Escape from the blood suckers

The photo above was taken at Los Hermanos Mexican Restaurant in Provo. From right to left are Maughn, Tom, Jill and Carol. Please read the post and then click on the picture for a slide show of our travels today.

Yesterday was fun. We started with a load of laundry. Now, that sounds a little mundane, but bear with me. The laundry facility at the Lakeside RV Park was one of its better features, but the dryer was not the most powerful we have encountered on this trip. Jill had made contact with her cousin Carol, and we had a date for an early lunch with Carol and her husband Maughn. When the time arrived for us to leave the campground and drive to the restaurant, the laundry was not very dry, but we couldn't leave it in the dryer until we returned. So, we threw it in the back of the car and headed out.

If you are in Provo and looking for a fun place to eat with wonderful Mexican food, Los Hermanos at the corner of University Avenue and Center Street is the place. The food, the service and the atmosphere were all wonderful, but they couldn't match the company. We haven't seen Carol and Maughn since 2002, but we always have so much fun just chatting with them.

Somewhere along the way, mention was made of our damp laundry. After lunch, Carol said, "Why don't you come to our house and you can dry the laundry, while we continue our conversation." So, that is precisely what we did. Before we knew it, our 11:00 AM lunch had stetched out to 3:30 PM! At last we bade this dear couple good-bye and headed back to the coach.

Arriving in the late afternoon, we were overrun by a swarm of mosquitoes. I suspect none of them had eaten in several years by the ferocity of their attacks. We had been troubled by them since we arrived, but by yesterday afternoon they were either more numerous and ferocious, or our patience with them was wearing thin. We decided we would get ready to go last evening and head out as early as we practically could this morning.

We spent most of the evening tracking down and killing the several dozen mosquitoes that came in through the door when we made our entrances and exits during the evening. By the time we went to bed, all we could think of was getting away from mosquitoes. That, however, was not to be. We continued swatting at the little blood suckers, which had that nasty habit of going, "mememememe" in our ears.

To shorten the story, we were on the road by 7:05 this morning. After a fuel stop, during which I checked the oil and the tire pressure and air spring pressure, we were underway. Things went well, until we arrived at the exit from I15 to US 89. Actually, it was just as we passed our last opportunity to exit onto US 89. The traffic came to a standstill. We were not sure what was going on, since we had seen a sign saying that there was construction ahead.

Finally, I wised up and turned on the CB radio, adjusted the squelch and tuned to channel 19, the channel the truckers like to use. This was very enlightening. We learned that, in addition to construction, there was a roll-over accident, and a helicopter had landed on the freeway to evacuate the injured passengers. We also learned that we were in the wrong lane. As you can see from the slide show, changing lanes was no mean task.

I think we were in this mess for about 40 minutes, when I saw my chance to change into the right lane. Traffic began to move a little. Then we heard on the CB that they had cleared the wreck. Before long we passed the scene. There was a Lincoln Navigator on the back of a truck. It looked as if it had rolled over several times. We said a prayer for the occupants.

The rest of the trip was pretty easy. Sadie just purred all day. We arrived in Jerome, ID just before 2:00 and registered at the KOA campground, which is very nice. It also has reliable Wi-Fi, which accounts for this post, whereas I was unable to post from the Lakeside mosquito den, due to very iffy Wi-Fi service.

P.S. We re-Christened Veronica. In keeping with the Li'l Abner origin of Sadie Hawkins, we decided to rename Veronica "Daisy Mae." You old people will recognize that name as the name of Abner's true love.