Thursday, November 2, 2023

Spokane to Caldwell, Idaho

Today started out raining.  Then the fog moved in for several hours of driving.  It wasn't really clear all day.  We saw this a lot.

It's a hilly route.  The big trucks are supposed to stay in the right two lanes of the climbs, but often they do not.  Then all the cars get stuck behind a truck whose driver thinks he has more horsepower than he does.  This was a big thing being driven up a hill.  No idea what it might be.

 There was a brief sun break along the way.

As we were coming in to Ontario, Oregon, we saw a Love's that has an attached Subway.  It was about 20 miles from the hotel.  So we thought, cool, we'll get gas and dinner.  Sadly, this was not to be.  The entire parking lot was full of fire trucks, the road in was closed by the police.  I have never seen such a response to anything.  Unfortunately I was driving and missed the shot of the parking lot.  Anyway, there was a tanker fire.  If you look at where the arrow is pointing, that's a very tall ladder putting water on the tanker.  There is another one just like it 180 degrees out, also putting water on the truck.  We don't know what liquid was in the tank, and the news does not know, either.

Dinner was obtained from a different Subway, and we'll get gas in the morning.

We're at the Best Western in Caldwell.  It's old, but has had some updating.  Oddly enough the floors in the room and bathroom are not carpet.  I think they're laminate.  Probably easier to keep clean than carpet.  The mattresses are new, and aren't terrible, neither are the pillows.  The down side is that we're close to a train track and the trains seem to like blowing their horns, a lot.  There is a lot of traffic noise, with sirens.  So, I don't know if we would come back here, either.  La Quinta is looking better to me than it did.  It was much quieter than it is here.  The internet is pretty good.  Note to self, check out the location of rail lines before booking a hotel.

Tomorrow we are up and out to Ely, Nevada, yet another garden spot in these United States.

5 comments:

  1. As always, I envy your road trips!

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  2. Safe travels!
    The tanker fire would be a very frightening situation in a lot full of other vehicles.

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  3. there is a train track that parallels the road that our street ends at at the far end from us with a single crossing over with barriers that come down when a train is approaching. this is a little neighborhood consisting of about 6 streets with the most houses on the first three and the crossing over the road and tracks is about midway. whoever the engineer is that drives the train that comes through at 3 AM is a sadistic bastard. he blows that horn at that crossing every night. if I'm awake I can hear it all the way down at my end.

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