Back to the Office

February 22, 2010
Today was back to the office. The day went by pretty fast. We took a closer look at the van and realized it would be best to take it to Tulsa for repair. The front laser/bumper it is attached to was bent during our slide into the ditch. We took the van to Ford for some service. It needed an oil change and we also wanted them to look things over to make sure things were OK under the truck.

I'm in a scramble to get papers ready for a lender in Virginia and trying to put some things away in my condo. It is now officially on the market...cross your fingers! I'm super excited about the move. To throw a damper on things I realized last night that my neighbors pipes are still leaking! As some of you know I've had on going battles with the upstairs people having water leaks ever since I've moved into this place about 4 1/2 years ago. Enough is enough! Looking after other peoples pipes is not how I like to spend my free time.

This Saturday my sister and I are going on a cruise. If they have internet on the boat I'll try to post to my blog.

Salt Lake to Denver

February 20, 2010

Today was a long, long, long day. The snow started early and basically didn't end. We hit patches of clear weather but those clear patches didn't last for long. The trip across Wyoming was typical for the winter and not enjoyable at all. We got to Laramie, WY and heard that I-80 was closed over The Summit. That is a pass I've driven many times and often wondered why there was even a road there, it is pretty dangerous in the winter. We found out the road was closed due to an 11 truck pile up. We had to take Hwy 287 from Laramie to Fort Collins since I-80 was closed. Hwy 287 is a two lane road that also has some bad spot. We found one of those spots at 4:00pm! We were headed south bound and started sliding. The struck spun 1/2 way around looking north bound and went into the oncoming lane and we slide sideways into the ditch. We were very luck that it happened where the ditch was pretty flat and there was no oncoming traffic when we spun into the other lane. The whole thing could have been much, much worse. We are all OK. We were very luck to find a tow truck that was able to come right away from Laramie. It took 1 & 1/2 hours from the time we went in the ditch to the time we were on the road again. When we were on the road again it was starting to get dark and it was still lightly snowing. We had another 1 & 1/2 to Denver, on a good day but with the bad weather what should have been an 8 hour day turned out to be a 13 hour day. I got home at 10:00pm and was very thankful to be home and finally out of the truck.

Reno to Salt Lake

February 19, 2010
Today we drove across the entire state of Nevada and 1/2 of Utah. We ended up in Salt Lake City. We hit a few snow flurries along the way and we had to stop at McDonald's for lunch in Battle Mountain, NV. McDonald's is never my first (or second choice) for a place to eat but it was either McDonald's or gas station food.

Yesterday by our hotel in Reno there was a street sign that said "street calming ahead". I've never seen or heard of such a thing. I had to ask what that meant and I guess it means "speed bumps". I don't know why the sign didn't just say "speed bumps"! I looked up street calming on the Internet thinking I wouldn't find much but I was wrong! I guess it is a pretty big engineering topic...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traffic_calming

The photo is of the view outside of my hotel room.

Oh, I found this on YouTube....Shaun White and his private pipe...amazing!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1Zoh2JC_XA&feature=fvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQTodf1Oc28&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ZxPqDnNvQ&feature=channel

Crescent City to Reno

February 18, 2010
Today we left Crescent City. I walked out of my hotel room to put my bag in the truck, pulled my room door shut and felt slime on my hand. What a way to start the morning! I realized that some joker decided to slime all of the door handles. I went to the front desk to see if they had a housekeeper working yet that could clean off the door handles. Luckily there was a lady there who was able to do it before other people woke up to the surprise. It ended up being the talk of the morning at the front desk.

During the drive from Crescent City, CA to Reno, NV we saw a bald eagle and drove by Mount McLoughlin, which was very pretty and none of us in the truck had ever heard of it before.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_McLoughlin

I was also keeping an eye out for "Hendrickson Trucking Company" semis. I usually see several of them in CA since they are based out of Sacramento but didn't see any today until 5:15pm! I finally saw on heading west back to Sacramento. I'm not sure if the owner is related to my family line but it might be possible. One of these days I'll have to check into it. http://www.hendricksontrucking.com/Home.html

We rolled into Reno around 7:30pm. It was a long day in the van and I'm glad to get into the hotel room. It took about 1/2 an hour to check in though...confusion with the reservations.

Also, a bit of a side note. If anyone missed seeing Shaun White in snowboarding yesterday who won an Olympic gold you must check this out. I only found one YouTube link and I'm not sure how long it will be posted but what an amazing run! What you are seeing is his 2nd run. His first run won him the Gold so this run was basically for the fans!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcJgFqpUowg
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7VZ1y2vbMU

Redwood National Park

February 17, 2010

Today we finished collecting in the park. This morning there was a lot of fog but by the afternoon most of it had lifted. There is an elk viewing field in the park and there are typically several elk hanging around. Today I was able to get a photo of a couple of them. When we were finished collecting we stopped at the beach for a minute and I took a few more photos.