FRIDAY, 25 OCTOBER 2024

(Ontario, CA – St. George, UT)

“What time is it?”, came a voice. “Almost 7am”, I replied, “and I was going to wake you up then anyway”. I’d been awake since 0515, tried to sleep until 6am, gave up, and spent some time fixing an app on my watch that insisted on telling me the weather at home, rather than where I am now. Twenty minutes of trying, failing, then uninstalling and reinstalling resulted in the satisfaction of success. It’s apparently currently 12 degrees, but going to get up to 30 later today. I listened to aircraft taking off, the occasional horn of American trains on the nearby rail line, and the gradually increasing traffic on the road (but which at least sounded like it was moving at speed).

I got up and made coffee, Andrew put the TV on, and we opened the curtains to a view of storage containers (they are refurbing some of the rooms), and the  gradual orange glow of sunrise. We (mostly me) decided on a local diner, Spires Restaurant, for breakfast, had showers, washed my hair (oh, that felt nice), and left the hotel at 0845. Breakfast was very good and very filling, but an hour later we were on our way to Las Vegas.

Getting on the I-10 was easy, and the traffic was busy but moving ok. We came off one exit too early for I-15, and that resulted in a little trip around the neighbourhood, but we soon got back on track and, with just a ten minute pit stop in Baker, we would arrive at the Premium Outlet mall some 200 miles and 3.5 hours later. The drive over was through some of the desert we’d flown over yesterday. First of all the route climbed over a mountain pass, summiting at nearly 5,000 feet. It’s hard to comprehend that these mountains, and all the sloping rock, have been created by the force of the Pacific plate sliding under North America. The highway then went through areas where the harder, black rock (volcanic, I’m guessing) is slowly being seen as the softer sandstone is eroded away, creating mini islands of rock within the sea of sand. It was all very beautiful in a desolate, desert way.

Somewhere between Baker and Las Vegas we crossed into our second state of the day, Nevada. You could tell you’d entered Nevada, because right across the state line are multiple casinos, Whiskey Pete’s Hotel, an outlet mall and multiple signs for all manor of tourist stuff. Somewhat ironically, the town is called ‘Primm’.

Once we’d arrived at our chosen mall in Las Vegas, we went into the Columbia store, one of our pre-determined shopping destinations, had a browse around, tried a few things on, and left one hour later, quite happy with what we’d found. We then went to the nearby Denny’s for lunch, where they obligingly went off menu for me, adapting a chicken skillet into a veggie option. 

Suitably fuelled, we got back in the road, and back on I-15 north for the two hour drive to St. George. At first the traffic was bad, partly because it was a Friday afternoon, but mostly because of roadworks. Once we’d cleared north Las Vegas, however, the traffic thinned out and it was fairly smooth going. The scenery was familiar to us, including the stunning Virgin River Gorge section, which cuts through the Arizona Strip, taking us across our third state of the day. From there, we crossed into state number four, Utah, with the setting sun bringing out the pink and red rocks. Rather heroically, Andrew did all the driving today, all 355 miles of it, coping with all of the city challenges, and only having to perform one u-turn manoeuvre. 

Our hotel in St. George, the Chalet Motel, is a privately owned motel. The room is large and new, and they’d had the air con on before our arrival. In fact, it felt absolutely freezing. It was set to 61 degrees, which was a smidge too cold even for me. We turned it back up, unloaded the car, and relaxed on our beds for half an hour, blogging, reading emails and so on, while we worked up enthusiasm to do anything else. ‘Anything else’ turned out to be showers, a beer and an early night, as neither of us was hungry, and weariness won out. Tomorrow, less driving and some new (to us) scenery. Stay tuned…