My Trip to Houston: Day 2

After another long day of traveling, I'm here once again to tell the story of the day. I don't think I need to intro it anymore than that, since most people who read this already know the details. So here we go.

I woke up this morning around 8:45a Mountain time, which should have felt like 9:45a since I'm used to Pacific time, but it actually felt like 6:45a. I think part of the reason for that was that I got to bed at 2:00a Mountain time and thought that was only 1:00a Pacific time. So that lapse in thinking kinda got me. But, to be fair, Mallrats was on HBO, so I couldn't turn it off. You all should understand. Anyways, I went down and indulged in a pretty good continental breakfast, checked out, and headed on my way.

I was about 60 miles from Salt Lake City, so one episode of MacBreak Weekly got me there in no time. I was seeing a lot of new sights and a lot of things I thought were cool, so I was doing a lot of Twittering. It seemed like overkill at points, but then I thought, "you know, I don't care if people think I'm flooding Twitter today, I'm doing this more me at this point, because I think these things are cool!" On a tangent, when I got into the hotel both last night and tonight, I had about 3 new followers each day, so apparently flooding Twitter with my travel thoughts does have its audience.

So I got through Salt Lake, and from there to the Colorado border was a very scenic and temperate drive, but pretty straight and pretty flat. When I hit Colorado, though, it got hot. I would say it was in the mid-90s, but with the "wind chill" (if you can even call it that when it's that hot), it felt about 85 in my truck. A bit cooler than outside, but for those of you who know my temperature habits, I'm uncomfortably hot in anything above 72. So, needless to say, I was sweating.

Colorado provided both the most scenic and pretty part of the drive and the worst roads of the drive. I past Arches National Park and the Colorado River, so the canyon country through there was beautiful, but the condition a lot of the highway through there is in is awful. At least by Oregon standards. Actually, a lot of the drive today was on crappily maintained highways, but Colorado was the worst stretch. Yes, I was driving on one-lane, desert highways, but still, there was a lot of traffic for them to have let it deteriorate so much. But enough of that.

In the middle of Colorado, I hit a mountainous stretch, which meant shade and cooler weather, and that was a very welcomed relief. However, it only lasted for about 30 minutes, and then it was back to desert and heat right before I hit the New Mexico border. The northern portion of New Mexico was pretty uneventful, but all my podcasts, as well as Malcolm Gladwell's Blink audiobook, keep me pretty preoccupied.

I stopped in Shiprock, which was the place I was originally going to stay the night, but because I got there in such good time, I was able to have dinner there and keep going. But, before I left town, I gassed up and had dinner. Now, there was a dilemma. After my premature tweet saying it was between Taco Bell (which I knew) and Whataburger (which I had heard of once, but never tried), I saw a Sonic. So the dilemma was between Sonic and Whataburger. At that point, the advertising kicked in, and I chose Sonic. I have knocked Sonic for advertising in Eugene forever, because there isn't a Sonic within 100 miles of Eugene.

I will never hate on them again. It paid off.

So I tried Sonic for the first time, and was happy with it, though not blown away. I didn't try any of the drinks, though, so I think that was my mistake. After I ate, I headed on my way.

About an hour down the road, I saw a storm that I was heading straight for. With a few things loaded in the bed of my truck, rain wasn't what I was looking to drive through. So, I got within about a mile of it, and at that point you could see the rain and there was lightning to boot (which I will need to get used to seeing often). The highway veered just enough for me to miss it. Whew. See the pictures below to see just how close I was to needing to use the dryer tonight. (Honestly, I would have pulled over and put the tarp over it, but I hate stopping, so it was more of a relief than you might think).

So, I was probably driving on the edge of that storm for an hour and a half, and had a total of 2 combined minutes of sprinkling on my windshield. It was awesome. I got a false sense of invincibility during that, and was cheering to myself a little in the car throughout. Hey, it's only me out there, so if I feel a need to burst out with something, I'm gonna do it. I am my own audience.

So, after I hit I-40, which goes due-East through New Mexico, it was smooth sailing until I hit Grants, which is where I'm holed up tonight. Grants is about 70 miles from Albuquerque, and I think if I sleep in a little and get on the road around 9 or 10, I'll miss all potential traffic along the way. Hopefully I won't run into any rain tomorrow, but just in case I think I'll put the tarp on in the morning so I don't have to worry about it.

One thing that sucked today is that my phone's touch screen broke. Well, actually, it's kind of hard to explain without knowing the terms, but the touch functionality is still perfect, so I can still tap and it will be responsive, but the display screen underneath it got some kind of crack in it, so half the screen is black. Like, the pixels are out. So, the touch functionality is essentially useless. I didn't drop it or hit it or poke it with a pen, it just happened somehow. It's only 6 months old, so I assume it's still under warranty, but has anyone had this problem before? If so, if it was with Verizon, how did they handle it?

Anyways, keep checking Twitter and KevsPix, I update the on the drive, then back here tomorrow night for a post-game wrap-up. Without further ado, here are my fave pics of the day, in chronological order, of course.