Monday... 28th? Turn left, turn right, turn left, turn right...

So we were almost in Redding for no real reason, so we decided to go all the way west, for no real reason. Undecided on whether we were shooting for Sacremento or San Franciso next, we did the only logical thing and headed for neither. From Redding we took the 299 to the 3 and down to the 36... What that means in reality is we headed out again on the north California forest and rural roads and headed for the ocean. It was, undeniably, nice and green after the other states... But, as I did point out to my driving partner, it was mostly through parks, which are, as we discovered yesterday, scenic but slow... And indeed, as soon as we started climbing into the trees, progress slowed to half speed, or even one third speed, as we curved back and forth and climbed up and down, up and down... Sounds like fun, and indeed it was, but with 450 miles or so to cover, suddenly time went very slow... And then we hit roadworks with the roads closed for ten or twenty minutes... Not once, not twice, three times... So we looked at this quite a lot...

That's Lake Shasta by the way. Scenic. 

And then there were farms 

And then there were hills. And corners. 

  

Finally we made it to Fortuna, and had a tasty turkey and ham sandwich at the local Cafe... Fortuna like most of the little towns up that was pretty cute, obviously catering to city visitors but with not much else going on. All through the endless forest roads out there we were constantly perplexed by how many Americans somehow live in these remote areas in houses in the trees, and in remote valleys, and in farms with apparently no animals... Whole villages in the forest, with no visible means of support. Goodness knows how they make a living, but apparently they do. 

The 101 south from Fortuna was blessedly wide and straight... Briefly. Before long, it was windier than the roads from the morning. I was just hauling the Challenger left to right to left to right, my copilot remarkably tolerant of my driving which kept me entertained but was too fast to be comfortable on such endlessly steep windy roads. Eventually we found ourselves in Redwood country, and even found the famous drive-through tree, which was cool... No idea how they got old American cars through though...

                  

                                         

Fort Bragg was pretty, and it was in fact nice to be at sea level and see the ocean after being so high up and so far inland for so long... Pointing the car for Sacramento we fought our way through more windy stuff around the side of Clear Lake, another playground, then down into the lush valley of vines and orchards (and enormous golfing resort/casinos) that led to Woodland... Which was yet another nice and seemingly pretty well-off little Cali town, where a motel was easy enough to find and we were finally out of the saddle again.

Another 450 miles covered and a dash of Carls Jr for tea... Philly cheesesteak burger - if you fancy suicide by burger, it is pretty darn good. And the caramel and sea salt shake... Awesome!!! They are officially approved, unlike a bunch of other stuff so far consumed and regretted...

Reno westward... a couple more days to catch up on...

In fairness to Reno I guess I have to say it was slightly better in the morning light after putting the action packed previous day behind us... But in reality, it wasn't that much better, and still generally came across as all the rejects from Vegas in one spot... In fact Nevada as a whole really just seems to be a big empty space that happens to have Vegas in it... Sorry Nevada... I am sure the snow is good.

On the bright side though, we did decide to swing by the National Auto Museum before we left Reno, and while we didn't really expect that much, we were pretty darn pleasantly surprised. The cars are mostly from the once-ridiculous private collection of Bill Harrah, of Harrah's casinos... I believe he had something like 1400 cars at once stage including some of the rarest and most valuable in the world... When he died Harrah's started to sell them off but after a major outcry by collectors and the public a couple of hundred were donated for a museum, and they are pretty cool. Ok some are downright incredible. I went camera-nuts again...

       

                                 

        

Plus about 400 others... I have to say on this trip I have gotten to take photos of some of the most awesome cars on the planet, it has been pretty amazing... Cords, Dusenbergs, Auburns, Cobras, GT40s, one-off Rolls's, Delahayes, a Tucker, awesome rods, vintage Euros and Americana...

The quick trip the museum ended up taking nearly four hours, cutting into our driving day somewhat... Then on the way out of town I decided we also needed to stop at Cabelas before we left Nevada... Cabelas being a huge outdoors, hunting and fishing and camping and... Well, everything outdoors ever... Store... Where we were once again captured for quite some time marvelling at how cheap everything was and how much we got ripped off at home. I struggled to resist just buying a huge bag full of stuff just cause... as it was, what I did buy was about as third of the price of at home. Oh so many hundreds and hundreds of nice guns... And everything to do with guns.... And much other cool stuff. All I can say is - 30 round M4 magazines - $14.... They had literally a pallet of them... 250 shotgun rounds $60... Etc. I will discuss how much we get ripped off for everything later... Or now... yeah, a tank of gas costs $60 here... A pack of smokes costs $6... A six pack of beer costs $6... Two gallons of milk is $8... A pair of good jeans is $30... Fruit is measured in cents per kilo not dollars... And explain this to me... A Powerade, which is MADE at home, not imported, is like $4... I saw a special here at the supermarket... Powerade... $8... For TWO PACKS OF EIGHT BOTTLES. 

Anyway, rant aside, Cabelas was good... We ate in their cafe, I had a smoked bison sandwich, it was damn good. On leaving there we bailed to the border and into California, and turned north again from Truckee, taking a majorly scenic back road to Redding, which was nice, through much forest and what is a major winter playground when the snow is down... Lots of scenic valleys, farms, cute towns, creeks and trees, etc etc... So pretty much the opposite of Nevada. On the downside the road was often steep and windy, and getting anywhere took some time... 

At one point we were up in the snow a bit and had the choice to take the more scenic route over the very top of the volcano or turn and head around the side and down. Gas was going to be tight, it was getting a bit late, and the weather was not looking flash... Uncharacteristically (after the disasters of the day before) I decided to be sensible and turned back and took the shorter easier route down. Within ten minutes we were getting hammered by hail and freezing rain, meaning that if we had continued up  the other route we would most likely have been caught in a massive dumping of snow at the peak of the mountain, on an empty road, at dusk... So I do make the occasional good call. The road was also something like 250 miles long as it was... So we arrived tired and pretty late. Happily we found a motel with no drama this time, and then swung by Taco Bell for a feed... Which I approved of. Taco Bell can actually be good, if the staff actually give a crap... 

So that was Sunday (I think? Was it Sunday?), well that's all that comes to mind right now anyway... and now I will have to leave today for tomorrow. If that makes sense... 

Farewell Utah... I will have words for you later...

We rose this morning and packed with a vague plan to head from Kanab via Cedar City into Nevada and head generally for Reno, seeing what we could see on the way. On opening the door of our well heated motel room, I noted it was indeed raining, and cold... Hmm... Ok... The lady in the office said there would be rain all day, maybe even a touch of snow in places... Lucky we are getting out of here, we thought... 

Hitting the road, within about 15 minutes we started getting a bit of a dusting of light snow flakes... How nice, we thought, a little snow... 

On we travelled... Not wanting to get stuck in Kanab for days if the snow set in... We can get through a little snow we thought... Then a little more snow... Then a little more snow... Then...

And than we quickly got to the point that there was too much snow to turn back, or in fact go anywhere but in the wheel tracks ahead of us... And things got very slow... 

And trucks were stopped on hills because they could not make it to the top... And traffic got thinner and thinner... And there were cars in ditches... Fortunately when we finally got to the top of the range we had to go over, when we were pondering if in fact attempting to go down was a good idea, we came upon a snow plough coming the other way who turned around and helped clear the path... And yes, below is a cop checking on a car covered in snow that must have got stuck trying to get up the other side... Some time ago...

Eventually we were out and underway proper... Once in Nevada I for some reason elected to make our day even more interesting... On discovering the town of Ely was over 100 miles away and our gas was getting down, rather than turning back to the last gas station we passed, I summarily decided we had enough to get there... And spent the next hour and a half blasting along endless straight bits of road, slowly getting increasingly nervous as the needle dropped and dropped... And with literally no cars passing the other way. Or going in our direction. And passing about one farm house every 15 miles... The fuel light came on as we passed a sign saying the next junction (not town, just junction) was 23 miles away... So I decided there must be a gas station at the junction, because they always have warnings if it is THAT far between gas stations... We got there with the needle square on 'E'... No gas station. And over 20 miles to town... Hmm... At that point I had to bite the bullet... I pulled in to the only building for miles, a run down little roadhouse bar, and went and asked for gas... Sure enough they had some... But the guy said his boss only let him sell gas in 5 gallon amounts... And only for more than twice as much as the gas stations... With other choice, I bought 5 gals of gas for forty bucks... Which did seem a lot, til we realised that is probably still cheaper than at home from a legitimate thieving gas station. I asked if they had many people stopping asking for gas... "Oh yeah, probably a couple of hundred a year... Most days..."   Nice little racket being a black market gas station.

And what we then discovered, once fuelled and cracking along again, was that in Nevada there is a lot of really not very much... A couple of semi ok and mildly interesting little towns... But mostly, just a whole heap of prairies, plains, and then mountains, and then plains, and then mountains... Seriously... All day... 

Long, long straights... Ten, fifteen, twenty mile long straights... Then up into mountains, then down, to another straight... Over... And over... With nothing but the occsional cow. While in Utah we had taken to measuring how long the straights were to see who could drive the longest one (when we remembered to note mileage at the start)... The previous record was 12 miles... 9 and 10 were common... In Nevada my co driver first got a new record at 21 miles... Hard to beat... Until later in the day when  I came across one I am pretty sure was in excess of 30 miles... I am not entirely sure because it was probably 5 miles before I realised how long it was going to be and actually noted the mileage... And then I was so busy doing sums I failed to notice something else, and then I got distracted...

Note to self, when looking out for cops, do not look for white Utah Highway Patrol cars after you have crossed into Nevada... Their cars are black... Ok, so I can't really feel too bad for getting a speeding ticket while driving a white Challenger down the longest straight piece of road I have ever driven on in my life. I had, not long before, been thinking about how I could and should really be doing at least 100mph to do the car and the road any justice, because the speed limits are just stupidly low for huge, empty roads. Fortunately I was not doing 100mph... Annoyingly though, while I was slowing down a bit for most oncoming cars, which we could see from miles away on the flats, the Highway Patrol got me as I came over a rise, and I was so busy thinking about something else I didn't slow down like I usually would have, or even register him until his lights came on... He was nice enough though... He reduced the mph on the ticket, and after issuing it gave some handy advice about acceptable levels of speeding in Nevada. I am sure he has no shortage of customers as most Americans seem to regard the limits as optional

After that, endless more ten and fifteen mile straights linked by minor bends, on and on, and over more mountains... With little to see or do we forged ahead, not really intending to reach Reno, but with no reason to stop, until sure enough there we were, six hundred miles later, and still in daylight thanks to my heavy foot. Finding a motel or hotel proved nigh on impossible though, with a huge volleyball tournament and various other things taking up most of the hotels, and some of the places we did check out proving to be entirely too scummy even for us. Eventually after some frustration, we found a spot with one room left due to a cancellation... Not flash... Not at all... Smelling of smoke, next to the freeway.. But not quite so full of drug dealers and such, which is nice. Reno, great first impression. 

Anyways, too lazy to write much more and too tired to write it even vaguely well, so will stop being boring and end your suffering... Hi to all, and thanks for all the emails and such to says you are reading, hard to believe so many people keep coming back for some reason! Til next time...

It's hard remembering yesterday...

...after today... But yesterday was Friday and must cover that first... We rose early to enjoy the delights of Blanding... Laundromat... Which took much longer than we would have preferred, but now we have clothes again, so that is good. 

Then it was doubling back a bit to the scenic route to Monument Valley we planned to take earlier... Which didn't seem that scenic until we came around a corner on a shrubby plain and there was warning about unsealed road and slopes and corners... And then we found ourselves on the edge of this...

                                            

Note that is taken from passenger window, and that is the edge of the road, and no there is no barrier... We stopped the viewing point for a better look, at this -

                                        

Note the road curving back on itself going down the cliff... Once at the bottom we turned off on the dirt track you can see heading off to the left off the main road, into the Valley of the Gods... The Challenger did a bit of off-roading to get to these... 

After that little diversion it was back on the main road, looking at Navajo jewellery stalls along the way, then some more of these... 

                                 

Then we started making best speed for Arizona and the north lip of the Grand Canyon... We knew we would be pushing it to have enough daylight, so lunch was NOS energy drink and jerky (serious... I never drink energy drinks but since it is impossible to find decent coffee in America and even more so to find ice coffee or milk coffee, I have found myself drinking mostly Monster Energy canned energy coffee rubbish in big cans, which only vaguely tastes like coffee...) from there we didn't stop for much... Apart from a cool bridge... Actually two... 

                    

Until finally we made it to the turnoff to the north rim with just enough time to spare... and discovered that Grand Canyon National Park north is closed until May 15. Dicks. 

At this point we got stuck behind a bunch if geriatric accountants and dentists on a flipping Harley bike riding tour (reference South Park episode on Harley riders), along with their support van (how badass is that, being followed by a van with your luggage and a warning sign on the back) who held us up all the way down the mountain, riding like they were on mobility scooters, and too bunched up to pass safely one at a time but too spread out to be able to pass as a group... I would have merrily sent them flying one by one off the edge of the hill if I could have...

With dark catching up and no place to stay sorted we bypassed a couple of decidedly average places nearby and tried for the next town, called Kanab... Which blessedly turned out to be a quite charming if slightly artificial little touristy town sent up to serve all the outdoorsy types who flock to the region... We found a nice little retro motel, ate some fairly awful Pizza Hut (stuffed crust... Just say no... I ate like a pound of pseudo-cheese), and then retired from the rather chilly evening... TV news told of a storm coming, and major heavy rain warnings not far away, plus high risk of tornados in neighbouring states... Then we watched a doco on huge flooding a year or two ago just up the road (you may remember all the oft-repeated TV shots of new houses falling into the river, which ate massive amounts of the banks away and swallowed whole neighbourhoods).. 'Lucky we are heading west' we thought.... And then...

Ok, less on cars now... Thursday...

Thursday was packup and back in car (ok that didn't last long) and into Salt Lake where we saw that yes, indeed, there are a lot of Mormons, and yes, they do take up quite a bit of city real estate... I was not captured and converted though, and we managed to make it out via a Sears where my copilot had to swap a 7-pack of singlets purchased during the Vegas shopping freny incident. The nice girl at the counter asked lots of questions and didn't understand how you could have Christms in the summer and told us about how she went overseas once to Spain and her aunt had her purse stolen. 

Trucking south we stopped in at American Fork (a place not a restaurant) and I had another mini-pilgrimage of sorts as we called in at Blade HQ... So many tempting goodies... From there it was down to Spanish Fork (like American Fork but with more tomatoes) (not really) and then off the main interstate, I-15, swinging east on 6 towards some backwoods scenic routes, marked as 96 then 264 to 31... These were entirely unknown to us and picked from a map as they traced through forest and possibly interesting countryside, apart from that we knew nothing. As opposed to the huge wide interstates, they all proved to be two-way two lane roads much like those at home, but blessedly with next to no traffic. We found forests and farms and valleys and then we found hills... And a bunch of other stuff... Like a coal mine (there are lots around here)

                                

And then some white stuff that wasn't coal... And then a sign that said "Do not enter without chains before May" and we were like 'huh?'... And then after burning in Vegas and getting sandblasted in Salt Lake, we were somewhat surprised to find ourselves here 

                                

At 10,000ft on a mountain... Which was interesting... So we got out tromped around in snow and got cold... Then back down to farmland, and lunch...

                                           

No I'm not kidding... It was that or prehistoric mac and cheese from a warmer in the little local supermarket... And then on into red rock country.. Big red rock country... So many photos of big red rocks...

                                  

We ended up having to overshoot the turnoff to Monument Valley in order to find a bed, and after about a 500 mile drive we pulled in fairly late, about 1930, to a little spot called Blanding... Not much there but we got a room and went to the local steakhouse, pretty much the only food in town apart from a Subway... Where oddly the fish caught our eye... I had catfish, so now I can say I have, and it was real good... With veges and mashed potato and gravy (which seems to be a big thing around there...). After that it was time for several hours of car shows on TV and then a well earned sleep...