QC61-01 Westward to Seattle

Wow! Really late sending this out. Anyway, here it is. Jennifer says it should be titled "Crossing the country in a blur without the aid of Walmart".

May 1, 2016 (Sun)  Home to  Indianapolis, IN  (732/732 miles) 48/78° Mostly rainy - Packing for this trip was easy. We had only our suitcases to pack not a whole motor home. We were off at 6:10 with an ETA of 6:21 (according to Hildene and that will change). The trip across New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio was uneventful for the most part. Sunday morning (at least) is a good time to travel in the New York City area, especially at 6 in the morning. Everyone sleeping in after a night of wild partying, I guess. It rained off and on all day. We'd heard rumors of possible storms in the Midwest, our destination and this made for beautiful cloud formations as we crossed Ohio and entered Indiana but the pending weather stayed off in the distance. But as we neared Indianapolis, the skies slowly darkened with flashes of lightning lighting up the billowing clouds. The sometimes spectacular displays to the west and north grew in intensity and looked serious. We didn't know how serious until we got to Lee and Frannie's home south of Indianapolis. They had their TV on tuned to a weather station. It showed serious tornado-rich conditions headed right at us. Within five minutes after we got there the wind began to howl. Soon our smart phones began screaming a government alert warning and the city sirens began to sound. It turned out that a tornado did touch down within a few miles and very near the highway we came in on. No substantial damage to anyone though.

C004156 Johnson home, Indianapolis, IN (x2)

May 3, 2016 (Tue)  Indianapolis, IN to Lawrence, KS (529/1261 miles) - A new experience for us - finding a place to spend the night without our motor home. Instead of looking for a Walmart parking lot in a situation like this we had to find a motel. To do this we turned to an app on our smart phones. Trivago lists several motels in a specified area with a discount rate for a given time (sometimes more that one) and a rating (provided by non-biased guests). We assume that the closer we book to the night we want to stay the better the discount. At about 3:00 we chose Lawrence, KS as our destination for the night and among the several motels with available rooms we found one at the Virginia Inn with a good discount ($65 vs $129) and a high rating 8.4 (out of 10 we assume). we booked a reservation via the app and here we are. We got here at about 6:15 and our room was waiting for us. So far we agree with the rating.

C004685 Virginia Inn, Lawrence, KS

May 4, 2016 (Wed)  Lawrence, KS to Denver, CO  (554/1815 miles) - Denver, CO has played a big part in our lives - especially for never having lived here or anywhere near here. During our days as executive couple with Episcopal Marriage Encounter we would fly int for meetings 4 times a year and got to know the area a bit because we would explore when we weren't in meetings, which wasn't often. Our son Jeff went Colorado State in Fort Collins (50 miles north), our Daughter Jennifer took a job in Minturn over the mountain, our nephew lives in Franktown thirty miles south of Denver and our granddaughter Rachel and her new husband have just moved here. It was to see them that we stopped here tonight. We had a great visit and a wonderful Mexican dinner downtown with them. It was so good to see them!

C004685 Llewellyn, Denver, CO

May 5, 2016 (Thur)  Denver, Co to Evanston, WY (445/2287 miles) - Another long day on the road today. We chose I-80 to cross the Rockies. We've taken I-70 several times and thought this way might be interesting. It turned out to be a little disappointing as far as scenery goes. Going over the mountains was a non-sequitur. Beautiful but there were not the spectacular rocks and canyons that we have found on I-70.

Our motel tonight is a Best Western. It's a little more expensive and not quite as nice. That could be location.

C005262 Best Western, Evanston, WY

May 6, 2016 (Fri)  Evanston, WY to Pendleton, OR (603/2890 miles) 54/72° The included breakfast at the Best Western this morning was much better than we got at the Virginia Inn in Lawrence. This time it was waitress served scrambled eggs etc. instead of danish/bagels and coffee.

We got off at 6:25 and hit Utah at 6:35 and drove I-80 west into darkening skis. Flashes of lighting ahead and to the south heralded  the rain, very heavy at times, that hit us around 7:15. The winds came up too, blowing all dust from road construction debris across the road. We barely missed being hit by a warning sign that sailed across in front of us. We ran over the legs of another that had toppled into the road. No damage to the tires  that we could tell.

We wanted something other then the Wendy's fast food for lunch so we headed into Boise (ID) looking for a Chinese  buffet. Big mistake! Not only was the food terrible but the traffic was impossible.

The Travelodge motel in Pendleton, OR was in the middle of town and not much to look at but it was a welcome sight after 15 hours on the road. We were so tired that we couldn't even check out the street fair that was going on up the street.

C006313 Travelodge, Pendleton, OR

May 7, 2016 (Sat)  Pendleton, OR to Edmonds, WA (311/3201 miles) 54/70° Our new car calculates mpg fuel consumption as we drive. It was fun watching it reach 42.5 - instead of the 10.5 mpg (at best) that we were getting with the motor home - as we traveled somewhat flat country albeit ever so slightly down hill. But that changed as we approached the Cascade Mountains. It dropped to well below 25 mpg in the mountains for an overall average of about 27 mpg for the day. The average for the whole trip so far has been 34.5 mpg

Breakfast this morning was at a Denny's. We could have gotten something at the motel (bagels and coffee) but would have had to wait till 7:00.  not worth the wait! We would have saved some money though, Denny's was expensive.

C003201 Lovell, Edmonds, WA