Day 1 - Salt Lake to Denver

On day 1 of driving we got a late start because of delays in saying "goodbye" to certain family members who seemed to really want to drag it out. We left roughly 2.5 hours later than we had hoped would be the latest to leave.

This was my view for most of the drive, with the sun behind us

and a clear view of the truck & trailer in the rear view mirrors.

I really liked this look in the convex mirror, so I took a lot of

pictures of that view on the drive, very carefully, with Karla

helping me keep the wheel steady. I was watching the road and

shooting blindly out the window, hoping some would turn out.

I ended up deleting roughly 4 out of every 5 of these shots because

they were blurry or aimed badly or whatever, but a few turned out great.

The drive was rough. There are so many canyon climbs through Wyoming that we couldn't make very good time. Most of the climbs we were only able to manage about 45 to 50 mph with the accelerator floored. NOT good for gas mileage.

I really liked the look of these wind generators in Wyoming.

We saw many still under construction and quite a few

of the blades in transit. It takes two separately steered vehicles

to transport a single blade, with each end tied down to one vehicle.

We filled up the tank a week before we left for $93.50. My dad filled it up for me again on one of the test drives for thirty-something bucks. I drove it up to Evanston before we filled it up again to try to get a more realistic view of the mileage. I don't remember for certain right now what that one cost (we have the receipt in the truck) but it was somewhere around $60 or $80. According to the odometer that put us around 6.5 mpg. OUCH! I had been hoping to get around 9 or 10 mpg on the worst stretches.

And we still had the climb to Cheyenne, followed by a drop to Denver. It was not looking good. Here are some shots of the girls at a rest stop an hour or so past Evanston.

We pulled into Cheyenne nearly out of gas. The girls were all asleep as I filled up and calculated the gas mileage. I knew that the odometer said we hadn't gone nearly far enough to be out of gas, so I was scared to figure it out.

I finally gathered the courage and my worst fears were realized: 5 MPG! This was getting painful!

I drove for another 20 or 30 minutes before feeling too tired to continue, so I woke Karla up and she drove down to Denver while I slept. I must say she did a great job with a huge truck & a huge trailer. That I was able to sleep says a lot.

With the delays getting on the road, and the very slow pace through the canyons, when we finally got in it was about 2:30 am. Karla's cousin, Evan, slept on the couch until we got there so he could let us in to his BEAUTIFUL home. (Apparently attorneys are well paid...)

Madi proceeded to talk for the next 2 hours, despite having been told in no uncertain terms that it was time to sleep.

We slept in until almost noon. It was nice, but put us behind schedule again the next day. Evan and his whole family were gone by the time we woke up, but they left food on the counter and his wife, Tristen, even made us cinnamon rolls for the road. We were pretty crappy guests, but I must say if you have the option that's the way to do it: late checkin, late checkout, beds made up, food provided, warm showers, and no charge! THANK YOU EVAN & FAMILY!

We took a photo in front of Evan's house before pulling out for Day 2, just to prove we were there.