A Really Rough and Tiring Day

First - thanks to our 2 loyal followers!  Guess everyone else got bored and gave up on us.  Glad to know that someone cares about where we are.  We enjoy keeping a trip journal. I write the first draft, Roger edits and adds, and then I edit his comments before we "publish." We often look back at old journals to settle a difference of opinion as to where we were and when :-)  

It was a rough day today in several respects:

• It rained during the night in Salt Lake City. We lay in bed this morning thinking "oh goody, another hook up in the rain." In addition, I had put the throw rugs on Maggie's pen to dry out from the Moab rain. Well, they got even wetter. So much for that idea.  Rog had to put them in the bed of the truck so they didn't soak everything else.   It did stop raining and we had some sunshine peek through the clouds when we took off around 10am for the trek past the Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats.  
• The drive, as mentioned yesterday, was the longest of any so far this trip - about 356 miles across Utah and northern Nevada.  We did change time zones and gain an hour but still we were on the road a couple of hours more than we normally are.  Rog was tired of driving and Maggs and I were tired of riding.
• We hit a wall of rain about the time we got into Nevada and it continued for about 150 miles.  Sometimes it was just rain and other times it was, as Roger says, like a cow peeing on a flat rock.  
• While Roger was fighting the rain he also had to maneuver the orange cones of construction for the same 150 or so miles.  Very tense driving conditions.  Lots of big rigs on I-80 and only one lane.
• We had to stop for fuel.  Normally we drop the RV at the RV park when we get to our destination and then take the truck for fuel.  Well, we had to fuel up with the RV hooked up today.  Not an easy task as the majority of gas stations (remember we are 54.5 feet long) just aren't designed for rigs our size.  There are some big truck stops that make it easier, but in Battle Mountain, NV there wasn't one.  We did find a service station that had diesel on an end pump that Roger could get the RV into.  Again, tension time.  

We are settled in a typical desert RV park in Winnemucca, NV. (gravel roads and sites)  Tomorrow we will clean house and pack and Roger will winterize the RV on Friday morning before we get on the road towards home.  Like the first days of a trip the last couple are hard.

On this trip we have noticed that fuel has been costing in the $3.85 to $3.89 range.  That is until we got into Nevada and it was over $4.  We have never figured out why the fuel prices in Nevada are so much higher than in other places.  Just lucky I guess.  

Crossing the salt flats today was kind of eerie.  After the apparently heavy rains during the night there was water in puddles on the flats (and it wasn't a mirage).  The salt between and around the puddles looked like what you see on nature programs when you see ice floes in the Arctic.  It was weird.  If it were winter you would think it was snow with ice edges on ponds. It was very surreal.  

At the entrance to this RV park they have some chain saw figures out front - a black bear and an old miner with a pan. Well, on our walk-about after dinner Maggie hesitated at the bear and sniffed at it pretty good but wouldn't go near it.  When we got to the miner she freaked.  The tail went between her legs, the hair on her neck stood up, and she started barking at it.  We've had this dog since April and this is about the 5th time we have heard her bark.  That old miner dude sure spooked her and Rog and I had a good laugh which is what we needed after the long day.  Maggie is good for us!!