Missouri to Oregon in three days.

That's right, 2,100 miles, 30+ hours of driving, in three days.  I'm insane.

We left St. Peters at noon on the 15th.  After calling Mom to let her know I was heading out (she told me not to, the weather was going bad but I went anyways) and the bank to set up travel and change my adress, we hit the road.

Conker was less than thrilled to be in the Jeep.  He's not fond of the Jeep, or any vehicle for that matter, and stared at me for the first five hours without moving.

Missouri was hella boring.  Snowish, wettish, boring.  Did you know that chains and winter tires are illegal in Missouri?  ILLEGAL.  You could face jail time if a cop caught you with chains in your car, I think.  Or just a fine, either one.
Nebraska was boring as all getout too. We drove through Missouri and Nebraska in one sitting, only making stops to take a nap, eat and do buisness.  We didn't stop in a hotel the first night, mainly because every time I wanted to stop the damn people wouldn't answer their phones or weren't in the lobby.  That pissed me off so we "slept" at rest stops for an hour or so then hit the road for another two.

I can't really remember Nebraska very well.  It was really dark, flat and dark.  I do remember the first night going up and down some windy mountains.  That was freaky and fun at the same time.  Wind + twisties + dark = awesome driving experience.

Wyoming was mainly flat.  The sun rose shortly before we entered the state.  The sunrise was gorgeous but unfortunately it was behind and to the left of us so I couldn't see it.  I let Conker romp around on the 30 foot lead as I woke myself in the freezing air.  I discovered several "pools" of ice that were completely frozen, or so I thought.  I stomped on one several times and was surprised when it broke and my foot plunged into freezing water.  You'd think the 7 month puppy, not the 22 year old human, would be the one who ended up in the cold water.  Not so.  Conker avoided the ice like the plague.  And surprisingly, despite the sub-freezing temperatures, the roads weren't icy at all.  (Several flashing signs said they were but we hit none.)

This trip through Wyoming was less boring than the other times I've been through it.  I listened to NPR for most of the night and morning and somehow found it interesting.  I don't remember what they talked about, but it was enough to keep me focused on the road the way music can't.  And for some reason semi-trucks are really fond of speeding in Wyoming.  Keep in mind the speed limit on most, if not all of the Interstate 80 is 75mph.  I kept my speed just below it the whole time.

Except for when it was lowered.  I never sped once on this entire trip.
Note Conker's do-it-yourself seat-belt.  Really ghetto, I know, but it worked.  After his five hour staring episode, he got used to being in the Jeep and slept most of the drive.  Whenever he was awake he was either pestering me to play, be scratched or chewing on the huge bully stick I bought him for the trip.  Or trying to rip apart his moose toy.

Conker's "seat" was padded with a body pillow and some towels.  He rode in comfort the whole time, something I began to lack in my shoulders in the middle of Wyoming.

Utah was stunning.  I love red rocks, desert-like formations, trees and snow.  Utah has all of those.  And weird road names in Salt Lake City but that's a different matter.  I don't think I bought gas in Utah at all, let alone stopped more than once.  I did however enjoy driving through it much more than the previous states. 

The Rockies.  Er, the middle of the Rockies.  This was one of the best parts of the trip.  I love driving on steep curvy roads, and that's what the Rockies are.  Sadly, whenever I'm having fun driving time passes by real quickly and it gets boring again.  Conker had gotten used to the curves by the second half and slept through it.

After the Rockies Utah got really flat and really windy.  We drove across the salt flats, a place I'd never been before. The wind was atrocious and there were programmable signs warning semi-trucks and light trailers not to travel on the I-80 due to the 55+ mph winds.  Winds that blew my little Jeep all over the road but it was exciting trying to keep it in my lane as I passed truckers and other cars.

After the Great Salt Lake came these weird green flats of saltwater stretching for miles on both sides of and in-between the highway.  They were only a couple inches deep but they seemed to go on forever!  They made the wind's threat somewhat worse because of ending up in a green, muddy, salty flat pool of yick the result of getting blown off the road.

Which is what happened to this semi-truck barely 20 minutes before I passed it.  The wind was so strong it blew it right over and into the saltwater.  The cab went into the water with the trailer blocking most of the other side of the highway.  I watched a story on it later that night.
Conker and I would have visited the Bonneville Salt Flats if it weren't for the wind.  Well, not the wind, the crap it kicked up.

Being a desert person, I've seen and driven through my fair share of dust storms.  This wasn't the worst I've been in but was pretty hairy in a few spots.  Right as I took this picture the sand picked up and made it worse than it had been when I went to take it.  Normally I wouldn't be operating a camera in these conditions but blew in so quick, I couldn't help but snap a shot before dropping the camera in my lap.

The blowing sand instantly changed to rain when we hit the mountains in Nevada.  The rain wasn't so bad but it changed to hail, then slush and then to wet snow.  My least favorite weather to drive through is slushy wet snow.  Rain, regular snow and sand don't affect my Jeep's traction unless I'm going horribly fast around a corner.  Slush and wet snow... I was going so slow I used the flashers for an hour and got passed by semi-trucks.  Which I hate because they send all kinds of slushy crap onto my windshield that I can't ever get off fast enough because my wipers don't have a light-speed setting.  That was perhaps my least favorite part of the drive. 

Once we got to Elko, fueled up and over the pass, the slushy snow vanished and never reared it's ugly head again.  It was a gorgeous drive from there to Winnemucca where we stayed for the night in a Motel 6 because, again, the other hotels didn't answer their damn phones.  All night Conker was all "bruh burh BURH!" at the smallest sounds.  I had to coax him onto the bed with a treat and he wouldn't stop being all stiff-legged and defensive the entire time he was in the room.  I didn't get very good sleep even though I was exhausted.

The next morning he decided we were waking up at 7:30 am by trotting around the room going "bruh burh bruh" until I got up and turned on the news.  The weather was for partly cloudy skies and snow flurries in the mountains in the afternoon, not a bad forecast considering what I'd gone through the previous day.
And as soon as we hit the road Conker was sleeping again.  I wanted to kill him.

The first stretch of this road through the northwestern mountains of Nevada was my favorite highway.  I like those little single-lane highways where in order to pass someone you have to go into oncoming traffic. The only radio station my Jeep got was ESPN and it was so boring I turned it off and popped in The Lion King soundtrack.
It got snowy as we got closer to Oregon and we said goodbye to the speed limit of 75mph for good and traded it in for a steady 55 mph.  And for good reason.

There's two kinds of speed limits.  The posted limit and the recommended limit.  The posted limit on this stretch of road was 35 while the recommended was 25.  I went 15 and kept the Jeep in 2nd gear the whole time.  It was hella steep and slippery with no guard rail and thankfully nobody came up behind me wanting to go faster.  NPR was on the radio again and despite the danger of falling to our deaths with a single wrong move, I was having fun on the sharply twisted hill.
The flatness between this hill and the next range of snowy mountains was also fun.  Not as fun but still better than Nebraska.  We got up into the mountains with no problems other than a few spots of slush. And then it began to snow. 

The road was mostly hard packed snow that was slippery on corners.  I don't like driving on this but will trade slushy-snow for it any day. 
Someone was stupid and decided to crash on this road during the heavier part of the snow.  I called up Mom and asked for a time estimate, 20 minutes to 2 hours, but it cleared in about 25 and wasn't even on the highway I was on.  For some reason the traffic on that highway backed up onto mine and blocked it.

We'd lost time due to the crash and the winter road conditions which disappeared for a bit when we reached Klamath Falls.  On the other side of the city however loomed a thick bank of fog.

 And a lake with no guard rail.  And more hard packed snow.  Conker decided the fog wasn't enough to keep the minimal sunlight out and struck a cute sleeping pose.
It was nothing but slippery packed snow, light flurries and fog from then until we reached the pass that separates snowy Oregon from wet Oregon.

From then on it was smooth sailing, or driving, to Medford then finally Grant's Pass at 6:30 PM on the 17th where we were greeted by my enthusiastic younger brother who asked me how long I was going to stay about a million times, my younger sister who wanted to hug me before the brother did and my Mom who was on the phone with someone. 



I really hate road trips unless they are entirely on my terms.  This one was, and if I didn't have a ton of crap in the back of my Jeep we'd have made detours and stopped in nifty places and taken longer than three days to get to Oregon.  But it was a move, not a vacation, and I hope to one day be able to go on a long roadtrip with Conker and whatever dogs I may have then and actually have it be based on having fun instead of getting from A to B in X amount of time.
Anywho, hello from Oregon!  Hopefully the blog updates will get more interesting as I find things to do with Conker in our "new" more or less temporary home.