Escape From Brigham City!!

I'm tipping my hat to all you long haul truckers out there.  I don't know how you do it through all this wind and rain for eight hours a day.  My attempt to escape Brigham City yesterday was a rough one.

It started off not looking too terrible.  I had decided to stay one more night, but the weather forecast only got worse and worse each day.  Time to hit the road.

I packed up in the rain and kept to the right hand lane going my usual 58 mph.  My windshield wipers could barely keep up.

There was a headwind the entire way, totally killing my fuel mileage!  I found the tree and a tad bit of blue sky in Wendover!  Whoever mentioned this, I DID see it on the way to the train celebration.  It IS rather weird looking for a cell tower.

From Wendover on, mile after mile, it was overcast with rain.  I kept praying for no snow as I climbed pass after pass.

When I finally hit Elko, my stop for the night, the yellow lights were not flashing on the chain control area, in spite of all the wind and rain.  I figured I only had two hours to Winnemucca where it was cloudy and in the 60's.  It wasn't a hard choice ... I kept going.

In two minutes I was white knuckled.  OMG THAT'S SNOW!!  Luckily there was little traffic.  My driving mentor Dan Chance would be proud.  I escaped both Brigham City Utah and Elko Nevada in one day.  

Unfortunately, I was exhausted as I pulled in to Frontier RV Park in Winnemucca.  It's a nice quiet place on the East end with full hookups for $40.  Too bad I missed that RV driveway and pulled in to the casino, which didn't exist the last time I was here.  

The nice ladies laughed at me, but gave me directions back out to the road since there was no way I could turn around.  Finally back on the RIGHT path, I parked and collapsed on the couch.  I then spent the next two hours checking my weather apps.  It doesn't look good.

I had a nice relaxing dinner of ground beef and two peanut butter cookies.  I was afraid to try and cook something.  Two aspirin and a little Giants baseball later, I got up long enough to take a picture of the little sunset because I haven't seen the sun in two weeks.

Then there was that time change thing.  The dogs were on Utah time and wide awake at 3:00 this morning.  In spite of all my rantings, they needed to go outside.  At 38 degrees, I turned the heater up and grabbed a cup of joe.  

So ..... I've improved my lot by over 400 miles, but am still staring snow in the face.  Today would be the best day to head over Donner Pass into California, but that would mean another six hour driving day.  I'm thinking Sparks Marina RV looks like a nice place to spend the next four nights at $50 a night.  By Wednesday, the snow should subside ..... I hope!!