Boulder City, NV to Spanish Fork, Utah

Today we drove Boulder City, NV to Spanish Fork, Utah.  Spanish Fork is nine miles south of Provo, proper, and is part of the Provo-Orem megalopolis.  We spent the day on I15, which is a good road.  It's cooler here, when we arrived it was in the 90's and it felt cool to us.

First there was Las Vegas to transit.  Henderson, a bedroom community to Las Vegas, is growing exponentially.  So is the number of distribution centers.  It's amazing to me how many new houses we saw.  Here is a not great photo of coming in to the city, the windshield is covered in dead bugs.  I was trying to portray the vastness of the sprawl out from the strip, but it's too poor of a photo.

We were going to stop at the Beaver, UT Subway, but it was packed.  So, we went to the Port of Subs in Fillmore, which was not great.  The phone did not mention that there was another Subway at exit 188 in Nephi, which would have been geographically good.  If we drive this route again, please make a note of this Subway.

We went through the Virgin River Gorge.  It's a beautiful, but bugs on the wind shield and harsh sunlight conspired against my photography.

Further up the road, there was some red rock showing.

But after awhile, there was a lot of not too much to look at.

Driving into Spanish Fork from the south was shocking.  The amount of new housing devouring agricultural land is shocking.  Entire neighborhoods of identical ugly houses have been built.  Spanish Fork itself seems to be a center for retail.  There's not much else other than Big 5, Joanne Fabrics, Walmart, Costco and etc.  The west has become all retail all the time. 

We're at the Provo-Spanish Fork Hampton Inn and Suites.  It's a nice hotel, it's new, like much of Spanish Fork.  The bathroom has multiple levels of horizontal surface, which makes putting out all of our stuff easier.  The air conditioner does have a thermostat and is quiet.

This is the view from the room.  We're facing away from the freeway, which is very good. 

Tomorrow is the really long day, hotel to hotel is 468 miles.  That's far.  We need to rethink the lengths of our drive segments.  Of course, there is often nothing where a person would like to stop.

Tucson, AZ to Boulder City, NV

Greetings Mellow Humans.  I write to you from beautiful downtown Boulder City, NV where it is currently 116F (46.6C).  The last summer we were in Tucson, we had 110 degrees, this is noticeably worse.  The air on my face feels like a blow dryer.  The plan had been to drive over to Albertson's and get a rotisserie chicken and a bag of salad for dinner, but we have a parking spot in the shade, so we're ordering pizza.  There is a case of whiskey in the car and we're hoping for it not to get cooked in the heat.

Today's route was up through Phoenix, then on to US60 to US93 to Kingman.  We departed the carport at 0800 hours, which for us is an early start.  Traffic through Phoenix, Wickenburg and Kingman was very light in our direction.  The portion of US60 from Surprise to just south of Wickenburg had an abysmal road surface.  Once again, we did not take US93 after Kingman, we crossed over to US95 which is a better road surface and less traffic.

There is a road project planned for Kingman which you can read about here.  Some projects are just stupid, they make a person want to pull their hair out and rend their clothing.  This is a good project.  Currently when exiting I40, you have to get on surface streets to get to US93.  This is the route from Las Vegas to Phoenix.  There is a stop light at Beale Street involved in this path, and this is what it does to traffic, especially on a Sunday afternoon when people have to go home so they can get up and go to work on Monday.  This went on for miles.  I feel so bad for those people, especially if they were low on gas, or needed to pee.

I drove a bunch today, so there are not a lot of photos, and most of them weren't great because of the dead bugs on the wind shield.

This is heading toward Laughlin.  One climbs up and over the pass way out there.  It's not bad in a car.

This is the fan I used for rowing and general cooling.  It's from Target, it's a great little fan.  It ran non-stop while we were in the park model packing up.  Now it's sitting on the bed advancing cool air from the air conditioning unit in the wall to the back of the room.  Good fan.

At about 4:45 pm, this tour bus rolled in and discharged its passengers.  This bus is full, it's a double decker and every seat was full.  I think it was a nature break, they were not here long.  One wonders if they knew it was going to be this hot.

We were in Boulder City in October 2018.  It was an excellent visit, with one caveat.  The day we wanted to walk around Boulder City and enjoy its cuteness there was an Art in the Park event.  There was not one single empty parking place available.  Today, of course, it's too stinking hot.  

We're in an old Best Western Hotel.  It has the doors that open directly on to the outside, and not onto a hall.  I like that kind of room because it shortens your exposure to other people.  It's ok, they've done some updating, the floors appear to be some sort of vinyl plank, the lighting is good, pillows are ok, my mattress is a little on the firm side, but tolerable.  The bathroom has adequate counter space for all of our stuff.   Just took a shower, getting the water temperature set was difficult; too hot, or too cold.  It's sweltering in the bathroom, the A/C unit which is not great, and which is very noisy, is not cooling the bathroom or that side of the room.  It's too hot to blow dry my hair, it can just do what it wants.  I would give this hotel a definite maybe on returning.  Update to post:  Nope!  Never coming back here.  There is no thermostat on the A/C, it appears to run forever, even after it reaches a temperature lower than what was set.  Fan speed settings make no difference to the fan speed.  Bathroom is still an inferno.  There are not enough outlets in the room.

It's 116 here, and 122 in Needles, CA.  I'm glad we're here and not there.  Here is hot enough.

Tomorrow we are up and out to Provo.  From here to Spokane, it's an all freeway drive, so we should make better time than we did today.

Still Hot and Leaving for Spokane

Our work here in the Hot Pueblo is done.  We're out of here tomorrow at oh:dark:thirty for the north.  First, however, there will be even hotter places on the route.  The west is just getting baked.  Our monsoon seems to have shut off.  We have clouds, but no rain.  

I have a couple of paltry photos.  These are the kind of clouds that get your hopes up.  See the big puffy part off to the right, and how it's dark at the bottom.  It's all hat and no cattle.

We almost managed a sunset last night.

The drive segments are: Boulder City, Nevada, Provo, Utah, Butte, Montana and then Spokane.  Boulder City was built to house workers for the construction of the Hoover Dam.  Now, it's a cute little artsy fartsy community; best of all, they do not allow gambling in their fair city.  Butte is hosting a folk festival starting the 12th, but all of the hotels have already doubled or tripled their room rates, which is kind of a major pisser.  We're so ready to be out of here, even though Spokane will be 104F (40C) when we get there.  The nice man who cuts our grass reprogrammed our irrigation system to water more often, so hopefully the grass will not be dead when we arrive.

We had a new Kevin for dinner last night.  I've previously discussed Kevin's paleo dinners, and how they're pretty good.  This one is in the Thai style of cooking, there is curry in there.  It's not overly spiced, and we liked it.  If you see it in the store, give it a try.  Just don't look at the chicken when it comes out of the package for too long.  The sauce is good over rice. 

Other than this, I have not too much to say about the orange menace, or how much I hate the Washington Post and New York Times for focusing on Biden's age, and not the fact that the the orange one is a rapist and serial liar.

Hot, Really Hot and Media Bias

We have been head down moving stuff to the house. Yesterday, since we had the trailer, we helped our realtor take a queen mattress set over to a lady who is down on her luck, living out in the desert in an area called Critterville.  Poverty like that is just depressing, her kids will never escape it.  The AZ Superintendent of Education is currently focused on bankrupting public schools with bogus voucher schemes.  Wealthy people benefit from that, ski trips, Lego museums, why not?  They will spend tax payer dollars and keep the poor ignorant.  Blame it on the Democrats!  It was astonishingly hot out there.  For some reason, mattress manufacturers no longer put handles on the mattresses.  It's like carrying a dead body.

We're had some sunsets.

The annual trimming of the palm trees is underway in the RV park.  We first heard them at 6:45 am.  They have noisy equipment.

Look at the debris on the ground, left side of the photo.  They pick that up and feed it through a chipper shredder.  Very noisy.  It has to be murder working in these temperatures.  They are all wearing hats, long sleeves and carrying very large containers of water on the gators they're driving.

It's hotter than hot here.  We were contemplating a new route between here and Spokane that would avoid Phoenix and Kingman; two of our least favorite places to drive through.  We're leaving for Spokane on Sunday.  It is predicted to be 121F (49.44C) in Needles that day.  That's pretty hot.  We would have to unload a bunch of heat intolerant stuff out of the car, instead of just taking in the bare essentials.  The other thing that's filling me with dread is the thought of driving across Nevada, where it is also hot, where there is no cell service.  It's one thing to wait for help in temperate climes, and another when it's hotter than hot.  So, we may end up going through Salt Lake City, another unpopular place, but there is cell service.

We need to get this worked.  One of the things that has happened to us is an unawareness of holidays.  Today is July 4, people celebrate this holiday.  They travel.  I'm hoping that hotels on our route will still have available rooms, and that we haven't left this too late.  I really and truly need to go back to Spokane, where it will be 105F the day of our arrival.  Good thing there is no climate change.

There has long been a suspicion that the 45th President is a pedophile.  The recent release of the grand jury proceedings in Jeffrey Epstein's prosecution prove that he is.  Additionally these transcripts show how the prosecution tried to portray the children, and yes they were children, as the guilty parties in the whole sordid mess.  It was a long time ago, but the fact remains, the republican candidate for president is a pedophile.  One wonders, why does this not receive more attention in the main stream media?  Is this person morally fit to lead the nation and the world?  I think not. I found one recent article in WAPO discussing the documents release, but there's nothing on page one of the papers in 14 point type.

This screen scrape contains hideous images and objectionable language, so read it knowing that.

This would ruin any other candidate, but the press is helping to bury the story by ignoring it.  Remember Gary Hart?  In 1988 a picture of him on a boat with Donna Rice sitting on his lap on a boat named Monkey Business, completely and totally derailed his political career.  Today - raping little girls, no big deal.

I keep thinking that if the content of Project 2025 was made accessible to the MAGATS, that they might turn away from the orange menace.  Surely, the thought of losing Medicare and Social Security might redirect their thinking about things.  If mass deportations of the people who pick your food, staff your nursing homes, clean your homes, tend the wine fields doesn't give you pause, perhaps finishing out your Golden Years in ill health and poverty might encourage you to vote for the old guy.  Biden is not stepping down, I truly hope he can pull this off.  Maybe the hamberders will have their way with the orange one.

Welp, time to do route planning and calling of hotels for reservations.  Have whatever sort of July 4 you engage in.  

I just saw this.  This is how the subject should be handled.

 

SCOTUS Destroys the US

I have to say, I'm pretty close to the edge of the slough of despond.   The decision by SCOTUS today has upended what our country has been for 200 plus years.  Now the courts decide what was an official act vs. what wasn't.  Prosecuting the orange menace will turn into a round robin of appeals.  He's already appealing convictions for things he did when he wasn't president.  Not wasting any time here.  It's becoming evident that Clarence Thomas has been pulling the strings behind Aileen Cannon.  It looks like stealing official secrets and showing them to foreign powers after you leave office, is an official duty.  I can't stand it.

Ruth Marcus did a good opinion piece on the decision.  This is a gift article, so you should not hit a paywall.

This is from Sotomeyer's dissent.  

"When [the president] uses his official powers in any way, under the majority's reasoning, he now will be insulated from criminal prosecution. Orders the Navy's Seal Team 6 to assassinate a political rival? Immune. Organizes a military coup to hold onto power? Immune. Takes a bribe in exchange for a pardon? Immune. Immune, immune, immune. Let the President violate the law, let him exploit the trappings of his office for personal gain, let him use his official power for evil ends. Because if he knew that he may one day face liability for breaking the law, he might not be as bold and fearless as we would like him to be. That is the majority's message today. Even if these nightmare scenarios never play out, and I pray they never do, the damage has been done. The relationship between the President and the people he serves has shifted irrevocably. In every use of official power, the President is now a king above the law."

So, that was today.

Blooming

 The trichocereus bloomed.  We were fortunate enough to be there to see it.  

The white ones are still my favorite, but this is also lovely.