Sunday, October 23, 2011

Oct. 21st third day out already

I need to keep this up or I'll get so far behind I'll just want to quit posting altogether.

Today we changed our minds about how far we wanted to drive.  I had thought Boise, ID might be a good place to stop, but when we added up the miles we realized that we could keep on driving all the way to Jackpot, Nevada.

On our way between Le Grande and Baker City, Oregon, we drove across the 45th Parallel.  The 45th is half way between the Equator and the North Pole.  This bit of trivia is for those who actually look for this kind of information on highway signs.

I would like to say that Washington didn't have many, read very few, rest stops on the route we took on Wed. and Thursday.  Once we got into Oregon they appeared more regularly and were very well kept.  The Weatherby, Oregon rest stop was very clean and well kept inside the washrooms, it was easy to get the rig and toad into a parking space and out again onto the highway.  Thank you Oregon rest stop workers.  You do a great job.

We hit a time zone change from Pacific Time to Mountain Time just south of Huntington, Oregon.  Just a comment about Huntington.  There is a campground down off the highway that is on the river.  We stopped there in the spring of 2010 on our way home from Mexico.  Only thing I remember about this site was that hubby met a fellow from Princeton there on his way back from the south.

The other change we came across was the speed limit when we passed into Idaho.  Cars max was 75 mph and trucks 65 mph.

Between Boise and Mountain Home Idaho there was road construction.  Here is a picture.

  This new road is cement and it goes on for miles.  Just thought I'd throw it in for those of you interested in road construction.

We've been through Twin Falls, Idaho a few times on our travels south and this last spring driving home we came home via I-30 instead of into T.F.  We took I-30 through the Thousand Springs Scenic tour.  We missed T.F. and didn't have quite as many hills to climb.  The route drives through and across the Snake River.  The roads are only two lane but they are well maintained.  This route goes through a farming area and small towns.  I was commenting to hubby that the corn is still not harvested and the stalks don't look as big as the corn we grow at home.

We came out south of T.F. onto I-93 and got to Jackpot about 4 pm Mtn time.  We parked at Cactus Pete's RV park, set up the electric (water turned off for winter) and headed for the casino.  I would like to point out that the washrooms in the RV park are nice and warm when it is cold out.

I had a good luck patch so I treated us to supper.  The area we camped in filled up with snowbirds, and guess who we ran into in the dining room.  Yes, the golfers from our golf club.  We beat them to Jackpot because we were up at 7am and on our way without having breakfast.  We stopped on our way and ate leftovers.  This was also another long day.  We don't usually drive so far, but we wanted to get to Lost Wages while the sun shone.

In the morning, after a very chilly night we said goodbye to Cactus Pete's.  Many of the snowbirds had already left and we didn't hear anyone leaving.  We got away about 7:30 our time.


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