George and Deborah's Great Adventures: Day Two: Twin Falls to Las Vegas

Thursday, 3 April 2014

Day Two: Twin Falls to Las Vegas

We were up at 7 this morning to start Day Two of our trip. After gratis Egg McMuffins and coffee at the motel in Twin Falls, we were off. We thought we were away in good time at 7:45 but our happiness soon turned when we realized we were now in Mountain Time and it was 8:45. The sad feeling only lasted 42 miles until we hit the Nevada border. Despite being due south, we returned to Pacific Time when we crossed the state line.

Our on-board Nancy the Navigator gave us some trouble today. Nancy provided us two routes to consider, fastest and shortest. The interesting part was the fastest route was 200 kilometers longer than the shortest route but Nancy claimed that the longer distance could be traversed in three hours less time.

After giving it some thought, we decided to take the 812 km shorter route, despite Nancy’s claim that it would take three hours longer. We figured out that Nancy wanted us to take the longer 1115 km Freeway route, so we could travel at the 75 MPH limit, and get there sooner. What Nancy didn’t know was that we could travel at 75 MPH on the 60 MPH route and get there even sooner. Despite the 11 and 14-hour Nancy suggestions, we arrived in Las Vegas after 812 kms, in 7.5 hours.

During the first half of the journey the temperatures ranged from 2 to 6 degrees Celsius. There was lots of snow in the mountains and even a little at the roadside but the sky was blue and sunny most of the day. During the second half, the snow started to disappear and the temperatures started to climb. We arrived in Las Vegas in a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius.

Arriving in Jackpot, Nevada

Lots of Snow in the Mountains

The geography of the Great Basin Highway (Interstate 93) is mostly desert sage brush and mountains with about five burgs to slow down for in total. My Road Trip Reviewer Deborah was heard to say, “It isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The mountains make it less boring than I anticipated.” There may be hope for a future trip.

Not Much Traffic

Lots of Sage Brush

Most of the traffic was headed north in the opposite direction. They were mostly Snowbirds in RV’s and pickups with 5^th wheels. We can’t figure out why they are in such a hurry.

We did have an interesting event along the way. We were travelling through a narrow pass when all of a sudden an F18 came screaming out of a canyon right across our path. Just a fraction of a second later, a second plane blew by, followed by a third and a fourth. Clearly they were playing “follow the leader”, close to the ground, and at extremely high speeds. I think they were on aviation exercises from a nearby air weapons base but Deborah is sure they were scrambled to chase a UFO in the area. The pictures don’t really tell the story because it was over too quickly. The white specks are planes high overhead and the darker speck in lower centre/right horizon is one of the later fighters.

Find the Fighter (Good Luck)

Same - You Will Need Good Eyes

Much Warmer & Greener As We Got Closer to Las Vegas

We arrived in Las Vegas around 3:15 pm. We drove “the Strip” so Deborah could see the major hotel sights. This is my fourth trip here but Deborah’s first. We arrived at Pat and Linda’s in Henderson and settled in for a one-night stay. We will return later for more sightseeing, a car show, and an Elton John performance at Caesar’s Palace.