. Ok, Alexa, what’s the weather in (my next Arizona destination today)? In ..., a high of 96 and a low of 64. Hmm, the low is higher than the high. Good!
A side-note: I called All American Tire in Victor from I-15 yesterday and told them I wanted Hal to do an oil change for me. The guy laughed and told me that Hal went down to the Kingman, AZ shop a couple of months ago. I said “I know, what’s the phone number there“? I’m sure they don’t know what to make of me :-)
I got lucky today, but let me start from the beginning. I was rolling down I-15 south of Salt Lake City this morning (btw: SLC is like Spokane WA, it goes on forever and you don’t dare get off the freeway) and I kept seeing these signs for the Virgin River Casino in Mesquite, NV offering $27 rooms, so I called them up and booked a room.
As I approached Mesquite there were two exits and of course the Casino never bothered to mention on their many signs which one they were at so I drove right on by. I turned around at the next exit, way down the road, negotiated a triple roundabout from hell, and made it back to the Casino exit.
Then, thinking I was turning into the hotel parking lot, I turned onto the freeway entrance heading south. Where I had just come back from…
Now I’ve been driving for many hours, and visions of $27 rooms are dancing in my head, so I hung a u-turn on the freeway on-ramp, went back to the entrance and got out of there. Not thirty seconds later a local cop passed me and I know I’d be facing a bad-ass ticket if he’d spotted me. Instead, I’m hunkered down in the best $27 room I’ve ever seen and looking forward to a $6.99 prime rib special.
You got to love Casinos that expect you to gamble, except I don’t…
I was even lucky my beard lube didn’t spill out from melting in the heat! What’s that you ask? Stay tuned… (aka, shelby pimp job)
I was sitting at the back of my truck today, enjoying some little pinecones I had found, when a fly landed on my bare left forearm. I watched him for a while and then my old demons welled up and I swatted him with my right hand.
He fell to the ground in front of me and I immediately felt horrible. I really try not to kill anything anymore. He laid still for a bit and then started moving forward. I urged him to fly but all he could do was hop because I had knocked one of his wings off!
What a buzz kill to an otherwise pleasant afternoon. I believe that every living thing on this earth has as much right to be here as I do. I need to work on my conditioning…
I was driving down a Wyoming highway the other day that was littered with fuzzy little roadkill. Every hundred yards or so another rabbit had died under manmade wheels and I swerved my truck to avoid hitting both dead, and alive, rabbits. I was successful.
When I sleep, my jaw drops open and I look like I’m dead. One time I was hanging out in old Pocatello, parked out in the big parking lot between town and the railroad tracks, taking a power nap upright in my drivers seat. Suddenly I was surrounded by cops convinced that there was a dead guy in the truck. Turns out an engineer in a passing freight train spotted me and called 911.
Yesterday, I was taking a nap in my motel room, sleeping flat on my back. For some reason that accentuates the jaw dropping effect. I was woken from a deep sleep by the room phone ringing. What the hell I thought, nobody knows where I am? It was the front desk asking me if I was alright. I glanced over to the window and saw the curtain slightly open and realized somebody must have looked in, and was concerned enough to alert the motel.
Sometimes it sucks getting old :-)
I started out this morning cruising by our local frozen Palisades Reservoir and after motoring my sweet little travel truck for a while I settled down at a quiet motel in a pretty little town off the interstate. I’m determined to take small jaunts this trip and not over-drive myself or my vehicle.
The biggest takeaway so far is that when motels link their internet into a web based login screen, I can’t hook my Echo up, as it needs a direct connection. Oh well, gives me more time to wander around town…
Click the pic for some more.
Brought to you by my Amazon Echo…
As I approach one year and a few months short of seventy, I’ve been thinking about the things I did along the way to save my life. Back in the sixties and seventies one of my bragging points used to be that I’d done every drug ever created. Probably true, and in quality doses unimaginable today. I remember landing in the Haight in it’s prime and taking one hit of pure meth that kept me up for days.
What I learned along the way is that I didn’t like losing time. All of those drug infused party nights that happened as a result of having money to burn from a successful consulting career, cost me time when it took me a day or two to recover. So I quit that shit, many years ago…
As I approached fifty I was still smoking cigarettes. I made a deal with my ten year old son Riley that if I quit, he would never start. We shook hands, deal done.
A couple of years ago, chest pains were haunting my existence. This one I didn’t know what I had to give up to fix it, so I added cayenne pepper and other artery cleaning natural stuff to my diet. I told the last doctor I saw about it, during a DOT physical, and he just rolled his eyes. Screw them, I don’t have a doctor, I take no pharmaceuticals at all, I’ve never felt better, and I’m off to Spring Break, again :-)
btw: my concoction now consists of one small (5.5 fl oz) can of V8 mixed with one teaspoon each of:
I shake it all up in a small container and drink it along with my shredded wheat and banana breakfast. There you go, you’re welcome!
Rock on!
Pulling out all the winter crap from the back of my travel truck and making the bed has become a Spring tradition. The setup is now ready to roll with bed, water, tools and emergency bag perfectly placed within the unassuming low profile of my little truck.
Some trips I don’t even use it for sleeping because I enjoy the cheap motel experience, but it’s really nice to have it available. Stay tuned for my upcoming adventure.
Spring Break is two weeks away and it’s my solemn responsibility, which I don’t take lightly, to travel down south and report back here. It was a slow day on the job today so I took a long break, jumped in my truck and drove down to Rexburg.
First up was a new windshield. A crack appeared when I hit the Oregon Coast last summer and had spread into my drivers view. Not acceptable…
Next, new summer tires. The Hankook snow tires I recently bought have been amazing but it’s time to put them away for next year and bring on some new rubber. I ended up going with some 70k Toyo‘s from Les Schwab, based on the company’s reputation, the fact that they’re all over the country, and they back up their tires.
If I ever roll my truck and get trapped inside while it starts to burn, I hope there’s somebody passing by that has a bag like mine. I’ve had these items in the back of my truck for a while but today I gathered them up and put them all inside the bag that held my blue travel chair.
As I travel around during the summer and a situation arises where people are trapped I can grab the bag from my truck and run to assist. When I arrive at the scene I can just dump the bag on the ground and choose the appropriate tool. As others arrive the tools will be available to put out a fire, smash windows, pry open a door and cut seatbelts.
I have a tool on my bus for cutting seat belts and I need to find something similar to add to the bag. These are large hefty tools btw, the photo doesn’t do them justice.
Here’s the bag loaded up and ready to go.
Hey, this is really christmas clever. Like one “christmas eve” is not good enough I’ve been hearing a new phrase on the radio waves as I drive the badlands today: “christmas eve eve”. Wow, that’s tonight! What are we supposed to do on this most holiest night before the big night before the big day?
I guess it’s my punishment for not capitalizing christmas on my blog. My spell checker keeps chastising me and with perverse pleasure, I ignore it. So, on that note, let me point my camera out the window of my traveling truck, and give you a christmas treat:
Ah, what the heck, I’m in a giving mood, so here’s another look:
I topped my gas tank off at Basin Travel in Driggs and then drove to Evanston, WY. this morning. It was around 230 miles and when I fueled up it came to $18. At this rate, and this price, I may just keep on driving…
Or maybe not, my presence is expected at my sisters house on Thursday and my employer assumes I will clock in on the following Monday. Oh well, I guess I should just wander off to the hot tub here at the Days Inn and plan my next few hours.
