2023 Road Trip

What You Have Been Waiting For

Another one of my internet famous road trip wrap ups.

We were gone from home for a little over 2-1/4 million seconds or 26 days. This equates to 25 overnight stays of which 19 were in IHG properties. Eighteen of them were in our go to Holiday Inn Express and one that was called the Pagosa Lodge. Three nights were spent in a VRBO in Laurel, Mississippi (AKA Napierville) and the other four were at Casa de Sally in Santa Fe, NM.

The first leg of the journey was from home to Laurel and that was 10 straight days of driving with a new hotel every night. We have both decided that that is too much packing and unpacking in a row and have vowed to never do that again. The next leg was Laurel to Santa Fe and that was 6 days of a hotel every night. Which might be a day or two longer than we will be doing going forward without a two night stay in the same place. The last leg was 5 days from Santa Fe to home.

The original plan was to spend four nights over Memorial Day Weekend in Laurel, but after three days we had seen all we wanted to see so we opted to bail a day early and head down to Hammond, LA. While we were this far east we wanted get in a quick visit with Donna’s second Mom and mother to Donna’s childhood friend, the owner of Casa de Sally in Santa Fe, the nearly centenarian Adele.

Also part of the original plan was five nights with Sally in Santa Fe to help her but her first new car in 20 years. But with the combination of getting the car shopping out of the way in three days and our dread of the 450 miles of travel on I-40 plus navigating the very busy Las Vegas we opted to leave a day early and take a longer, less annoying way home.

When I plotted the route of the trip before leaving I measured the distance from town to town using Google Maps and came up with 5,480 miles in 19 days of traveling. With the 2 extra driving days and any wandering around at our stays we ended up with 6,450 for the whole trip.

The original distance estimates had the leg from Ely, NV to Green River, UT at 329 miles as the longest, but when we rearranged the return trip the stretch between Pagosa Springs, CO and Green River was supposed to be 421 miles. Usually we fill up the car either before turning in for the night or each morning before departure, but occasionally it happens mid-drive, so I can’t really tell you which day was the highest mileage drive.

The longest drive between fill ups was 364.6 miles and the shortest was 206.8 miles. The most expensive price for our required premium gas was $4.799 in Ely, NV and the least expensive was in Laurel, MS at $3.309. We spent $712.89 for the 177.303 gallons we bought for the trip making the average price paid $4.024 a gallon. Our average MPG for the trip was 36.61 and even though these are meaningless, the worst for a fill up was 30.85 and the best was 43.63 MPG.

This is getting long, tomorrow we’ll talk hotels…

37,000 Missed Hailstones

When we were about 15 miles from the Holiday Inn Express in Carson City we could see ahead of us very dark clouds and quite a few streaks of lightning. At hotel arrival I noticed a lot of white along the curbing and in all the cracks in the parking lot. Upon closer inspection I noticed that they were pea-sized white balls of ice. When I asked at the desk, “How long since it hailed?” The desk clerk said it was about 15 minutes back. Glad we missed it.

We didn’t miss a repeat of the scattered showers from yesterday though, for almost all of the second half of our drive along US-50, AKA The Loneliest Road in America, we were being rained on periodically. We had another disappointing lunch in Austin, NV because the Champs Burger truck was once again closed.

Afterwards, we were zipping east and Donna noticed on the map a notation of the geographic center of the state of Nevada not to far off US-50. The gray line meant it was dirt road, but it didn’t look too far, so what the heck. She pulled up a web page about it and it said that there was a road labeled “To Belmont” at about 26 miles from Austin. We saw no such road going south so I pulled over and looked at the map too. Where the map showed the gray line right near it was a picnic table icon. I said, “Oooh, I remember a roadside pull off with tables several miles back.” We turned around and went several miles back to that spot and sure enough there was a dirt road heading south called Monitor Valley Road. Nothing about Belmont but we headed down it. After a mile or so it was getting a bit too bumpy for our tastes, so we turned back to US-50 to continue on the Carson City. We did vow to rent an SUV for our next trip so we could go the whole 12 miles to the coordinates listed on that web page.

A few miles shy of Middlegate, Nevada the Mini crossed off another milestone on this trip, thirty seven thousand miles.

Intermittent Rain Showers


hover over the picture for a different view of this wind turbine farm

The whole of today’s drive was like the second half of yesterday’s drive, we were traveling it for first time in the opposite direction. And just like yesterday’s second half everything was new to us and beautiful to behold even while passing through intermittent rain showers for most of the day.

The drive along I-70 in Utah is one of, no make that the best Interstate we have ever driven. Even after the red rocks transition into brown the scenery is still fantastic. The ups and downs created a twisty highway for most of it that can be fun at the posted 60MPH or even better 70MPH. 🙂

And US-50 in Nevada to as far as Ely is no slouch either. We are now convinced that this is the route to take between Santa Fe and Klamath Falls even if it does cost us an extra day, hotel room, tank of gas and a couple meals out.

See my Instagram post from today for a couple other scenes from the drive.

36,000 Beautiful Views

To avoid the long slog on the rough surfaced, 18-wheeler dense I-40 and crazy dense traffic of Las Vegas, our usual route home, we choose to go north and west first from Santa Fe. This way we will do the quieter less traffic route of Green River, UT to Ely, NV to Carson City, NV to home. But Santa Fe all the way to Green River is 421 miles and 8 hours of driving, so we broke it into 2 smaller segments. Because we were going to leave Santa Fe after lunch, Wednesday’s leg was a shorter 150 mile, three hour drive making today’s drive a 250 miles five hour affair.

Along with the better driving conditions we got a couple of other bonuses out of it. We were going to pass through Cortez, Colorado again so that we might be able to eat at The Farm Bistro that was closed on the way east because it was Saturday and boy was it worth it, the food was fantastic, the portion size was perfect and it was priced very reasonably. We also got a chance at one last Roadside America photo op. At the Mud Creek Hogan Trading Post the previous owner stuck about a dozen telephone poles fitted with giant arrowheads and feather fletchings into the ground at an angle (see above.)

Come to think of it, make it four bonuses. We had never traveled any of the first leg and the scenery was beautiful. Then on the second leg, where we had been on the roads before, this time we were driving in the opposite direction so everything was new to us and startling beautiful as well.

Not long after leaving last night’s stop in Pagosa Springs the Mini flew by 36,000 miles on the odometer.

Adios Casa de Sally

Having guided our host through the gates of car buying hell, we packed the Mini and headed north on the long awaited return to home.

Monday we test drove the front runner, the 2023 Subaru Forester, followed by a 2023 Honda CRV (Honda shared the lot with Subaru) and although Sally swore she wanted new, a 2020 Honda Passport was taken for a short drive. She liked the heft and acceleration of the Pathfinder, but she didn’t like the low gas mileage. The CRV was an underwhelming drive and to get the stuff she wanted it was going to be over her spending cap. The Forester remained the favorite. Tuesday we started at the Hyundai dealer to try out the 2023 Tucson. After a 10 mile test drive, this vehicle jumped to the head of the class, so much so the Nissan Rogue that was possibly next, was skipped.

She really wanted a black car, her current car a 2002 Toyota RAV4 is that color and she likes it. Also a black car diminishes the prominence of the ugly black plastic cladding that is ubiquitous these days. None of the new cars tested were black and there were no black cars on the lot. The Subaru salesman on Monday said he would email her if any might be in their pipeline, but he never did. That and his ineptness in name remembrance and constant sniffing while along for the test drive killed the Subaru sale. Sally even said if the more personable and professionalism Honda salesman could sell her a Subaru, the Forester would have been her choice.

The Hyundai dealer had a still unprepped brand new Tucson in Portifino Gray (see yesterday’s post) on the lot and she though maybe if she could get it ready later in the afternoon and she could test drive it, that might make the sale. They called at 4:30 and we went back to take that test drive that included a trip right back to Casa de Sally for a test fitting in her garage. Ding, Ding, ding we have a winner. They worked up an offer sheet and she said all she needed to do was contact her insurance to see what the coverage would be like. That happened this morning and when we left she was text bargaining with the salesman over the usual dealer added options and their extra markup crap. If all goes well Sally will be driving a new Hyundai Tucson before we get back home on Sunday.

Good Thing You Make K-Cups Dunkin

Back in Aiken I got addicted to Dunkin Donuts coffee. There were actually two in town and we would alternate going to one or the other for breakfasts a couple times a week. We invested in a Keurig and I bought K-cups and the Dunkin creamer/sweetener so I could enjoy a Dunkin coffee every dang day. So when we moved to Oregon, where there isn’t even one store, it really wasn’t a hardship because of the K-cup creamer combo. But every time we travel I always keep my eye open for a store to get a coffee made by someone else.

For this trip to Mississippi and back I checked for stores in every overnight town with plans to get a good ol’ medium hot Dunkin decaf with regular cream and sugar (regular in Dunkin speak means 3 sugars and 3 creamers.) My first chance came in Hobbs, NM and I can’t for the life of me remember why I didn’t go to it. Hey, I’m old and it was 2 weeks ago so if I didn’t write about it here it didn’t happen.

My first real Dunkin experience was 3 days ago in Killeen, TX. There was one just 4 miles from the hotel so Donna sent me on a trip to go get my coffee while she finished packing up all our crap. I rolled thru the drive in and got my usual order. Stopped and filled up the car with gas and when I got back to the hotel I took my first sip. They obviously didn’t understand the Dunkin phrase “regular” because it tasted like just 1 cream and 1 sugar. At the breakfast area in the hotel I added a couple of sugar packets, but couldn’t totally fix it because all they had was hazelnut cream.

Our next stop with a Dunkin was Odessa, Texas. We tried the same trick as last time in Killeen, I went off on my own with the Google Maps lady directing me. This one was a lot further than Killeen, but the route looked pretty simple, go 3 miles on the I-20 service road, turn right onto TX388 Loop, go three miles turn right off the loop, a quick left and then another quick left. When I took that second left I knew something was wrong because I was in an industrial area. When little Miss Google said you have reached your destination I was in a gravel lot of a small gray warehouse with absolutely no signage.

So I gave up and started back to the hotel. I couldn’t make a left to get back on the Loop, so I turned right and merged back on heading a 1/2 mile up to the next exit. The one really nice thing Texas has in these situations is a dedicated U-turn lane that doesn’t make you sit through several traffic lights to go right back in the opposite direction. I zipped around the U-turn lane and as I got pointed back towards the hotel on the entrance ramp what did I see in my rearview mirror but a big Pilot Truck Stop sign and a Dunkin sign right below it! At this point I was so frustrated that I watched those signs shrink in the distance as I kept going back to the hotel.

Leaving Odessa we were heading due north along US385 and as it turned out there was another Dunkin in the next town, Andrews just 30 miles away. It too was in a Pilot Truck Stop so as got to where it was located I pulled in and went inside and there wasn’t anything Dunkin related at all. When I walked outside all sad like, I notice that I had just gone into a Love’s Truck Stop. Doh! The Pilot was across the street. Donna suggested we walk, but I poo-poo’d it because of the 18-wheeled truck traffic we’d need to dodge. When I went inside Pilot the Dunkin was just a self-serve area with a couple large urns, a small cabinet with a few doughnuts and an extremely messy condiment area. I made a medium (not decaf) with what might have been creamer and some liquid sugar. It was OK, but barely worth the effort.

The next Dunkin was in Clovis, New Mexico and instead of waiting until morning Donna, suggested I get one when we arrived in town. Turns out it too was in a Pilot Truck Stop and because of that, I didn’t even think of trying it because our next stop was Santa Fe and I know they have a real store that I have been to on previous visits.

Santa Fe Fuego

We arrived at Casa de Sally in Santa Fe around lunch time after a shortish drive from Clovis, NM near the Texas border. We then spent the afternoon chatting until it came time to take ourselves out to the ballgame. We were off to Fort Marcy Park to see the Santa Fe Fuego play the Trinidad (CO) Triggers.

Because Sally has extra bedrooms (even with Donna and I there) she is hosting a couple ball players for the local independent minor league baseball team of the Pecos League. For housing these two players, she is compensated with 4 sets of season tickets for all 30 of their home games. The season just started and tonight was just the second home game and Sally has seen both of them. It is a fun night out, but I don’t think Sally will be there for all the other 28.