Driving East

It was a lovely day and a perfect day for driving!

The skies were clear and bright, the roads clear, the traffic (for the most part) light. As a matter of fact, the only problems all day were the encountered in the first hour of the drive. Oh, and with my cell phone.

By not getting out at butt-ugly-early o'clock as I had hoped to do I had to negotiate Denver traffic at rush hour. But as my entire itinerary touched no other major metropolis, once I hit the interstate, it was fairly smooth sailing practically the rest of the way.

Denver Rush Hour was made worse by a roll-over accident on Interstate 25 that had the exit I would have used normally closed. No biggie. I just adjusted my route to exclude I-25 and all was okay. It left me on the surface streets for a few extra miles and added about thirty-minutes, but it knocked time off the journey had I not changed my route this morning.

The down-side was that when I passed Sterling my mobile started reading "No Signal." The remaining 800 miles of my trip I had no signal. It was worked out this morning when I called Qwest. The phone had been set when I got it the other day to recognize only Qwest towers. That fixed, I am now able to use my phone again.

All that aside, the temperatures were warm (relatively speaking) until I reached Souix Falls (South Dakota) and the roads were clear of snow. I arrived about 14-hours after I departed home in Denver. A door-to-door time of 14.5 hours for an average speed of about 65-miles-per-hour for the entire transit. Not a record. I have to shave about 45 minutes off that to claim a new record.

Today, we're going into town to lay-on provisions and do some last-minute Christmas shopping so I guess I should wrap this up and get social with my parents.

Wherever you are today, I hope that you're day is going along smoothly.

Don Bergquist - December 21, 2007 - Kensington, Minnesota , USA