Bullhead City to Spanish Fork, Utah

Today was a long day, most of it was very windy.  Fortunately it was not a head wind.  The entire drive is on I15.  Traffic getting out of Las Vegas was backed up as it always is.  We did see an accident in which a red car had been pushed up on top of the jersey barrier and was totaled.  Hopefully the people in the car survived.  Traffic behind the accident was backed up for at least five miles.  What a start to the day.

The route took us through the always lovely Virgin River Gorge.  I was driving, so no photos of that.  If you'd like, refer back to this post for photos. 

We are once again at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Spanish Fork.  It's a nice, if somewhat over priced place to stay.  They're doing this with the roll of toilet paper now, which is adorable.

Tomorrow we are up and out for Butte, Montana where it is cold and snowing.  Not looking forward to it.  It's also a long travel day.

Today 47 has issued directions to Hegseth to get a nuclear reactor orbiting the moon before the end of his term.  Right then. 

Tucson to Bullhead City

Today was Tucson to Bullhead City.  The weather today has just been delightful, in the mid-70s.  The last two days in Tucson had high winds and it was not delightful.  

We're looking for a new route between Bullhead City and Tucson.  We would like to not go through Kingman.  They have significant traffic and frequent accidents.  So today we went I10 to US95 in California and up that way.  As a new route, this is not the one.  Once you get off I10, it's all two lane roads and zero passing lanes.  It's also a truck route.  I drove most of the two lane roads and it's exhausting.  So, please make a note of this, and don't do it again.

This is Picacho Peak.  It's north of Tucson.  It's kind of weird how it just sticks up out of the ground, with no surrounding mountains.

This is how much of the drive looked.  There are some really desolate parts of the state. 

Safeway had the frozen Indian dinners again, so we got those.  I'd like to not eat at Subway on this trip.  Their quality has really declined, and everything is too salty.   Some of the Indian dinners are high in sodium, but these two are not bad.

So, we're back at the Holiday Inn Express and Suites, it's still a nice hotel.  They have raised their prices some.

Update to post:  The chicken curry is good, but it's hot.  If you're a hot food wimp, like I am, it's hot.  I like the chicken Tikka Masala better.

The Healing

We ride at dawn tomorrow.  Actually we're driving, and it probably won't be dawn, either.  Our first stop is Bullhead City, and yes, it's actually called that.

Who saw this before it was deleted?  47 put it up after his pissing contest with the Pope.  

 The back lash was swift and furious.  This guy has totally lost his mind.

Orban is Defeated

Oh happy day.  Orban has conceded defeat to Péter Magyar.  Hopefully Orban and Putin will not launch into a "the election was stolen" a la 47, and they'll just go away.

I believe my father's mother was Hungarian.  She came to the US alone at age 17.  I don't know if she had people here to help her, or what happened after she arrived.  Eventually she married and had eight children.  My grandfather died before I was born.  I'm pretty happy about the defeat of Orban.  This will be good for Ukraine, and bad for Putin and 47.

Witkoff, Kushner and the VP spent 12 or so hours "negotiating" with Iran yesterday.  Iran said no to every proposal offered by the US side.  As you no doubt recall, the JCPOA took two years to negotiate.  The people from the US went home after one session.  Today 47 is threatening to blockade the Strait.  I'm reading that the helium will be gone in six months in the US, if you need an MRI, get it now.

We're leaving Tuesday morning.  The car is impossibly full.  At this point, I'm not sure it's all going to fit, which is fairly depressing.  We'll see. 

Here is a lovely trichocerus.   It's sort of an unusual color.

That's it!  

Kindles

 Here is a first world problem for all of you Kindle owners.

Amazon is discontinuing support for Kindle devices released in 2012 or earlier, effectively "soft-bricking" them by blocking access to the Kindle store and new content downloads after May 20, 2026. While existing locally stored books will remain, devices cannot download new content, rendering14-18 year-old, working units into, in effect, paperweights.

For more information, google "Amazon bricking Kindles."  I can not tell you how much this pisses me off.  

Cactus from yesterday.

Things are still terrible in the Middle East, with no signs of improvement.

47 is dismantling the Forest Service.  Decades of knowledge and research will be dumpstered, fire seasons will be worse, post fire landslides will be worse.   They're planning to sell off vast swaths of land for logging.  Good bye little woodland creatures.

That's it!  Gotta start packing in earnest.

Nuclear War Put on Two Week Delay

Welcome to Tuesday.  Today would have been my brother's birthday, but he died young.  Really early onset Alzheimer's took him.  

This is how today started.  This level of destruction would probably require nuclear weapons.  This would be bad.  However, he TACOed.  He's given the Iranians a two week extension on extermination, IF they open the strait.  No word on how that's going.  Current negotiations are being held by Pakistan and Iran, and then China entered the conversation.  China and Pakistan really need the strait to be open.

As always, it is astonishing to me that Congress is not impeaching or applying the 25th Amendment to get this guy out of office.  He should not have the nuclear codes any more.

Last night, Iran attacked Jubail Industrial City,  Saudi Arabia's largest petrochemical complex: the zone that produces 60,000,000 tons of petrochemicals a year which is 6 to 8 percent of EVERYTHING the world makes.  This was unfortunate, pretty much everything is petroleum based.  Read all about it here.  

We rode this morning, it was very pleasant, not too hot.  We both had a good bike day.  A good bike day is when you feel strong on the hills, and not like you're dying.  We've both had a recent spate of feeling like death on the bikes.  I'm hoping it's over for awhile.  Figures we'd get better now, we're leaving next Tuesday.  

Examine the spines on this cactus.  They're extraordinarily long.  The plant is barrel shaped.  The flowers are what first caught my eye, very pretty. Google identifies it as an Astrophytum ornatum cactus.

That's it.  I did want to document the two week extension of nuclear winter.  47 is diluting his ability to be threatening because he keeps backing down.