1 bus to Des Moines IA

... spending the night at Laramie WY

Stuff from earlier in the trip.

Yesterday there was something on the side of the road that hadn't been there two days before. It looked like maybe a semi trailer that had been burnt into two parts?

I think the only wildlife we saw in two days in NV were crows. Lots of crows.

I mentioned fireworks to someone in Wendover last night and they said they were heading out to the salt flats because of the fire danger. Hadn't thought about that, not much that will burn on the salt flats.

When we into Winnemucca a few days ago I could see a few horse trailers by the arena in town. Now when we went past again on the freeway we could see 100's, not just dozens, of horse trailers. What ever it was is big out here.

I was half awake when the alarm went off, BB wasn't. Breakfast was yogurt and juice. And then juice again when I was ready to go, plus some Hostess treat.

It sounds like this town of 5,000 didn't have any virus cases before the shut down. Now, after being open for a month, this town has 300 local cases of the virus.

UT scale by the NV line is closed. Don't know that I have ever seen that before. Very still today, the water is like a mirror. But I am driving so no picture.

1st stop ... TA in Tooele for a break. We picked the TA over our usual Flying J because I am still looking for bus fluid. They don't carry it either. We took a half hour, BB spent a good part of it on the phone. Things still not going well with her Dad. Other than that our time was taken up by watching the sea gulls take off into the wind currents, higher and higher. Not sure why they do that.

2nd stop, POE / Port of Entry. ??? I don't need a permit? Because I am under 26,000# and delivering to a customer instead of a dealer? Lots of exceptions to every rule. But they still have everyone stop and come in so not much time lost.

And it's time for our lunch break and we don't want Subway again so we go into town where we can park at Walmart and walk to fast food. Turns out the old Walmart, now a farm store, is closer to fast food. So we park and first walk to an auto parts store to find the fluid for my bus. The shipper said I should 'just stop at the next truck stop and buy some.' I have stopped a half dozen places and no even carries that brand. This place has the brand but not the correct type. I buy a quart, just in case. But I won't put it in unless the red light comes on.

Then we walked to Wendy's as it was the closest. No in-door seating but we could order indoors. Line was out the door but people were staying <> 6 foot apart. Didn't see anyone other than us and the staff wearing a mask.

We ate sitting on the step of the bus in the parking lot. Interesting parking. Lots of people with trailers. Some would pull in and park so their trailer was out of the travel lane behind them, then a few units down, someone would park so their front was out of the travel lane ahead of them. So a lot of the travel lanes didn't go all the way through today. Some places people followed the yellow lines, other places they just parked anywhere.

Oh ... and as we were walking, I saw a couple of young kids throwing spoon fulls of their ice cream at the face of a political poster. Not sure if their parent saw them or not.

This town was getting to be a zoo with trailers, we were glad to be leaving. When we looked over at the rest area at the edge of town we could see that was full of trailers also. Trailers. Travel trailers, boat trailers, ATV trailers, storage trailers. All of them.

This stop took an hour, plus the short stop at the POE. Making for a longer day.

3rd stop, Rock Springs at Cruel Jacks Shell. Use the rest room and buy some juice. 5-8 more months before the A&W will re-open. So no root beer this summer. That will be more than a year from when the fire took down the building. Seems like a long time to get going again.

4th stop fuel in Rawlins at the TA. First I pulled into the Flying J while BB rechecked the prices. TA was $.10 a gallon cheaper so for 50 gallons we went to the TA. 1st I filled the DEF on my card, then I restart the pump for diesel. All to save the $1.25 service charge on the DEF. I am up to 8.5 mpg.

5th and final stop is in Laramie. First we stop at the Carl Jr's (Hardee's) to get a burger and salad to go. Then we go to our motel, Comfort Inn. Once we are in the room we find they have no soap. No soap anywhere. And they will not go into other rooms because of their virus policy. I want to know what their policy is on renting rooms with no soap when we are supposed to be washing our hands with SOAP and water all the time.

Earlier today the forecast was for nasty weather between Rawlins and Laramie. But we drove through all sunshine.

It looks like we would have enough time to get to delivery on Tuesday as long as the wash didn't take over 30 seconds or so. So most likely we will be staying in Des Moines and washing, picking up the rental car and dropping the bus Wednesday AM. And then heading home.