The storage unit is empty! I keep getting emails from the storage unit people to “rate their service”. I delete them. Here’s your rating: SHITTY! You did absolutely NOTHING but raise our rates every three months. The lock on the door was messed up so we had to stand on our heads to open the combination lock every time we opened the damn thing. There was dirt all over the front of the damn thing when we opened it. It smelled like moth balls (which we did not use) and there was mouse poop in the middle of our stuff.
How lazy do you have to be to raise our rates every few months, do absolutely nothing to take care of the place in two years and then make me take the time to rate you?
Here’s my unsolicited advice to everyone: avoid storage units at all costs. They are a waste of money. If you have too much stuff, sell it! Paying to store it is a waste of money.
We started the trip west on Saturday, July 16th. Rye was sunny and beautiful. We stopped by Eliot to pick up the trailer and say goodbye to the Caninos. Sue baked us some muffins and Anthony gave us a snowman plaque he had made for Canyon, of a snowman with “Let it snow” written on it. We’ll miss the Caninos! Thank you so much for your hospitality and friendship. Come visit!
We took 95S to 495 to 90 and, essentially, planned to take 90 most of the way. We made it to Centerport, NY and stayed in the Aqueduct Park. Very nice, quiet little park with lots of info on about the Erie Canal
Trip west. Day 1 (pics below)
July 17th (pics below) started out warm and sunny. We had breakfast at the park and then hit the road. This was the first day we encountered rain. The rainy road pic is in Girard, Ohio. Tonight, we’ll stay in a hotel in Ohio and have dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant that is very good.
July 18th. On the road fairly early…nothing too crazy! We had lunch at Kay’s Place in Kingsville, Ohio. The lunch planning goes a little like this. Pam says, “when are we stopping for lunch?”. I say, “2 PM”. Pam gets busy looking for a spot to land. We usually eat out for lunch and cook at the campsite for dinner if we’re camping.
We got takeout at Kay’s place and took it across the street, to a truck stop, to put out the chairs – and Anthony’s plaque – for a relaxing, roadside rest stop.
We make it to Kilen Woods State Park in Lakefield, Minnesota today. The park is essentially empty. We have booked a site but it is out in the open and it’s pretty hot so we find a shaded spot with a pull-through. We get setup. Pull out the chairs. Make the bed up and put the tent on the back of the pickup. While we’re setting up, a van load of young girls pulls in and selects the site right behind us…in an empty campground. Oh well, we’re pretty tired and they turn out to be very respectful neighbors. It’s a cool, quiet and restful night.
July 19th. Nice morning in Minnesota. We both take a shower. The campground is very nice and the showers and bathrooms are clean and well kept. Thanks, Minnesota!
Getting back to 90 turns out to be a bit of a puzzle. Google wants us to go through the town of Lakeview which is under construction and each time we try to get around the town we end up going in a larger square but winding up in essentially the same place needing to go through the closed road again. Finally we figure it out after many wrong turns!
We visit Wall Drug and find it to be everything we expected. A fine diversion from driving. Many, many people scooping up thochkes like they’re going out of style. We scoop up a few ourselves.
We camp in a field by the entrance to the Badlands. There are a lot of campers already setup but there are plenty more spots. The wind is howling and it’s a challenge to get the tent on the back of the truck. As the sun goes down, the wind dies down and it gets very quiet. We see some ram horn sheep running around on the cliffs below us. It’s a very relaxing night.
July 20th. Up fairly early. I was up before sunrise, and then shortly after, so I didn’t see the actual sunrise but it was a beautiful, cool morning. We had coffee, cooked on the fender of the trailer, and then packed up for the drive through the Badlands loop.
There was a herd of cows passing through as we drove out of the field. The drive through the Badlands was beautiful. It was early and there wasn’t a lot of traffic so we stopped a bunch and took a lot of pics.
After the Badlands we figured we better see Mount Rushmore because we were so close. I was surprised by all the tourist traps on the way to Rushmore and then the infrastructure of the sculpture area was impressive too. There were tons of people, as I assume there always are, so we took a couple pics and got out of there in a hurry.
Of course, we had to stop in to see Crazy Horse! We had no idea that it was still a work in progress with a LONG way to go. We joked that they should have told us that before we paid $30 to go in! Rushmore was only $5 with our senior discount so we were joking that we should have asked for our money back because Crazy Horse isn’t anywhere near done!
Pammie found us a campsite at Glendo State Park in Glendo, Wyoming. The site she picked turned out to be right out in the sun and nowhere near the water but there weren’t many people there so we drove around and found a shaded spot by the water.
Once we got ‘er parked and setup a bit we took a swim. I fumbled around looking for my sandals and, by the time I found them, Pammie was already taking a dip!
The wind was howling again tonight and, again, as the sun went down, the wind died down and the lake calmed right down. It was another cool and relaxing night.
July 21st. Coffee at Glendoe Lake and then back on the road. The first pic (below) is a random pic I took at the gas station in Glendoe. would take shots like that just to have a record of the start of the day.
We got off of 90 at this point and headed south on 25 to catch up with 80. There was a really nice winding ride through a canyon along this road near Wheatland then things started to get pretty flat.
We stopped for a really nice Thai meal at Anong’s in Rawlins. We had seen a couple of billboards coming into town and I’m glad we did. The food was very good. Our waitress was challenged by the busy lunch crowd but she got us through it.
Rawlins seemed like there were a lot of empty storefronts. I don’t know much about it but it looked like there was plenty of traffic so I wonder what’s up? I took a pic of the police station, which is just up the street from Anong’s, just because I liked the way it looked.
We were going to the hardware store to get a propane canister and a patch kit for the air mattress and there was a really pretty colonial style house with a canyon behind it that I wanted to take a pic of but I couldn’t get an angle I liked so I passed it up.
The night’s campsite was at Echo State Park between Echo and Coalville, Utah. We got a pretty open and sunny site but there was a path down to the lake for swimming. The “beach” was very muddy but the water was exquisite after a long day on the road.
July 22nd. Winemucca, here we come!
This day was going to be easy. 4 or 5 hours of driving to a hotel in Winnemucca, NV. We have a history in Winnemucca. Pammie and I ran out of gas outside of Winnemucca on a trip across country many, many moons ago.
We drive through the Bonneville Salt Flats, where we stayed the first night on the way east, and all is well. We blow past Wendover, NV joking about the strip club we saw advertised as we left Salt Lake City, Utah.
Just after one leaves Wendover, after you’ve passed all the gas stations and exits (I think) there’s a sign that says it’s 58 miles to the next services. Pam mentions the sign. I say, “we’ve got just over a quarter tank of gas, we should be fine”.
Outside of Wendover you start up a long climb. As we climbed, the light went on and the beep sounded; low on fuel. We both dropped the F bomb and got very silent. As we crested the climb, I shifted into neutral and let ‘er sail down the other side on inertia.
When you get to the bottom of that climb on 80 heading west, there’s something off in the distance resembling a small town. Possibly a gas station? As you get closer, you see that it WAS a gas station at one time. Probably there for idiots like me who drive past Wendover on a quarter tank of gas in a V8 truck pulling a trailer full of stuff and realize, oh shit! We’re toast! BUT, there weren’t enough idiots like me so this apparition in the distance is a ghost station. A rating hulk of what was once the salvation of fools.
We climb another grade and then, coming down the other side, in a section of 80 that says “Prison Zone – Hitchhiking Prohibited” we make the call to take the prison exit, pull over and call AAA. We don’t have enough gas to make it to Wells.
So we call, and sit, and wait and pee, and call, and sit, and wait, and fume, and call, and pee, and play some cards, and wait, and call and…finally, a Dodge pickup with a bed full of tires and jacks and… A GAS CAN shows up…three hours later.
He dumps 2.5 gallons into the tank and says he’ll follow us to Wells. It works out, we make it. We get gas and then I go into the station to look for fizzy water. No go. Back in the truck we head out again.
I didn’t take a pic at the next gas station between Wells and Winnemucca. Probably because it was here that I realized I dropped my credit card back at the last stop. We searched the truck but I was pretty sure it was gone. 7400 miles and dozens of gas stops previous, I had stuck my card in the pump, pulled it out and stuck it back in my wallet. On the next to last gas stop before our landing in historic (to us, and many others I’m sure) Winnemucca, Nevada, I messed up and dropped the damn thing…on the floor, or in the parking lot, or wherever else.
When we got on the road and Pammie got on the phone and, sure enough, whoever answered the phone at the last gas station knew me by name. He agreed to cut the card but, it was made of metal so he bent it up and sent us a pic.
Bad things come in threes, right. As we came over another pass and wound down the downhill on the other side, as three-banger tractor trailer blew out a tire and started leaving little land mines all over the road. We were behind a Ford camper van and a pickup behind that so the land mines were hard to spot and hard to avoid. Would this be calamity number three?
NO! We made it to the Quality Inn and Model T casino in one piece!
Off to “The Pig” for one last pig-out before hitting the Ridge tomorrow.
We sit in a corner, at a clean table, order up some pig and a couple beers and start talking with the folks at the table in front of us and, lo and behold, we’re connected through Pammie’s School. The woman knows of Pammie’s program and we have a nice conversation while gnawing on some pig parts. How loevly!
