Today’s drive was 75% on I-15 North & I-84 West, and 20% was on US Routes. The rest was a palette cleanser of some uncrowded surface streets after gas stops and a lunch break. There was one little slowdown a couple miles shy of my exit for the night because of a small brush fire next to the highway.
Staying here takes a bit of sacrifice, there is no Wi-Fi, but it does have rock-solid 5G. Also, your bathroom is 50 feet away! It is the short silo to the left in the top photo. This spot is right next to some train tracks, and the trains have to use their horn when they cross the road. Since I have been here, two have gone by, and it really isn’t that loud because there still is a lot of potato meat attached to the skin. 🙂
On the drives of the adventure we have a total of 23 cars and 20 participants, the 2 Everyday Driver guys, Todd and Paul, and Mandi, who is their logistics person. All of us, after the first morning’s drive, kind of sort our positions in the pack by car and skill when we take off after any stop. Either Todd or Paul takes the lead, and the other is the sweep, and Mandi will be somewhere in the middle. The parts of Utah we are driving through are extremely scenic and littered with national parks, so the roads can at times be busy, and we all kind of like to be in one long line. But when we are driving all in a line, we can be half a mile long. Invariably a local going about their daily business or a big RV will get in our line, and because we are in sports cars, we will take the first opportunity to gun it and pass them to get back in our long line. Roughly 30% of the time when we all pull into a rest stop or lunch place, we are arriving in drips or drabs. I am usually in the back third of the group because there were a lot of hi-po cars and/or very skilled drivers, and I’m perfectly happy there. This is where I was yesterday coming into lunch, and now for the promised “most exciting thing” happened.
In front was the Porsche 911, then a Subaru BRZ, a Porsche Macan, a Porsche Boxster, myself, and then Paul, who was behind me sweeping in his Porsche 928. The 911 was in the lead about 50 yards ahead of 4 of us, with Paul trailing us the same 50 yards back. About 5 miles from our restaurant, on a long straight, we came up fast on a slow-moving RV. Almost in sync, we all floored to pass at a very high rate of speed. We were already booking it to begin with, and our speed going around the guy was right around the three-digit mark. After we were all safely around, a big SUV coming the opposite direction lit up some red and blue lights in his grill. Oh oh.
We all slowed to the posted 80 MPH limit. It took him a while for him to stop. He sat for a second, so we thought maybe he was going to give us a pass, but no. He got right up behind Paul until he pulled over, then did the same for the three of us before jetting off to get the lead car. That by now the 911 was far enough ahead that they kept going. After we four had been stopped, the sheriff took off looking for the lead car. The five of us slowed to the speed limit and cruised into the lunch spot.
When we got to the restaurant, our sheriff was talking to the 911 guys. We late arrivals, quietly parked, and made our way to the rest of the group that was already seated on the patio of the restaurant. They were talking to the 911 occupants, who are not the actual owners because they had car swapped at the last break, and the owner. Meanwhile, the rest of us that had gotten pulled, along with everyone else, were speculating about getting ticketed. Somehow after all the talking and our sheriff contacting his supervisor, we all came out unscathed. It’s a good thing too because he had clocked us at 104 MPH, and over one hundred is classified as reckless endangerment and requires a trip to the jailhouse and the car impounded. Phew!
Red Sox chances of making the Wild Card round in the 2026 playoffs: >99.9%
