This month's calendar Archives
IT'S FRIDAY, MY FAVORITE DAY!!
After saying our good-byes to my sis and brother-in-law, we left the warm sunny weather of Phoenix on Friday and headed north. Just in time too, because a storm was coming in and their 80 degree weather was predicted to drop to 60 degrees. We decided that since we had a car load of fruit, going back through California was not a good idea so our travels plans were to go through Nevada.
We turned off Highway 17 at the Wickenburg exit onto a two lane highway which was crowded with trucks, RV's and other sorts of transportation; that slowed us down a bit because there were fewer passing lanes. This is the quickest way to Las Vegas from Phoenix and that is where most of the traffic was headed. We also wanted to see the new bridge that they had completed over the Colorado River. The last time I was there, the bridge was still under construction and the highway took us right over the top of Hoover Dam. This time, we hardly knew we had approached it because we could not even see the dam so that was kind of disappointing. Las Vegas was next with its high-rising casinos beckoning us but we had been there and done that before and we still had another 4-5 hours of driving to put in before our next destination, Ely, Nevada.
After filling up the car in Las Vegas, we headed out to the desert. There was nothing to see but sage brush and Joshua trees. We passed a deserted building along the road that was all boarded up with a huge sign that read "NOTHING", which said it all and that really made us feel like we were out in no man's land. We passed a rest station with porta-potties for use and I decided "no thanks". We passed a few ranches along the way with a few "no-horse" towns that if we blinked we would have missed. I felt really isolated from the hustle and bustle of the world and even little Wheeler seemed like a big town by comparison. I really expected to see vultures circling above waiting for us to meet our demise, just like in the old Western movies.
After 8 hours of driving, we finally arrived at our destination, Ely, Nevada which wasn't much to speak about and I would rate this town as a "one-horse". It was a major junction where you either headed east or west. We sat outside a run-down Motel 6 debating whether to stay there or not and - remembering our experience of our stay in Stockton last week - we agreed to upgrade to the La Quinta Inn down the street. It was a good move as the king-size bed was so much more comfortable than the lumpy mattress at the other place. After we checked in we toured around to find some place to eat. We passed the Mexican and all the fast-food places and on the other side of town we found a little family-owned restaurant. The dining experience at the restaurant was frustrating. Dave had ordered a steak and I thought the salmon looked pretty good. I don't want to know where the salmon came from because there wasn't any running river within miles of this town. It is in the desert!! Anyway, after we ordered, we waited, and waited and we were beginning to think that they must have had to go catch the fish or butcher the cow! We didn't know what was taking so long until we found out that the steak was extra thick and that was the reason. The waitress came by a couple of times to see how we were doing and my answer each time was "starving". The food finally came and although Dave's steak was small (about four bites) it was thick and just the way he liked it. My salmon dinner was delicious too and I guess it was worth the wait. They did apologize for the wait.
The next morning after we ate breakfast, got the car filled with gas and stopped at a grocery store for a ready-made lunch to take with us, we headed for out next leg of our road trip. Our destination was 600 miles, 8 hours away to Baker City, Oregon. We got chased out of Ely by a few snowflakes falling and a cold wind from the south which we had mostly to our backs. When we turned to head west, Dave had a hard time keeping the car on the road with the side winds. We didn't see much in this isolated part of Nevada, except tumbleweeds doing cartwheels beside us down the road. To give you an idea how windy it was, we were driving 75 miles per hour and the tumbleweeds were doing a good job of keeping up with us! We finally made it to Twin Falls, Idaho where we filled the car up with gas and only paid $3.65 a gallon, which was the lowest gas price so far on this trip. Out of Twin Falls, we passed Jerome, Idaho where my father was born. I don't think my father lived in Jerome very long as the family was headed out west to Hillsboro, Oregon from Illinois. He was one of fourteen siblings and was born along the way in various locations. It is hard for me to think of bearing 14 children let alone trying to raise them all in this day and age. Then it was on to Boise and we arrived in Baker City about dinner time. After we checked into one of the only two places to stay here, we walked across to the restaurant and had corned beef and cabbage since it was St. Patrick's Day.
After leaving Baker City (we noticed more motels on the other side of town) we headed for West Linn which was about 6 hours away. While we were driving through the mountains, we noticed a large herd of elk grazing up on the hill. What a sight! There must have been a 100 of them in that herd. We had planned to stop and see my cousin in northern Idaho on this trip, but that would have taken an extra day and the weather wasn't cooperating, so we called her and postponed the visit. We'll try again in a couple of months. Although there was snow farther north in Idaho, we didn't run into any until we got into Portland and then it was minor.
We spent the next couple of days in West Linn. We stayed with Lara and Greg and bonded with our granddaughters. Dave had a Blazer broadcast and I had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday and so we decided to stay in town instead of running back and forth. The doctor's appointment was a follow-up from my surgery in December when I had the tumor removed from my bladder. Good news, the doctor found no return of the tumor and so I don't have to go back until July for another check-up.
Dave did a few odd jobs that Lara had requested while we were in town. He helped her assemble a bed that she had gotten from IKEA. The furniture from there always has to be assembled and since we have had experience putting together a couple of bunk beds a while back, he helped her do that. He also installed some insulation around a water pipe that tends to sweat from condensation down in the basement. I was requested to babysit one night while they attended a meeting. So all in all, we earned our keep while we were there.
Tuesday night, I packed up the car and picked Dave up after the game and we headed for home. We ran into quite a snow storm up on the summit while crossing the coast range and had to forge our own path on the highway. No one else was silly enough to be out on that stretch of road in the middle of the night and the snowplows hadn't arrived yet. In fact, we passed a couple going the other way after we made it through the snow. We had bought new "all weather" tires for the Jeep before our trip and Dave commented that they had paid for themselves going through the snow that night! We made it home around midnight, safe and sound and it felt so good after three weeks to be finally sleeping in our own bed again.
The rest of the week I have been busy catching up with unpacking, laundry, opening mail, paying bills, reading outdated newspapers and trying to get back to my normal routine. It has been cold outside but the memory of the 80-degree weather from our trip down south still lingers in my mind. We have had few signs of spring around here but the daffodils have managed to be the brave ones to appear first.
You'll notice that there are no photos this week. Although we had our camera with us on the trip, somehow it never left the suitcase. Dave was using his cell phone for any pictures we took and that worked fine until he dropped the phone. Between the broken phone and spotty email service after we left Phoenix, we just quit using it. Not that there's much to take pictures of in Nevada and Idaho anyway!
