We left Las Vegas at about 9 a.m., heading south past the Hoover Dam once more, and shaking the dust of Nevada from our feet. It was a worthwhile convention for both of us, but exhausting, too. We're looking forward to falling into our own bed on Sunday night, accompanied by cats who'll doubtless demand that we serve them as mattresses to make up for our absence over the previous ten days. Cats are like that.
The drive to Flagstaff wasn't too bad, except for a large number of semis that - again - overtook each other at a snail's pace, holding up traffic behind them (sometimes for miles, if there was a long line of slowish semis trying to overtake another long line of even slower semis). It didn't make for happy drivers, and I saw some pretty hair-raising stunts as impatient motorists tried every trick in the book - and a few that weren't - to get past the holdups. Why is there never a policeman around when you really want them? I reckon they could have made thousands from tickets for dangerous, reckless and negligent driving. Oh, well . . .
We're both getting our butts kicked by the altitude in Flagstaff. Back home in Texas, we're at about a thousand feet, while Las Vegas' elevation was only about 2,000 feet: but Flagstaff is at just under 7,000 feet. Just bringing in the suitcases from the car exhausted both of us, and we turned in for an afternoon nap to give our lungs a bit of peace and quiet to recover. Miss D. is mildly asthmatic, and I have mild COPD (the result of not only smoking for some years, but smoke inhalation during two house fires and one vehicle fire. That damage is cumulative, and you don't bounce back from it.) Hopefully we'll be more alert when Larry Lambert joins us for breakfast tomorrow morning!
I guess that's all for now. I'll try to post again tomorrow, God willing.
Peter
Yes, tractor trailers passing tractor trailers does slow down everyone else. But, you also witnessed the primary reason why America cannot just shift to net-zero. There isn't enough electricity available to move all the cargo that those trucks are carrying.
ReplyDeleteIn the required dates of the climate change program, battery storage technology can't make the necessary jumps to produce batteries able to power 80,000 pound vehicles over miles and miles taking all the goodies to cities and towns all over America. No matter how much the worshipers of climate change say it will happen, it can't.
Just think about all the happy folks that were waiting for something that was in those trucks. Happy Thanksgiving!
I'm just south of you, in Prescott. It is only a mile high here, LOL. Definitely took some time to acclimate. As liberal as Flagstaff is, Prescott is hard conservative country (despite being the location of a tiny liberal arts college where one of the founders of BLM taught).
ReplyDeleteEnjoy the scenery! If you drive south, it will turn into high desert. If you are heading east on 40, it will turn into volcanic desert.
Another Prescott area resident here. Yes, 7,000 ft is high and hard on the body, I found our 4,800 ft altitude easier to get used to when we moved here this year.
ReplyDeleteOn your way east I hope you have time to stop at Meteor Crater and the Painted Desert National Monument.
They are amazing areas, I think about both when I read "Climbing the Rim" and "A Perfect Day, with Explosions"
If You go the I-40 rt, stop at Sky City about an hr before you get to Alb. An Akoma Indian pueblo atop a mesa, the mission there houses a buffalo hide painting gifted to the fathers from Phillip of Spain.
ReplyDeleteWorth the stop in my estimation.
Hope you enjoyed your breakfast with LL. And prayers for safe travel for y'all.
ReplyDeleteDave, Net-Zero is not for the environment directly. But if you kill off 50-80% of the human population, the environment won't be so impacted by the burning of fossil fuels. As to the Left's renewable wind and solar power, my wife and I traveled through a "windmill" area in South Central Texas near Goldthwaite where only about a third of the wind generators were operating; the rest were just standing there idle.
Glad y'all survived it thus far. And yes, traffic sucks!!!
ReplyDeleteOn my last few trips from Houston to Denver I had the same problem, especially after the business was done and we were up in Rocky Mountain National Park. Pharmacies there had small cans of oxygen good for twenty-to thirty deep breaths, and it was a big help.
ReplyDeleteAny chance you meant "shaking the dust of Nevada from our feet" in the Biblical sense? Just curious.
ReplyDelete@Andrew: No, it wasn't that bad! :-)
ReplyDeleteI know -exactly=- how you felt in the thin air... when I did my last contract I landed at Bagram AB at 4500 +/- altitude... not bad for reg'lar folks but the year before I had 1/2 my left airbag carved out due to cancer from either the burn pits or DU...add on living the flastlander life in Florida for -years- that hump from the C-17 to the terminal (call it 500-700 meters) carrying all my gear (2 issue duffs of 'stuff' and my ruck) I almost dropped dead from lack of O2... took me weeks to adjust.
ReplyDelete