Day 7 - Portland, OR - 2331 Miles

Made it to Portland. You always take a chance when you book a hotel through Priceline in the airport zone. This time we ended up at Red Lion. It is probably the hotel closest to the end of the runway at the Portland airport. We are definitely in the room that is closest to the runway. If there is a crash, we will be the first to know. In fact, we will likely be involved. How ironic would it be with my intense fear of flying that I would be that random "and there was one victim on the ground."

I did get some mountain and Columbia River pics on the way in.

 

 

Day 6 - Boise, ID - 1908 Miles

Unexciting. We made multiple crossings of the appropriately named Snake River as we drove through Idaho. We stopped briefly in Twin Falls, ID, the world-famous site of Evel Knievel's failed attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.

Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls ID

Snake River Canyon, Twin Falls ID

Evel Knievel Jump Ramp in Upper Right

Idaho State Capital

 

Happy Hour in Boise, ID

Day 5 - Salt Lake City, UT - 1565 Miles

Move along folks. Nothing to see here. Now we're just trying to put miles behind us. I am happy to have come down from high altitudes. I was tired of getting seriously winded from taking a shower in the morning. I'm not sure if it's age or just being completely out of shape. I'm going with age. Today we mostly coasted downhill through desert into Salt Lake City.

 

Mormon Temple

Mormon Temple

 

Utah State Capital

Day 4 - Grand Junction, CO - 1259 Miles

A drive through the Rockies from Cortez to Grand Junction, CO. We were lucky. We first drove from Cortez to Durango. There is one road from Durango to Grand Junction. Along the way I saw several flashing signs saying there was a rockslide and the road was closed between 8:00 to 12:30pm, and 1:30 to 6:00pm. Being the city boy I am, I assumed, "They're not actually shutting down the only road all day long." I was wrong. We left Silverton just before one. Just outside of town a flagger said, "The road shuts down 16 miles ahead in 30 minutes. We say it's a 25 minute trip. Do your best." I took that to mean, "Ignore the speed limits and haul ass." I didn't double the speed limit on the 50mph stretches, but I definitely did on the 10mph curves. We got to the place where they were turning traffic around less than one minute before they let the last group through. As we went through the other end, we saw southbound traffic had been shut down. Life is good.

Happy Hour in Grand Junction, CO

 The rest of the way to Ocean Shores is just covering ground so don't expect much (as if you,ve gotten very much so far).

Day 3 - Cortez, CO 1038 Miles

Slowly wandering north and west. The highlight of the day was stopping at Mesa Verde National Park where I bought my $10 Lifetime Senior National Park Pass. This had been my main objective since turning 62 in December after having to pay $80 for an annual pass last year. Oh yeah, the 1000 year old pueblos weren't bad either.

 

 

Pueblo or Priceline?

Day 2 - Albuquerque, NM - 737 Miles

I can't complain about Roswell nearly as much as I thought I could. First, my expectations were pretty low so it would have been hard not to meet them. Second, the place recognized their claim to fame was pretty cheesy and they priced accordingly. Five dollars for admission to the International UFO Museum and Research Center seemed about right. Ten dollars and I would have felt ripped off. The better attraction was actually a gift shop that had some alien scenes set up yielding some nice photos.

Some Were More Prepared for the Hazards than I

Original Crash Site Photo

Passing Time with the Locals

Memorial Day Barbeque

Relaxing After a Hard Day of Travel

My Vote for the Next Happy Hour Location

Traveling through small towns in empty parts of Texas and New Mexico I've come to realize buildings in these towns never get torn down. They are simply abandoned and if a new structure is needed it is built on the nearest chunk of empty ground - and there are plenty to choose from. The result is towns made up of relatively new structures scattered among others with caved in roofs and not an intact window in sight.

The second half of the drive was into Albuquerque. We didn't have any plans, but since we had enough time we took the tram to the top of Mount Sandia.To me this is a really full day. I may not get to bed until after sunset.

Day 1 - Lubbock, TX - 366 Miles

A wet but uneventful drive here. The only other time I was in Lubbock was on a business trip shortly after starting at TI 38 years ago. That seems to be the right amount of time between visits. I guess my next time here will be to celebrate my 100th birthday.

Tomorrow we end up in Albuquerque, NM. After my usual cursory research, I found it only adds half an hour to the drive to go through Roswell, NM. Though I've watched a lot of the shows on the "incident" for entertainment, I don't really buy into the popular alien crash site theories. I figure an extra half-hour drive for some cheesy photo ops will be worth it. The prevailing opinions on Tripadvisor tend to disagree. A typical comment was, "Wasn't worth the waste of time and money and gas but we got the opportunity to do the oil change on the car."

 We'll find out tomorrow.

Day 0 - Austin, TX - 0 Miles

Heading out in the morning for Ocean Shores, WA. Last year we took over a month getting from Austin to Washington. This year will be about a week. Some of the trip will be ground we covered before but much will be new. It turns out our route has several sights and places we could have spent a while, but by the time I bothered to figure this out it was too late to add travel days and still make our 6/1 reservation in WA. The older I get the lazier I get when it comes to travel planning, among other things. It won't be long before we're on the bus tours where they say, "Get off here, look that direction for 10 minutes, then get back on the bus."

My penchant for "cheap" however has not diminished with age. I have our first three nights booked - all through Priceline. Along those lines, since I have reached 62 this year I'll stop at the first available national park to get my $10 lifetime senior pass. Last year I was a few months short and had to pay $80 for a single year. Spent the whole summer making sure I at least broke even on my investment.

I won't reveal our route to Washington just to maintain what I'm sure is a great deal of suspenseful anticipation. I will say the first night of this epic journey will be spent in Lubbock, TX. Can it get any better than that?