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My odometer testifies to my having driven over 5000 miles in the past month, with virtually all of that distance driven in stretches of from one to four days.
Generally speaking, driving by yourself for long distances is the pits. There are very few good things to listen to on broadcast radio (moreover, when you do find something good, it's going out of range), and there are only so many times you can listen to a CD.
I stopped last night at the Motel 6 in the thriving metropolis of Cozad, Nebraska, after having covered almost 600 miles for the day. Even at night, I could just tell that this was some sort of center for cattle raising, or more likely, shipment. I slept well and got up shortly after 5 am under my own steam and hit the road by 6. The sun was not yet up and the ambient air temperature was easily in the 20s.
Too bad the heater in the Civic doesn't work.
Although the day started with the promise of sunshine once things became light, the clouds soon rolled over the sky, keeping the Civic cold as it zoomed down the highway. Halfway down I-76 (between where it intersects I-80 in Nebraska and where it terminates in Denver) I stopped to put on a second pair of socks, since my feet were freezing. That didn't help; if anything, it made things worse.
I stopped again and went back to one pair of socks and tried to rub some feeling back into my toes. As I rolled along, the sun fought to break through the clouds, but couldn't hold the momentum. The scenery stayed gray.
Upon reaching Denver, I stopped at a mall at Exit 242 on I-70 and walked around for half an hour, getting the circulation back in my feet and waiting for a Japanese restaurant to open up. I should have spent the time looking for some other place to eat, as the food in the place was surprisingly terrible. I also stopped at a sporting goods place and picked up a couple of chemical foot warmer pads. Of course, by the time I got back to the car, it had warmed up enough to where I did not need the pads any more.
My next meal break occurred near Poncha Springs, where I decided to check out what was advertised on the roadside as a Thai restaurant. Which it is, complete with Thai proprietor. As I stood watching the cook, waiting to order, I was intrigued by the ingredients of a dish that was being prepared, and ordered the same thing without knowing what it was. It turns out it was pretty good, and I even got a copy of the menu with the item's named circled for future reference, but it's out in the car, apparently, and I've just finished dragging most of my junk upstairs for the night and am in no mood to go downstairs again right now. (Update: The name of the dish is yum woon sen, a mixture of pork, chicken, rice noodles, and vegetables, including cabbage and bamboo shoots.)
The closer I got to home, the more threatening the weather became. It started to snow on highway 285 around Saugauche and then eased up for a bit. The flakes returned as I hit Del Norte, and I was concerned that highway 160 would be closed at the Wolf Creek Pass, forcing me either to overnight in South Fork (on the other side of the pass) or to retrace my steps past Del Norte to Monte Vista, Alamosa, and Conejos to find my way to Chama, New Mexico, and then up highway 84 (almost like driving back up to Denver again, mileage-wise).
The pass was not closed, but I noticed that as I got to a point 30 miles from Pagosa (going upgrade toward the summit of the pass), I was traveling 30 mph. Near the top, 25 miles from Pagosa, I could go no faster than 25 mph. At the top, around 20 miles from town, the pace of traffic had slowed to around 20 mph, and so on down to 15 mph a little while later, when the distance to town had shrunk to 15 miles. I mused that, at this rate, I'd be an hour away from home for a fairly long time, but quickly turned my attention back to the road as some candidate for an early demise went whooshing past me, moving at the suicidal rate of 30 mph, trusting in God and his snow tires.
Once I was back on the level, after Treasure Falls, the road stopped being snow-packed and was just wet, allowing me to speed up a bit. Ming was terribly glad when I pulled into the garage.
It's great to be back home.
Cheers...
Generally speaking, driving by yourself for long distances is the pits. There are very few good things to listen to on broadcast radio (moreover, when you do find something good, it's going out of range), and there are only so many times you can listen to a CD.
I stopped last night at the Motel 6 in the thriving metropolis of Cozad, Nebraska, after having covered almost 600 miles for the day. Even at night, I could just tell that this was some sort of center for cattle raising, or more likely, shipment. I slept well and got up shortly after 5 am under my own steam and hit the road by 6. The sun was not yet up and the ambient air temperature was easily in the 20s.
Too bad the heater in the Civic doesn't work.
Although the day started with the promise of sunshine once things became light, the clouds soon rolled over the sky, keeping the Civic cold as it zoomed down the highway. Halfway down I-76 (between where it intersects I-80 in Nebraska and where it terminates in Denver) I stopped to put on a second pair of socks, since my feet were freezing. That didn't help; if anything, it made things worse.
I stopped again and went back to one pair of socks and tried to rub some feeling back into my toes. As I rolled along, the sun fought to break through the clouds, but couldn't hold the momentum. The scenery stayed gray.
Upon reaching Denver, I stopped at a mall at Exit 242 on I-70 and walked around for half an hour, getting the circulation back in my feet and waiting for a Japanese restaurant to open up. I should have spent the time looking for some other place to eat, as the food in the place was surprisingly terrible. I also stopped at a sporting goods place and picked up a couple of chemical foot warmer pads. Of course, by the time I got back to the car, it had warmed up enough to where I did not need the pads any more.
My next meal break occurred near Poncha Springs, where I decided to check out what was advertised on the roadside as a Thai restaurant. Which it is, complete with Thai proprietor. As I stood watching the cook, waiting to order, I was intrigued by the ingredients of a dish that was being prepared, and ordered the same thing without knowing what it was. It turns out it was pretty good, and I even got a copy of the menu with the item's named circled for future reference, but it's out in the car, apparently, and I've just finished dragging most of my junk upstairs for the night and am in no mood to go downstairs again right now. (Update: The name of the dish is yum woon sen, a mixture of pork, chicken, rice noodles, and vegetables, including cabbage and bamboo shoots.)
The closer I got to home, the more threatening the weather became. It started to snow on highway 285 around Saugauche and then eased up for a bit. The flakes returned as I hit Del Norte, and I was concerned that highway 160 would be closed at the Wolf Creek Pass, forcing me either to overnight in South Fork (on the other side of the pass) or to retrace my steps past Del Norte to Monte Vista, Alamosa, and Conejos to find my way to Chama, New Mexico, and then up highway 84 (almost like driving back up to Denver again, mileage-wise).
The pass was not closed, but I noticed that as I got to a point 30 miles from Pagosa (going upgrade toward the summit of the pass), I was traveling 30 mph. Near the top, 25 miles from Pagosa, I could go no faster than 25 mph. At the top, around 20 miles from town, the pace of traffic had slowed to around 20 mph, and so on down to 15 mph a little while later, when the distance to town had shrunk to 15 miles. I mused that, at this rate, I'd be an hour away from home for a fairly long time, but quickly turned my attention back to the road as some candidate for an early demise went whooshing past me, moving at the suicidal rate of 30 mph, trusting in God and his snow tires.
Once I was back on the level, after Treasure Falls, the road stopped being snow-packed and was just wet, allowing me to speed up a bit. Ming was terribly glad when I pulled into the garage.
It's great to be back home.
Cheers...
