Day One-hundred-and-ninety-five: Early mornings and long days

I guess I've become a morning person again by virtue of still getting up on east coast time even though I'm in the west coast time zone. It didn't have anything to do with the cooing of morning doves, pigeons. They were a nice serenade when they weren't being drowned out with the trucks. Even though some of the furniture in the room had cigarette burn marks, I didn't notice any cigarette smell like I did in the previous hotel. Of course, that might have had more to do with my hour and a half in the casino.

However, the best part of the room was the full window neon night light. I don't think it kept me from sleeping. That may have been done by the flannel sheets. At least I hope they were flannel.

At least the room was clean. The bathroom had several signs, some humorous, that the shower had a tendency to switch between hot and cold without warning. I was watching for this when I took my shower this morning but I never got it to switch to hot. At best it was a lukewarm, which made the shower only slightly brisker than the room. When I got in last night, I noticed the perfect sleeping temperature, unlike the previous two nights, and didn't even bother adjusting the heater. The perfect sleeping temperature is definitely not the perfect getting up temperature.

I think I'm going to like being a morning person again in this Life after Layoff. I was always more productive but that productivity was always for the companies I worked for. Now it can be for myself. Here it isn't even 5:30 AM and I'm showered, dressed, and have half an entry in my blog.

I was able to get out of town around 6:50 AM. In the direction I was going, there was only one gas station and it was closed.

After about 50 miles on the road, the water pressure was getting so bad that I was contemplating visiting a tree, if there had been any trees. Every time I got close to making a treeless stop, there would be a vehicle. Plus now I was getting low on gas. Well not so low but certainly not enough to make it to Reno. Fortunately, Eureka had a gas station open and I filled up for $2.249 a gallon. My relief at finding gas made me forget to clean my windows of the salt and road dirt that had been on them since Colorado.

About 31.7 miles outside of Eureka, I picked up a convoy. It did cause me to slow down below the speed limit but that was just so the person following me could keep up. I was flagged down by a person driving a truck the next size larger than the largest pickup. He was on his way to Las Vegas using the back roads of Nevada. (However, I know from my Reno to Las Vegas all day trip on my way east that back roads are the only roads that go to Las Vegas, at least in Nevada.) I was able to whip out my atlas and discover he had missed his turn 24 miles earlier. Since he didn't speak English very well, he got the gist but missed the details in my non-translation. Anyway, he basically asked me to show him his turn. It was on my way and I became the leader of a two vehicle convoy.

For such a desolate area, there were a lot of animals, beyond the domesticated kind. I saw what had to be the largest herd of deer I had ever seen early this morning. This reminded me of the three wild horses I saw the previous day but forgot to report. I've also seen lots of crows, a couple buzzards (maybe vultures), and at least one raptor eating road kill.

For breakfast I had a truly huge bowl of oatmeal, unfortunately accompanied with hot tea. I'm sure the latter contributed to the water pressure already mentioned. (I didn't complete that story line because I feel it would be considered too much information.)

I kept checking my cell phone for a signal. Finally I got one on the other side of Fallon. This made the rest of the trip pass more quickly as I was able to use my unlimited weekend minutes to reach out and touch people, keeping them away from their productive work while they kept me entertained.

But my plans to overnight in Reno fell apart when I got there too early. I didn't have enough money to last all those hours if I didn't hit a major winning streak. So I pressed on. At least being this early meant that I would be in front of the returning skiers all the way to the Bay Area.

Around Roseville I finally made contact with my daughter. She and her husband were behind me on I-80. They had gone for a short hike in the Auburn area and were on their way to REI. As I couldn't stay long at their place and still stay ahead of the returning skiers, I just dropped some of the stuff off at their house and went on my way. Yes it was my intent to drop it all off but the overly large sleeping bag carrier right in front of my eyes didn't register. I did leave it in the car.

After 44 days and about three hours, I was once again home. On this trip I put about 6,922 miles on my Prius. I saw miles and miles of fourteen states, some more than once. While it is good to be home in some ways, I enjoyed every minute of the trip, even the illnesses. And I want to do it again, the next time on my motorcycle.