Wednesday 3 April 2019

Wednesday, March 3rd

It was a gorgeous day again in Apache Junction.  The temperatures were in the high teens when we left.
  We were up quite early, as is typical for us on any travel day.  We don't use an alarm, don't need one as our internal clocks seem to be all we need.  Marg was up about 5:45 and put the coffee on while I slept in and was up about 6.  We had muffins compliments of one of our neighbours, so when we discovered them on our door step Marg gave the ones we bought away to the first company we had last evening. 
  We had a few last minute things left to load, so got them all in the back seat of the truck, which is now quite full.  I still had the drain in the bathroom sink to put RV antifreeze in, not that freezing is a problem, but it discourages any sewer bugs [cockroaches for example] and it does not evaporate so maintains that barrier in the trap.  Then I plunged the toilet and put zip lock bags filled, but left soft so they seal that sewer connection off.  Turned off the water and the breaker for the hot water tank, locked up and got on our way.  We had to stop at the garbage bin to dump a bag and in the process had farewells with 3 or 4 people.  It was 7:10 AM when we left the park gate.
  The traffic on the 202 was heavy, but thanks to the HOV lane we made good time.  Where we turn off on to the 101, it was very heavy, bumper to bumper but still moving.  It took a while to work over the 6 lanes to get in the HOV, probably a mile or two.  There it moved better, but still well below the posted speed limit.  In total when we got to the #17 highway north out of Phoenix, it was 1 1/2 hours from the time we left the park.
  We go up the 17 to the Carefree highway [Famous Gordon Lightfoot song - Carefree Hiway], taking it to Wickenburg, where we made a rest stop [see picture].  It must just about be the cowboy capital of Az, every time we go through they have a bunch of cattle penned and there are dozens of campers and horse trailers just north of town.  Traffic on the 93 was good and we made it to Kingman well before lunch.  Bought gas there for $2.87 a gallon, the highest I have seen since October.  The Highway 40 traffic was similarly light.  It was all good until we got to Las Vegas where the best part of it was the weather, sunny and 21C.  We arrived in the middle of the noon hour and the traffic was not light.  It wasn't too bad until we got about 2 miles from our turn off from the 215 in the area they call the Spaghetti Bowl.  The signage at the access to the I-15 is a bit confusing as there are 3 exit lanes from the 215: to Los Angeles, Reno & Salt Lake City.  As luck had it our exit to SLC is the right one, but at some point the signage appears over the middle one and in another in the left one.  Being as we go through there once a year and it was bumper to bumper from 2 miles back, I had time to nudge my way through to the middle lane, then the left one and then back over both to the right hand lane where I started from, in the end successfully getting on the I-15.  Oh yes we had to change our clocks forward by an hour in Nevada and that was the same in Utah, so we added an hour to our trip that way.
  We never stopped for lunch as Marg had made buns and we had some cookies from another neighbour as well as breakfast bars.  Our next stop was in Cedar City Utah for fuel and to use the facilities.  Gas there was $2.45 a price we had not seen for about a month back in Az.  With our fuel capacity and economy that is seldom a reason to stop.  Th I-15 through Utah is posted at 80 mph or 130 KMph, so we made good time.  For that reason I seen no need to speed, however we always see highway patrol with some pulled over on that route.  Hard to believe, but at 80 mph I had numerous vehicles pass me almost as if I was stalled.
  We got the Salt Lake City area late in the day about 7:30 PM local time.  So lets see that is a little over 11 hours on the road.  We made 1,243 KM's today, so even allowing the time for slow traffic in Phoenix and Las Vegas, as well as slower limits in Kingman, Vegas, St George, Cedar City and SLC we averaged a respectable rate.  We had some light showers on the road, but nothing serious.  More rain would have been good as we killed hundreds of unknown bugs on the windshield.  Salt Lake City is very long and narrow as it is sandwiched between the Wasatch [Rocky] mountains and the great salt lake.  Most of the road is 6 lanes [each direction] and at 65 / 70 mph it takes over an hour to get through the busy part.  There was lots of road construction this trip.  On our side [north bound] they had narrowing of the lanes and some irregular lanes, so lots of swerving and then the lanes split at one point to 3 on each side of a large work area.  That was the good side, the oncoming lanes were a disaster. There were 6 or more lanes bumper to bumper, barely moving and the line was about 10 miles as it was people leaving the city center to go home from work.
  We got a nice hotel room in Layton, which although part of greater SLC, is on the north end, so we should have light traffic leaving in the morning.  There were several nice restaurants in the immediate area, so we chose Sizzler.  We have not eaten at one since Hawaii and it was very good.  Marg had the salad bar with fish and chips, me the bbq ribs and a nice amber beer called Flat Tire. 
  A good day and we are well positioned for second day of our journey.
 

2 comments:

  1. Well done it sounds like you have a lot of the bottlenecks behind you

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  2. Charlene Smith4 April 2019 at 00:13

    6 lanes.... don’t even think we have it thT bad..... That is a good haul of miles..... drive safely xx

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