tl;dr: drowsiness is red alert.
Today was markedly less smooth than yesterday. I think driving 700+ miles yesterday after all the stress and sleepless nights of packing tapped into the very last of my reserves, and I felt groggy and out of it all day. It probably doesn't help that I'm mostly at altitude (I crossed the continental divide and am in Rawlins, Wyoming, which is apparently 6800' - a full 1500' above Denver), or that the eight hours of sleep I got last night isn't nearly enough to compensate for the nights of deprivation.
So I got up around 8:30, threw on some clothes, and went to the complimentary breakfast because it closed at nine (it was not very good, but was free). Then I walked around the block to buy a couple of things at a drugstore, came back to the hotel, showered, and repacked my car. Unpacking and repacking my car is taking quite a bit of time, since I'm worried about things freezing...but I finally got out of Salt Lake around 11:30. I intended to get to Denver tonight...
...but I was beyond tired, and I kept stopping to try to reenergize myself through a combination of freezing temperatures, coffee, snacks, and a v. brief nap in the parking lot of a McDonalds. By the time I reached Rawlins, it was dark (after a gorgeous sunset that I could only view in my rearview mirror) - and I saw a sign saying that I-80 was closed to high-profile light vehicles between here and Laramie (which is where I would have turned off to go south toward Denver) because of extreme winds.
I don't totally qualify as a high profile vehicle - but driving a hundred miles in 60mph winds, in the dark, with blowing snow from what's scattered around the roads from previous storms, sounded like it was not going to be fun at all. Add to that that I'm exhausted, and I decided to throw in the towel and stay in Rawlins.
So, I'm at a hotel that is so new that the building isn't actually on Google Maps (the address is, but the building outline isn't there), and it's quite nice (and cheap - $75/night, with free breakfast and internet and parking, which isn't at all what I'm used to paying). I checked in and shlepped all my stuff upstairs, and then I did a bit of work (I need to do so much writing stuff and haven't had a chance to do anything for two weeks). Then I thought about eating boiled eggs and potato chips from my snack stash, but I decided to go out for dinner - and had a guacamole bacon burger at a place called Buck's, which was really good and made me feel way better. And it turns out that Rawlins is kind of cute when you aren't just passing through on the interstate.
However, it's not cute enough for me to want to stay here tomorrow - so I'm going to sleep, hope to get nine hours, and hope that I can make it out of here at a time in the morning when the winds aren't too bad. Goodnight!
Today was markedly less smooth than yesterday. I think driving 700+ miles yesterday after all the stress and sleepless nights of packing tapped into the very last of my reserves, and I felt groggy and out of it all day. It probably doesn't help that I'm mostly at altitude (I crossed the continental divide and am in Rawlins, Wyoming, which is apparently 6800' - a full 1500' above Denver), or that the eight hours of sleep I got last night isn't nearly enough to compensate for the nights of deprivation.
So I got up around 8:30, threw on some clothes, and went to the complimentary breakfast because it closed at nine (it was not very good, but was free). Then I walked around the block to buy a couple of things at a drugstore, came back to the hotel, showered, and repacked my car. Unpacking and repacking my car is taking quite a bit of time, since I'm worried about things freezing...but I finally got out of Salt Lake around 11:30. I intended to get to Denver tonight...
...but I was beyond tired, and I kept stopping to try to reenergize myself through a combination of freezing temperatures, coffee, snacks, and a v. brief nap in the parking lot of a McDonalds. By the time I reached Rawlins, it was dark (after a gorgeous sunset that I could only view in my rearview mirror) - and I saw a sign saying that I-80 was closed to high-profile light vehicles between here and Laramie (which is where I would have turned off to go south toward Denver) because of extreme winds.
I don't totally qualify as a high profile vehicle - but driving a hundred miles in 60mph winds, in the dark, with blowing snow from what's scattered around the roads from previous storms, sounded like it was not going to be fun at all. Add to that that I'm exhausted, and I decided to throw in the towel and stay in Rawlins.
So, I'm at a hotel that is so new that the building isn't actually on Google Maps (the address is, but the building outline isn't there), and it's quite nice (and cheap - $75/night, with free breakfast and internet and parking, which isn't at all what I'm used to paying). I checked in and shlepped all my stuff upstairs, and then I did a bit of work (I need to do so much writing stuff and haven't had a chance to do anything for two weeks). Then I thought about eating boiled eggs and potato chips from my snack stash, but I decided to go out for dinner - and had a guacamole bacon burger at a place called Buck's, which was really good and made me feel way better. And it turns out that Rawlins is kind of cute when you aren't just passing through on the interstate.
However, it's not cute enough for me to want to stay here tomorrow - so I'm going to sleep, hope to get nine hours, and hope that I can make it out of here at a time in the morning when the winds aren't too bad. Goodnight!
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