Travel Adventures

On Thursday, Dec. 18 (almost two weeks ago.....my how time flies) I was supposed to fly to Salt Lake City to meet Lauren and then help her drive home to Texas. She has just graduated from BYU, and is moving back so that she can live with Julie for a few months, find a job, save some money, and then strike out on her own. Anyway, the trip started badly, as my flight was delayed some three hours, then we found out that we would all miss our connections in Denver. Being stranded in Denver didn't sound too fun, even though I knew I would get on a flight to SLC the next morning, but luckily, I have wonderful relatives!!! My cousin Diana went far above and beyond the call of duty in coming to the airport, waiting more than an hour on me because I was trapped in a line with all the other delayed folks trying to get our boarding passes for the next morning's flights, then taking me back to the airport at the horrendous hour of 5 a.m. She deserves great kudos and thanks and accolades and I am so appreciative. So, I spent the night in Denver, saw Greg for about 5 minutes, had great visits with Diana going from and to the airport and finally arrived in SLC on Friday morning. I did meet some nice people on the plane, all of whom sent best wishes to Lauren on her graduation (that made me feel really good) and I'm glad I had a chance to visit with Diana, even if the circumstances weren't ideal. I was hoping that our trek south could take us back through Denver, so that we could have a real visit, but the weather did not cooperate. Interstate 70 looked bad going over the mountains west of Denver, so we took the more southern route home, just hitting the corner of Colorado as we went from southern Utah into New Mexico. Once Lauren picked me up and we got some breakfast (I love the bacon, egg and cheese bagels at McDonalds--try them if you get the chance), we headed south. We saw lots of snow on the side of the road, especially in southern Utah near Monticello and all through that southwest corner of Colorado, and we had some blowing snow on the roads in that area, but overall, the roads were clear and dry and great all the way home. We made it to Albuquerque by 8 p.m., found a reasonably priced hotel and hit the sack. I was especially pleased by the help given from several people in Cortez, Colorado. I had thought we might go on east to Durango, then catch highway 550 south into New Mexico and take it all the way to Albuquerque, but I was advised by three friendly people to instead go south from Cortez to Shiprock, turn east there to Farmington and catch 550 in Bloomfield. The folks in Cortez said the snow would get dramatically deeper if we went to Durango, so we took their advice. The road from Bloomfield to Albuquerque is a nice, four-lane divided highway that I had never been on before. Always in the past, when we took the southern route, we went all the way south from Cortez to Gallup, through the Indian reservation, then hit Interstate 40 to head east. This route took miles off the trip, and was a better road. (Once I got home and told Linda G. about it, I figured out why I'd never gone that way before--the road is only about five years old). Anyway, the trip went really well. Our only major delay was for a wreck on I-40, somewhere out in the boonies. It looked bad and had trucks and cars backed up for miles. Some people were driving across the median and heading back the other way, but we had to go east, and wandering around on the back roads of New Mexico didn't seem to smart. In the end, we crept along for about 45 minutes and then got clear and zoomed on.

We were amused by the Cadillac ranch just west of Amarillo, and then tired by the time we finally got to Arlington. You think you're nearly home when you arrive in Texas, but no....it's at least six hours from Amarillo to home....Big place, this Lone Star State.

That's it for our exciting trip.....another post for Christmas coming up.