Travel Home - Day 2

So I woke up bright and early on Tuesday to hit the road. The plan for the day was that my cousin, Kathleen, was going to fly into Salt Lake City and meet me for the rest of the drive home. We have another cousin, Tiffany, who lives there and goes to the University of Utah (boo Utes!!!) so we were planning on hanging out with her for the evening. She is in the dance program and does nothing but dance all day. Hopefully seeing a little family and getting away from the studio will be good for her.

I think I took off driving at about 8:00 or so. If you have never driven through Montana, it is a pretty boring drive. It looks the same through most of it.

The mountains are nice. I'm used to them at home.

After a little bit, I had deja vu and saw this sign.


So I've been driving for a couple of short days and have already been to Idaho twice! The "major" cities that I drove through for the day were Idaho Falls and Pocatello, ID. Not exactly the largest metropolis areas. After a few more hours I got out of Idaho again and saw this nice sign to welcome me to Utah. It's not such a good pic, but take my word for it when I tell you it was cool. Better than all the other states that just say "Welcome to 'insert state here'". It had a guy ski jumping and a nice rock.


The drive the rest of the way into Utah to Salt Lake City was pretty easy. Utah has some beautiful scenery.

Even if you are not a mountain person you have to admit that this picture is pretty cool.

Well, I booked a room at the downtown Marriott Courtyard in SLC and got there about 3:00 or so. This was a pretty huge upgrade from the Motel 6, Butte, and it wasn't a whole lot more expensive. I didn't take pics of the whole room, but it was pretty spacious. However, I did take pictures of the bathroom and sink areas. You know when you stay at decent hotels and they make little things with the towels? Like folding the hand towel and tucking the washcloth in, making one into a triangle and standing it up, or making a little fan out of one. Well, these guys took it to the next level.



Not only was the washcloth tucked into the handtowel a fan, but the toilet paper roll had one tucked in, the extra toilet paper roll had one tucked in, the washcloth on the bathtub had one, and even the kleenex box had one sticking out! Dang! I bet those housekeepers hate folding things into fan shapes.

Kathleen's flight got in at 4:30 and so after I got on the computer for a bit I went and picked her up. We met Tiffany later that night and had a delicious dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. I crushed way too much food (salad, bread, lasagna, chicken marsala, spaghetti, and ice cream). The food was good and the company was better. Tiffany took us back to her place and we ended up hanging out there for the rest of the night. Next time I see her, she will be 21 and we will get to see a whole other side of Salt Lake City. I am not sure what side that is, though. We'll have to wait and see.

We finally headed back to the hotel about 10:30 with a quick stop at Walgreen's for a few things Kathleen couldn't pack in her carry-on. Bed time because tomorrow's stop....Las Vegas!

Travel Home - Day 1

Monday was the first day of the offseason.

I had breakfast planned with the Baseball Chapel chaplain Bobby Watkins at 9:00. I figured 9 was good because it was early enough to get me going and late enough that I could sleep in a little bit. We ate at Perkins and had some good conversation. Bobby used to live in New Mexico so we had plenty to talk about. That lasted about an hour.

I headed to the ballpark next to finish up what I needed there. I finished mostly everything during the last homestand so all I really had to do was the final clean up and pack up all of my stuff. All in all, pretty easy. I finished there in about an hour as well.

Next, I headed home to finish packing up that stuff. Donna, our landlady, was kind enough to do all of my laundry for me so all I had left was to fold and pack. I had pretty much gathered everthing else together and put it over by the door so it was ready to go. I finished packing all of that stuff and then decided to take a nap. Sunday was a pretty long night so I was still tired. I woke up about 2:00-2:30 and figured since I was done I might as well hit the road. Breaking up Tuesday's 11 hour drive into 2 days seemed like a good idea. I packed up everything into the car, said my goodbyes and headed off.

Spokane is right on the eastern border of Washington, so I got to say adios to that state pretty quick. Next state....Idaho


The northern tip of Idaho is a relatively short drive that is mostly just mountains. The beginning part is Coeur D'Alene. Here is the only picture that came out decently that I took while trying to drive. The lake is huge and when you are coming in from the other direction, there is a really pretty view of it.


At one other point, the clouds were in the mountains and here is a nice picture of that.


Next state.....Montana. This sign was on an overpass so it was a little easier to get a picture of.


I stopped for gas and a bit to eat in Missoula, MT and decided to drive about another hour or so to Butte, MT for the night. I decided to take a page out of last year's book and stopped at a Pilot Travel Center and ate at Arby's. That was a standard stop with last year's team in Jacksonville. I was looking for something cheap and easy off the highway for the night so that I could head right out in the morning. The first exit past where I needed to head the next day had a Motel 6 right there. Perfect. Headed in and asked for the cheapest room for the night. Shock then hit me when she said it was $68 with tax. Maybe they shouldn't leave the lights on so much. Plus, this was as basic a room as you get. Tiny towels, no shampoo, tiny TV, no alarm clock. Sheesh.




That was it for Day 1. Next post...Day 2.

I took an extra long time to get home. Any other year day 1 would have been Spokane to Salt Lake City and day 2 would have been SLC to Albuquerque. This was a busy drive.

Until next time....