personal reflections

From KPIG to BAcon–at the starting line

Time to get rolling after wasting a weekend doing house chores and watching the San Francisco Giants sweep the LA Dodgers. Storm clouds are moving into the California deserts and the forecast is the rain and lightning will follow me across California, Nevada and Utah.

The weather forecast that predicted two days ago southern Utah would be in the 70s and 80s for my travel this week is now saying there may be flash floods and snow with the temperature in the 40s and 50s across the deserts and canyons of Utah.

Over the weekend I made two nights of reservations for Utah and my plan is to stick with my chosen route – unless the road gets washed out along the way.

I got new tires for my car last Friday. At the price they charge for my premium car tires required for a Hyundai Sonata, these treads should be able to navigate rivers. Not that I’ll test their capabilities beyond normal road driving. I am a safe driver. I know not to drive across moving water on the roadways. 

New Girl in the Air wrote a piece today about how she plans out and researches trips all the time. I am leaving in 60 minutes and I have not even packed anything yet. I have a plan of where I will spend the next three nights, but weather conditions might alter my route.

I have to pack rain gear, snow gear, hot sun gear and tech gear.

I need to stop by AAA and pick up maps.

The funny thing is everyone around me is freaking out that I canceled my cell phone two weeks ago. I did not own a cellphone for 5 of the 7 trips I made across Utah in the 1980s and 1990s. These days not having a cellphone on a desert roadtrip seems to be considered as comparably dangerous as hitchhiking.

This is the 21st century and not pioneer days. I can find a Costco in five cities along the way. I can even reactivate my old phone with the press of a button and a credit card.

The joy of air travel is being coddled and shuttled through safe spaces from airport to airplane to lounge to ground transportation and repeat. Even if sometimes there are delays in the stages of air travel.

I think I will arrive at BAcon just a little dirtier than most of the other bloggers after a thousand miles crossing the western deserts.

The plan is Las Vegas today and visiting a Utah National Park tomorrow.

Time to get going.

DSC_0256

Las Vegas, Nevada.

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5 Comments

  • Scottrick May 6, 2013

    I got a cell phone in my sophomore year of college (2004) after I walked off and my friends spent 20 minutes trying to leave me a note in code and pin it to the outside of a See’s chocolate shop in the mall. It seemed a lot of work when I could always just get a taxi home, but a lot of these people had also never done their own laundry before coming to college. I eventually caved to make it easier on them, not me. I still object to paying inflated prices for texting.

  • Jeff May 6, 2013

    You are going to have so much fun!

  • Jarvis May 6, 2013

    Cellphones were one of the strangest things for me when I was in the USA. Coming from the UK mobile phones are so normal and cheap, yet in America it was beyond expensive. I do not blame you for cancelling it.

  • Erik May 6, 2013

    “I need to stop by AAA and pick up maps.”

    You don’t have a GPS? I guess a guy without a cellphone would still be using paper maps . . .

  • Wendy May 6, 2013

    If you are traveling back roads. GPS doesn’t work very well. It will keep trying to route you on interstate highways. I have a GPS but prefer my old fashioned maps from AAA over it.

    When you are traveling back roads most of the time you don’t have cell phone access or its really spotty. I know I did not have cell phone service the entire length of U.S 250 in West Virginia.

    I’ve traveled all over the United States and Canada by car without a cellphone. My first cell phone was in the mid 1990’s. I drove 6000 miles in the northern United States, Canada and Alaska in 1991. Not a biggy just make sure your car’s maintenance is up to date.

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