According to Google, these routes (above) are the routes from Sacramento area to Holiday Florida. But I determined that this other route (below) is the best for this HOT time of the year...
This route, through Ely Nevada, is the coolest route of all those HOT HOT routes. For instance, the night before we left Ely Nevada was at 70 degrees at 1 am compared to Needles NV, which was 100+ at 1 am. Wendover was around 95 degrees at 1 am. Phoenix, was 10-15 degrees hotter than Needles. So Ely, which is along US Highway 50, was the best option, due to it higher elevation. Indeed, the night-time temps were in the low 60's, very comfortable. The only other option included in map 2 (below) includes a stop in Fort Smith and Pine Bluff Arkansas.
The trip to Ely was uneventful. Coming down the hill, as we call coming I-80 from Reno to Sacramento, was busy heading down to Sacramento, not so busy headed up toward Reno. We got gas in Fernley, and the trip along US-50 to Ely was easy, but has a few slowdowns due to driving through some small Nevada Cities along the way. As we neared Eureka, there was a small forest fire. As we neared Ely, we saw there was a larger fire which looked like it could include Ely itself.
The fire, called the Ward Fire, burned 8,683 acres and today is around 95% contained. When we saw it it was around 8,000 acres and 0% contained. We stayed the night at a BLM Elk Viewing area right off US-50. That is where we got most of the pictures above, and this picture below the next morning.
Overnight, the fire had died down, and it looked like a bunch of smoke. Later in the day the fire blew up again, but for the most part the heart of the fire died that night. It was the closest we were to any fires the entire trip. Unfortunately, it blew our plans to visit Great Basin National Park was destroyed due to the heavy smoke in and around the park Monday morning...so we continued on.
The drive along US-50 to I-70 was nice. Traffic was light on 50, a bit heavier on I-70. The first two pics above are from US-50.
When you get to I-70, the views get even better. I think I-70 from Salina, Utah to Denver, Colorado, is one of the most scenic Interstate rides there is.
We got to Fruita, which is just west of Grand Junction, around 5:30, losing an hour as we entered Utah. We stay at the Welcome Center / Rest Stop in Fruita...where they even have a free dump station for RVs. The night temps were in the low 60's, which is very comfortable for sleeping.
Tuesday Morning we got a 6:30 start...the sun was coming up in front of us as we drove toward Denver.
Glenwood Springs is right on our route, and Marcia has a Nephew who lives there and owned a Coffee Shop. Catch the word "OWNED" ... we thought he still owned, so we stopped to surprise him. He and his wife, who ran the bakery attached to the Coffee Shop, sold it all 3 months ago. Oh well, we tried.
We continued on towards Denver...oh the views are just lovely.
As we got closer to Denver, the traffic was getting very busy. However, other than a slight delay at the Johnson Tunnel (Edwin C. Johnson Memorial Tunnel is the eastbound bore of the Eisenhower-Johnson Memorial Tunnels on Interstate 70 in Colorado. Located about 60 miles west of Denver, it carries traffic under the Continental Divide at an elevation over 11,000 feet.) the traffic moved right along. We continued on I-70 through the rest of Colorado and into Kansas.
Entering Kansas we soon lost another hour due to change to Central Time. We headed on to a little town called Quinter, Kansas. They have a large city park on the north side of town, and they encourage folks to park their RVs there at the park and spend the night...no charge. In the picture above, we stayed on the left side of the road which does not block the road that goes through the park. They have a Dairy Queen on the south side of the town, so we drove over there and got dinner, drove back to the park for the night. We both were surprised at how good the DQ Burgers were. Also, with our luck, the temps did not get above 80 all day. In Quinter, the night temps were again in the mid-60's...our last good sleeping night!
After such a pretty drive from Utah to Denver, we did not touch the main camera again. From Qunter we drove to the Fort Smith area and had dinner with Marcia's cousin Jim. The temps at the Cracker Barrel where were around 75-78 degrees. Along with the humidity, not very good to sleep with. Turned the AC and generator off around 1 am (both of which are not conducive to sound sleep) and suffered through a warm night.
Thursday we got to Pine Bluff around 9:30, went over to the City RV Park to dump our tanks, and then enjoyed a pleasant day with Jana, who cooked a nice dinner for us before we headed out before 6 pm. (Jana was my Reference/Genealogy Manager at the Library...she too has now retired.) That night we were going to stay at the Arkansas Welcome Center at Lake Village. It was 7:30 when we arrive, and it was HOT. I figured the AC and Generator would have to run perhaps all night! I told Marcia I would rather drive on into the night than sit under a loud AC trying to be comfortable until bedtime. So off we drove...all the way until Midnight when we stayed at a Cracker Barrel in Hattiesburg, over 200 miles away. Temps were warm, but I did sleep...probably out of sheer exhaustion.
Friday we got a start around 8 am towards Florida. Getting to Pensacola around 11 am, we decided that we were not going to stop to visit Marcia's Granddaughter in Tallahassee and just drive home. We arrived around 10 pm...nice to sleep in our "Primary Home" again!
Overall the route we took did provide us three out of five good night's sleep. We found ample places to sleep without paying any camping fees. The southern route would have been impossible...the north route would be bearable, but not as good. It also is the prettier route, in my opinion.
