Driving Through Utah
After we left Vegas, as we were driving north on 15th through Utah, we had a couple of interesting experiences. The first of which I mentioned already, when it started to snow really hard, and I got really scared because I didn’t know how to drive on the snow or ice.
We stopped so my wife can get some tea. The funny thing was the water had so much chlorine in it that when she drank the tea, she can barely taste the tea, and all that she could really notice was the chlorine.
After driving through the snow and the icy roads for part of the day and into the night, we were on highway 70. Before we did the big drive across the vast deserted area toward Colorado, I thought we would be better off to spend the night, and I’m sure glad we did. We stayed at a Hampton Inn, a place I’ve grown very, very fond of. The Hampton Inn, at least the newer ones, laid out furniture identical to every other one, and they’re very, very comfortable. They had a washer and dryer that we were able to use to get our clothes clean a couple of days into the trip, which was really nice. We also had a nice room with a TV set up, so we were able to stop, sit, have some snacks and play chess. They have a lot of food that they put out for breakfast in the morning. Luckily, I found their little refrigerator and someone had left the lock open, so I was able to sneak in and find some snacks to have that night, too. So, we sat, played chess and had our little snacks while the clothes washed knowing that it was freezing cold and with (horizontal?) snow blowing outside.
The other thing that I almost left out in this story was about a half hour before we got to the Hampton Inn, I was quite tired and as I’ve said, a little stressed and scared from the day’s drive. We stopped at a gas station in the middle of nowhere. We put the gas pump in, pumped in the gas and then, when the time came to leave, I hopped in the car and took off. I had neglected to take the pump out of the gas tank. Luckily, with the way they are now designed, the gas pump simply broke away on a small plastic joint, and the pump automatically shuts off. This is one time where I think technology and safety features really proved themselves to work well. Being the honest guy that I am, I went back into the gas station and told them what I had done. The woman said, “Don’t worry about it. Give me your name, address and phone number.” I, then, got a call from the guy a little while later and it all costs $25 to replace it. It took me awhile to pay them back so I’m going to send them an extra $5.
