Three Days on the Road

Day One saw us travel from the Aerie across Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and most of Illinois to the town of Ottawa. Seven hundred and twenty miles in mostly fair weather. We did hit a few heavy rain showers in Ohio but not much else. A good portion of I-80 in Ohio had construction going on, especially in the area south of Cleveland. That section has been undergoing reconstruction for years.

Day Two we finished with Illinois, then traversed all of Iowa and a large portion of Nebraska to finish in Sidney--a distance of close to 850 miles. If I thought Ohio construction was bad, it was nothing compared to Nebraska. It seemed like more than a third of I-80 westbound was under reconstruction. Iowa had almost no construction for its entire length and the rest stops were the nicest I've ever seen. They were immaculate!

Day Three we finished I-80 in Nebraska and drove all 400 miles of it in Wyoming before entering Utah. In Utah we only followed I-80 until we got to I-84 and took that interstate west to where it joins with I-15 north. We stopped in Brigham City, Utah for the night. A "short" day of just about 650 miles.

We had thought we would be able to go birding at the Bear River Refuge once we found a motel room near Brigham City, but the sky opened up and we opted for dinner at a nice steakhouse instead. Perhaps tomorrow we'll be able to do some birding before we leave for Boise, ID and the town of Ottawa, OR just a little over 300 miles away. After that it will be another 300+ miles to Portland, OR.

Days One and Three saw us battling headwinds with Day Three being the worst. The wind across western Nebraska and all of Wyoming was howling at 25-35 miles per hour with gusts going even higher. Motor homes and tractor trailers were noticeably listing to one side and travel trailers were fishtailing under the pressure. I was happy not to have the Wilderness in tow! As it was, both days saw a considerable drop in the miles per gallon I was getting int he Tundra. There was a 4-5 mile/gal difference from what I got on Day Two when the winds was calm.

The temperatures have been something else. In PA and early Ohio things were cool due to the overcast skies. Then it got warm...really, really warm. Under clear skies and bright sun it reached 91 degrees in central Nebraska on Day Two. Today, with the wind howling it still reached the mid 70s in central Wyoming, but as we reached Utah the sky got clouding and there was a bit of rain. As a result, the temperatures fell like a stone. It was 43 degrees and pouring at 5 PM MDT when we went for dinner. I've little doubt that it may have been snowing in the mountains just to the northwest of here. (We did see some snow on the peaks of the  Colorado Rockies from I-80 in Wyoming.)

That's all for now.