First Officer’s Log

Today ….

   I took my trusty pencil ….
       And blacked out a circle around ….
           the cities of ….
                  Ogden, Salt Lake, and Provo, Utah.

As it so happens a couple of years ago I blacked out the complete state of Oklahoma.

Back then I had transited the (not) OK state both west to east, and north to south and both transits were life threatenly horrible on roads so bouncy and rough that we actually bent a solid, cast iron trailer hitch, and I SWORE that I would never set a tire in the state ever again.  And so far I haven’t.

Today I swore the same oath about the megalopolis of the above three cities.  Never again, never again, never again!  Although shown on the map as separate cities they are, for all practical purposes contiguous.  The problem is that I-84, which goes thru the middle of all three cities, appears to have been in continuous construction since Eisenhower was president.  Back then he decreed, that for reasons of national security, we needed a major road system like the Autobahns in Germany.  BTW, did you know that straight stretches of roadway are specified at regular intervals on the interstates so they can be used for military aircraft purposes?  Yup, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.

Besides the continuous construction, I-84 once again, through the middle of all three towns is seven lanes wide and is posted at 70 mph, dropping all the way down to 60 mph in the wavy, temporary, extra narrow construction lanes, with weird or worse yet, no signage.  And the locals don’t pay any attention to any of that, and drive like they are bat-shit-crazy.  I actually saw one fool cross over 5 lanes in one fell swoop, causing several cars to swerve and brake to avoid hitting him.  And they sure didn’t like me puttering along at my sedate 55 mph in the center lane because the right hand lanes had the bad habit of either disappearing completely or turning into one of those $%#@ “Exit Only” lanes requiring a last minute “please let me over” lane changes.  And BTW, several times the answer to my plea was, “No.”

Apparently they have so many accidents along there (we saw three) that they don’t even send out the police anymore but have “Incident Management” trucks with flairs, lights, barriers, and special personnel to manage the messes.

OK, now a bit of good news.  We made it to Nephi, Utah safely and turned in for fuel.  Seeing how very cute the town is we decided to stay over and are now ensconced in the Jones High Country RV and Starship Camp next to a really nice Alpha Motor Coach.  I think Alpha’s are really neat coaches, and they have an owner’s club that is amazingly fanatical.  Alpha’s were built from 1973 to 2008 and were killed off by the financial crisis.  They were always ahead of their time, and I wish someone would bring them back.

That’s all for now.  The George Foreman cooker just beeped so the steak, pot-a-tos, ka-rotz, and on-yums are done, and I’m hungry.

Just FYI here’s a link to some Alpha info.

https://money.cnn.com/galleries/2008/smallbusiness/0811/gallery.victims_of_the_crash.smb/4.html

Fly Safe,

Rusty Pistons
First Officer
Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702

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Captain’s Log

Just to be clear, the First Officer doesn’t ALWAYS cook.  Captain’s fare tonight was round steak with veggies and not so long ago pork chops with veggies plus salad. And last evening BLT’s with tomatoes fresh from my daughter Stacie’s garden. Those tomatoes are primo! They have hardly any seeds and taste like they were grown in Indiana (it don’t get no better than Indy tomatoes!)

I have been the silent partner in this blog for several reasons: I’ve been busily trying to learn how to make crocheted baby booties from YouTube tutorials (nope, not pregnant!) I’ve also been making more crocheted dish rags, which seem to be a hit with Stacie, Kimberly and Grandson Rowan (for his new apartment in Seattle as he returns to college). I’ve still got cotton yarn to use, and now that I’ve memorized the pattern, I can crochet while Rusty Pistons drives. I’ve also been embroidering a couple pillow cases to keep me busy in the evenings. 

In my opinion, Utah is prettier than Nevada. That’s why we’re coming home by way of Utah. I have been helping plan our route to avoid the desert as long as possible. Unfortunately, it’s HOT here in Utah tonight. This is our first stop on the way home that won’t have a low in the 40’s at night. Sigh.

We have been choosing the back roads as we always did while riding on Frank’s motorcycles. Today’s traffic was a total nervous, anxiety producing affair. We navigated through the cement roads through Salt Lake City only by staying super vigilant when lanes became EXIT ONLY. The two left lanes were some sort of HOV toll lanes and forbid heavy vehicles (like trucks and US). Anyway, we were really relieved when we made it all the way through to the little town of Nephi, just south of Provo. By that time, we needed to decide where we were going to land tonight and pulled in for a fill-up and found a shady spot to reconnoiter. Thus, we ended up here in the sweet town of Nephi where the streets look swept, the houses are gingerbread cute with white picket fences, and it feels like we’ve been time-warped back to the 1960’s.

With that thought, I think I’ll stay back here in the 60’s for awhile as I peruse, on Shutterfly, the photos taken at my 55^th Kokomo High School Reunion. I’m having trouble recognizing anyone. It’s great to see the gatherings of my geezer friends of yesteryear, since I was in Seattle while they were gathering. I wouldn’t have missed my granddaughter’s wedding for the world! I wanted to be everywhere at once!

Tomorrow we’re planning to arrive in Kanab, Utah (actually we’ll overnight in Fredonia, Arizona) where the scenery might just outshine everything we’ve seen so far. On Wednesday we’ll stay over in Flagstaff, Arizona, at Black Bart’s RV Park where they have a restaurant that serves prickly pear martinis, and NAU students sing and dance though dinner. Hooray! 

We’ll be on the road from Flag to Phoenix on Thursday, “Home Sweet Desert Home.” The only desert stop I approve! 

Next year Arrowstarship will continue to explore brave new worlds and go where a whole lot of people have gone before, Naples, Florida and Key West.

Sparkie Plugs
Captain, Starship Arrowstar – NCC-1702