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.
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Arriving in Jackpot, Nevada |
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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.
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Not Much Traffic |
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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 5th
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.
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Find the Fighter (Good Luck) |
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Same - You Will Need Good Eyes |
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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.
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Elton John - We Will See on the Eighteenth |
That’s it for
now. Gambling tonight and off to
Scottsdale tomorrow.
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Pat & Linda's - 3112 |
