I'm Not a Genius, But...

There's not a significant time pressure on me today, so I took it easy this morning, taking full advantage of the breakfast bar and bringing it back to my room to watch the IPL cricket. I could do this because, to my surprise, there appears to be sufficient bandwidth to actually pull the streaming video. (Although as soon as I wrote that, it started hiccuping, so it's not foolproof, although by this point in the match, the results seem to be a forgone conclusion.)

After a big breakfast like that, I needed some exercise, so I went for a walk around the neighborhood around the hotel. On the way back, I admired the nice view of Mount Shasta, clearly visible to the south. I figured I'd earned another soak in the hot tub, so I put on my swimsuit and headed to the pool, where unfortunately I found a large vat of Screaming Children Soup instead of a hot tub. I did ten lengths of the swimming pool (slowly) instead, which certainly got my blood flowing. The walking and swimming had the desired impact on my blood sugar, so even though I had one of their cinnamon rolls, I didn't feel guilty.

Now I need to finish packing and hit the road. Google Maps says the 380 miles from here to Fremont should be done in around 6 hours. Given how I drive, I expect it will be more than 9, but that's okay with me.

[The subject line, by the way, is a reference to an advertising campaign for Holiday Inn Express. It ends, "...but I did stay in a Holiday Inn Express last night."]

Home At Last

Today's travel took only slightly longer than I expected, including a stop for lunch and to fuel the van and pick up groceries on the way home. I left Klamath Falls at 11:15 AM and arrived home in Fremont at 8:45 PM. If I hadn't stopped for groceries, I would have been home a half-hour earlier, but then I'd just have to go get stuff tomorrow.

The drive was hot and mostly boring. Although much of it was downhill, there were still stretches of up-grade where I had to turn off the air conditioning in the van because the temperature gauge was getting perilously close to the danger zone. And it was sufficiently hot that even when I could run the AC, it had difficulty keeping things cool. Also, I really need to remember that when driving in sunny weather, I should wear sunscreen. I'm mildly baked.

I've unpacked for the three days I'm actually going to be home before heading to Columbus, checked mail, and will shortly have a light supper before falling into bed. I must remember my tolerances for driving while making my plans to drive to and from Denver.

I will post about Lisa's travels separately.

Utah Dogleg

While I was driving through Benicia, Lisa called and left me a message about her progress today. here's an approximate map of how she got from Ontario OR to Evanston WY. The first thing you'll probably notice is the odd diversion at Salt Lake City.

( Trainspotting was involved )

Lisa reports that she's making the best progress she can with only a 11-gallon port side fuel tank, as the starboard tank continues to work only intermittently. Her gas credit card is programmed to let her fill up only three times a day (an anti-fraud measure we haven't been able to get them to change), which can be important if you are taking a long trip like this one. She did buy that siphon in case she ends up having to siphon fuel from the starboard tank.

She also reports that one of the battery cables seems to be going bad. She bought a new one along the way but got the old one working anyway; however, she feels better having the spare.