Well…..as I arrived in Wendover around midnight, dead tired and looking forward to sleep, I discovered that it was speed week at Bonneville, and the town was completely booked up. I can’t adequately describe the experience of being completely exhausted, and now finding that you must drive at least two more hours across the salt flats. I was literally slapping myself to stay awake in the middle of the wasteland, but I made it across without driving off the road.
Funny thing is, once I reached Salt Lake I had gotten a bit of a second wind (or more likely, I was now so tired that I was delirious) and instead of stopping at a number of hotels I passed, I began to think maybe I could just drive the rest of the way through to Denver (like I said, delirious). The next thing I knew, I was heading out of the city and up into the mountains. Well, it didn’t take long before the delirium wore off and I began to crash again and realized that I’d better find somewhere to stay soon, even if it was in my car.
I finally came to the Park City exit on I-80, and decided to stop at the Best Western there. Got there about 3:00am. Thankfully, they had a room available, but it was the last one they had. The desk clerk said that I was really lucky, because the USS Enterprise was rebasing from the west coast to the east coast, and most of the hotels in the area were full as most of the crew were traveling over land instead of aboard the ship. Needless to say, that trip taught me to never strike out on a road trip without reservations. You never know what you will run into.
Sorry for the long story with minimal relevance to the topic, but talk of the Roosevelt rebasing brought back that nightmare of a memory.
Great story !