Rental Cars

How High is High?

When I first brought the rental CX-5 home, we went for a little drive around town to get familiar with it and to give Donna a chance behind the wheel.

After we had swapped drivers back to me, Donna said, “I really like being up high.” I replied, “I don’t like it all. I’m too high, I feel like I’m going to tip over. I like being low to the ground.” With a smile on my face I said, “I can barely stand the height of the Mini.” She countered with, “The Miata is too low.”

So when we got home I broke out the tape measure. These are plus or minus an inch or so because I was eyeballing from outside the car door. The Miata measured 8″ Butt To Ground, the Mini came in at 16″ and the CX-5 registered a whopping 25″ of BTG.

On Monday’s we took the Miata out for a drive around town to keep the battery fresh. Today, because it is 4/20, I used the Miata to run to the cannabis store and then later a trip to Jimmy Johns to quench the munchies (just kidding, I was not under the influence then.)

17.7 miles on those three drives.
Times Miata Driven since 01/01/22: 16

 

Home Base

Miata and Outlander

Got back in town around 1:30 and 4 hours later and we are all unpacked, clothes washed and put away. It’s almost like we never left… Except for the weird garage combo.

I received a text on Thursday that the Mini is done and ready for retrieval. On Monday morning we will stop and refuel the Outlander Sport, pick up the Mini and on the way back by drop off the rental. Then once again the garage contents will back the way they belong.

Penultimate Day

Today was our next to last day on this little vacation road trip and it was all Nevada, all the time, along US-395. We started in Beatty which is currently the only entrance to Death Valley National Park on this side, and ended up in Carson City, the state’s capitol. In between was pretty much nothing but beautiful desert scenery pretty similar to what is pictured above.

When traveling this route you had better be cognizant of you level of gas, because there are two spots where there is no gas for around a hundred miles, between Beatty and Tonopah is 93 miles and Tonopah to Hawthorne is 103.

The best thing we did today wasn’t even on our true route. After breakfast at Mel’s Dinner in Beatty we crossed the street to check out a small park and found a brochure on a display about something called the Goldwell Open Air Museum that was less than 10 miles in the opposite direction we were supposed to head.

The last time we were here we passed right by this spot in the evening to visit Rhyolite, which are ruins of 1905 gold-mining town, Hollywood movie set & now a historic site. That time it was fast approaching dark, so we either didn’t notice the artwork or we scoffed at the hand-painted sign that said ‘Art Museum’ on that same dirt road.

Anyway, if you are a fan of Roadside America stuff or off-the-wall art, the Goldwell Open Air Museum is worth a visit if you are ever that way. And it’s FREE!

36,000 Slot Machines

Not too far north of Sin City our rental SUV saw thirty-six thousand miles on the odometer.

1) If you are ever in Flagstaff, Arizona at breakfast time do yourself a favor and avoid the draw of the chain restaurants and head over to Mike and Rondas The Place. Great service, excellent & plentiful food that will probably cost less than those other pedestrian places.

2) The city that built the Hoover Dam where we had lunch at a chain we had never seen before, Capriotti’s. Man where has this place been all our lives? The Cheesesteak sandwiches were great. The photo is of a monument to the hard hat that was first required to be worn during the building of the Hoover (Boulder) Dam where the motto was “Safety First.”

3) About 20 miles south of our destination for the day was Big Dune, a 300 foot high collection of sand dunes. We thought, let’s check it out. After a couple miles down a paved road, we turned onto a sandy road. We never got any closer than this because we turned around when we started slipping and didn’t want to get stuck.

We’re Getting Our Kicks

After 3 fun days of helping a friend set up in her new house in Santa Fe, we are headed home. We drove several miles of the Mother Road, AKA Old US-66, which made a nice change of pace from slotting in amongst the 60 million semis that crowd along I-40. This was taken in Holbrook, AZ as we passed through. Later, when we passed through Winslow I thought about stopping and taking a picture on a random street corner, but by then all we could think about was getting to our hotel in Flagstaff.

35,000 Native American Names

Today was a the last of three days of travel and we drove in three different states. We started in Utah, traveled a bit of Colorado and into New Mexico so we have passed through and by about thirty five thousand casinos, reservations and pueblos.

Just before we got into Nageezi, New Mexico our Mitsubishi Outlander Sport clicked over 35,000 miles.

Damn, That’s Good Stuff

Started the day in Elko, Nevada and ended up in Moab, Utah. The quickest way that Google says to go should be 461 miles and take nearly 7 hours. We covered over 480 and it took us 10-1/2 hours.

The extra miles were from noodling around the NV/UT border on I-80 looking for a Utah state map (unsuccessful), to take a photo of the rental car near Bonneville Salt Flats sign (also unsuccessful) and to eat at a Chick-Fil-A outside of Salt Lake City (again unsuccessful.)

The extra time was partially because the switch to Mountain Time at the Utah border, partially those frivolous miles at the Utah border and the Garmin GPS leading us to a place called Pita Bakery near Salt Lake City that turned out to be an actual large scale bakery and not a place to eat. We then found a Chick-Fil-A, but after seeing the length of the drive-up line and the lack of nearby parking for possibly walking in we opted for a small Japanese spot for lunch in the same shopping center.

The highlights of the day were breakfast in Elko at the Coffee Mug, and a doughnut and coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Wells, NV. The Coffee Mug was researched ahead of time and was always going to be breakfast in Elko. But we lucked into the Dunkin’. We had gotten off I-80 in Wells looking for a place for a leg stretch/nature break where we saw a big casino/truck stop. As we pulled and saw the Dunkin’ sign we knew we hit the jackpot.

On a side note, this is the only Dunkin’ Donuts, of the 33 in Nevada, that is not near Vegas or Reno and we have been here before on our 2018 Jumbo Road Trip to a niece’s wedding in Tahoe. Can’t remember if it was sought out then or another serendipitous find like today.