It rained most of the night but cleared up Wednesday morning as we crossed from Wyoming into Utah. Still on I-80 we crossed the mountains, passing by Park City ski resort and into Salt Lake City where we had decided we would gas up. Now we discover a BIG problem with our GPS. The Love's gas station is on our "route" according to the GPS but she has us exit into downtown Salt Lake City, pass the temple then turn left to travel along the tram tracks then left again through an industrial part of town and then left again and into the gas station which is 1 block off of I-80!! A big circle all for nothing.
As we are leaving Salt Lake City the wind starts to pick up which makes it very difficult to drive the RV even with all the suspension upgrades. Since I don't feel comfortable driving in the wind, John drives all day. We have several misconceptions about northern Nevada. One being that it is all flat desert and two that it will be hot. Both of these are wrong. We traveled up and down mountains all day and it was a bit chilly, not the least bit hot. But one thing we knew to be true was that there are not many places to stop along this leg of our journey. We pulled into the suburbs of Reno about 9 pm and found a casino parking lot that allowed RV's to spend the night if you sign up for their 'players card'. We did not play but - we went to bed! They did give us some coupons so we had the $2.99 bacon eggs & all you can eat pancake breakfast.
Thursday was the travel day from HELL! From Reno into CA we have to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains over Donner Pass with lots of altitude changes and many curves. Then we drop into Sacramento and lots of freeway and city driving. Once through there we get on the absolute worst road we have ever traveled along thinking we would take a short cut and miss the bay area freeways. Hwy 128 is a narrow, squirrelly route through most of California wine country. If we had been in the Porsche, it would have been lots of fun but not in this top-heavy, tall and long RV! We never drove over 45 mph, we hit tree limbs, we narrowly avoided several oncoming logging trucks and the edge of the road by inches.
John has now been driving for two days over 900 miles with no break. His back, knees and arms are killing him and all I can do is try to warn him if we get to close to the edge or to an overhanging tree. By the time we pull into the campground he is exhausted! Then we find out the campground is full but they might be able to get us on one site for only one night. I take it!!
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