Digital Choke Daynotes

 Tuesday, December 20, 2005       mail    link   the story

Back again, after traveling to Rexburg Idaho for Stacy's college graduation ceremony (and to move all her junk back home). And therein lies the tale.

Jared (oldest daughter Christine's husband) got a job in Salt Lake City (UT), and has been working there for about a month. The rest of the family (Christine and her three children ages 5, 4, 1 1/2) have been staying at our house while they try to sell theirs. (It's a lot easier to keep a house clean for potential buyers when three children aren't living there.)

Christine wanted to take a look at potential houses in SLC area, so our Rexburg trip was a good opportunity. The original plan was to leave the two oldest children at friend's houses, and just travel with the youngest. But there were no takers for that plan, so we decided to take them with us.

Traveling with small children can be challenging. So we purchased a portable DVD player, and planned a very early morning departure, figuring that the children would sleep while driving. The trip to SLC is about 650 miles, about 10 hours without stops for other than gas or food.

Wednesday evening was packing suitcases, then a couple of hours of sleep before I got up at about 1:30 am to start loading the truck. We used my mother-in-law's Ford F250, which has room for six passengers. I put a tarp down in the truck bed, loaded up the suitcases, and covered them with the tarp, tying things down to reduce 'tarp-flapping'. Then put the three car seats in the truck (two in back, one in the middle), and we were ready to buckle in everyone and take off.

With everyone strapped in, we were able to leave at about 3:00 am. The children woke up as we strapped them in. Under cover of darkness, we started on our way. The directions are easy: get onto I-80 east, then 650 miles later you arrive in SLC. We figured that the children would settle down and sleep at least part of the way. (You can guess what happened.)

It was a bit crowded. Although the F250 has room for 6, the back seat is not a full back seat, so there was limited leg room. It was quite cozy, although not extremely uncomfortable. The weather was just partly cloudy, the forecast was for chances of showers all along I-80, although a bit cold.

So we were off on our grand adventure. Everyone buckled in, dark outside, so sleeping was the plan (except for me, the driver).

And the children stayed awake until after Wendover (Nevada), about 500 miles later.

But they were pretty good, considering the long drive and somewhat cramped positions. We loaded the DVD player with Christmas movies, which kept them entertained. We stopped in Winnemucca for breakfast at the local McDonalds, where the children played a bit in their indoor play area for a while.

We finally pulled into SLC at about 3:00pm. We dropped Christine and children at my sister's house (where Jared is staying until they can buy a house back there after their current house sells). Then it was north on I-15 to Rexburg, ID. That's about a 4 hour trip, so we pulled in there about 8:00pm. We had a short visit with Stacy and her roommates, then back to the hotel and crashed until the next morning.

Did I mention the weather? Although there was no snow while we traveled across Nevada, Utah, and Idaho, it was a bit chilly. High temps around 40 degrees (F) in Nevada/Utah. But up in Rexburg, the high temperature managed to make it to 15 degrees, with a low of 0. (I can hear John Dominik, up in Minnesota, saying something like "that's short sleeve weather!".) It was quite cold to this Californian -- lows around here rarely get below 35 degrees.

There was a couple of inches of snow on the ground in Rexburg. The skies were mostly clear, so the temps stayed quite cold. In fact, I left a bottle of water inside the truck overnight, and the next morning it was frozen.

After breakfast on Friday morning, we went to Stacy's apartment and drove around for a few errands. Took some more pictures of the area, did a bit of shopping, and had lunch at "Wingers" (a BBQ chicken restaurant). Some more errands after lunch, then back to the hotel to get ready for the graduation ceremony.

That was nice; there were a bit over 1000 graduates. Some graduates were married, some with small children in arms, but all (including the audience) were well-behaved. After the ceremony, and a few more pictures, we dropped Stacy off at her apartment and then Pam and I went to get a cherry limeade from Sonic (very good).

Saturday morning showed up with a bit of overnight snow, about an inch. I packed up the truck, checked out of the hotel, then over to Stacy's to pack up all her stuff into the truck and her car (a Toyota Corolla). We were giving her roommate a ride to the SLC airport. And two other girls were joining us; their ride to California had cancelled out at the last minute, so they joined us. We were on the road at about 9:30am.

Although it had snowed overnight, the roads were clear, and the skies were cloudy all day, but no more snow. We got down to SLC at about 1:00pm, where we met Jared & Christine and the children. Dropped off the one roommate, transferred and packed the luggage in the back of the truck. And arranged all the car seats and passengers in the two cars. I drove the truck, and got the two girls and two older grandchildren (and the DVD player).

The weather across Utah and eastern/central Nevada was cold and cloudy, but no snow or rain. But we ran into snowy roads between Imlay and Lovelock (NV). Just a bit of snow, recently plowed, but it slowed us down to about 40mph. Some drivers didn't think they needed to slow down, though. We saw four accidents in that stretch. One was a truck pulling a horse trailer that had gone off the road; the truck flipped and the trailer landed on top of the truck. Don't know what happened to drivers, passengers or livestock. A couple more single-car rollovers along the way. But we made it into Reno but midnight without problems.

Except for the snowstorm over Donner Summit. Where snow chains were required. Of which I had none.

So we found a local WalMart, bought chains for the truck (cable chains for the car), and ultimately decided not to go over the summit during the night. Which was a good idea, since it was quite windy and snowy up there -- winds 40mph gusting to 60mph, and ultimately 2-3 feet of snow.

We found a Motel 6, got two rooms ($40 each; not a bad price), and got to bed by about 2am. I got up at 7am, and it was snowing pretty good outside. There had been about 5 inches overnight. Chains were required from Reno over the Donner Summit (to Kingvale).

I got out the chains, and put them on the truck and car. The grandchildren were very excited to see the snow, so went outside to build a snowman while I put on the chains and packed up the luggage. And we finally got on the road by 9am.

By that time, even though I had the chains on, the roads had been cleared of snow, so we traveled along at 30mph (max speed with tire chains) until we got to the Donner Lake area. The road just after there starts a steep climb to the summit of 7200 feet. Lots of traffic, and the snow gradually got deeper on the freeway as we traveled up the hill. The snow plows were keeping up with it, so there wasn't more than 2 inches of packed/slushy snow to drive through. The chains worked well, and we made it over the summit, down to Kingvale, where the roads were clear but wet, so it was time to remove the chains.

The truck chains were very difficult to get off. I finally had to get a nearby tow truck driver to cut a couple links off to get them off. The cable chains were a bit easier to remove.

The chain removal area is just a wide paved shoulder of the freeway. There were 2-3 inches of very wet snow slush on the road. And if you weren't careful, a passing truck or car would splash some very cold slush all over you as you remove the chains. I had on a flannel shirt over a t-shirt, along with 'dock-sider' shows (not boots), so feet and back were a bit wet (especially after I stepped into a deeper slush puddle). I did have some spare socks to change into though.

But we made it home by about 4pm Sunday, safe and sound. A quick unload of the vehicles, and the great adventure was done.

As was I.

 Friday, December 23, 2005       mail    link   the story

Been busy with holiday preparations. My job is to babysit the grandkids while the 'girls' go out shopping. Since shopping is not one of my favorite things, this works out well for me. Although I did spend Monday night after work helping Pam on one of the shopping trips.

In the security area, I'd recommend looking at several posts of Bruce Schneier. Some very interesting and thought-provoking words there.

The Internet Storm Center is also a good place for vulnerability alerts. There's a new Linux worm, another Instant Messaging worm that installs a rootkit as you view a Christmas message, and another Bagel virus version.

And if you know anyone that is getting a new computer for the holidays, then you'll want to point them to my humble Simple Steps for Safe Computing report. Very important things to do, unless it's OK for the computer to become "r00ted".

I've also been playing around with a new 'look' for this place. Not ready for prime time yet, though.