We did not make it all the way to SLC yesterday but stopped about 40 miles short in Springville, UT. Every time we have been through SLC the Interstate has been torn up and under construction and it is a nightmare to manoeuvre a 50 foot long motorhome and tow car through it. I set the GPS to find a Wal-Mart and that is what it did. We had not been parked long before the sun went down so it was for the best. Sorry Heidi, we did not get a chance to get together (again). Maybe next year or there just may be a high school reunion!
I went into Wal-Mart to pick up a couple of things and wandered over to the computer section. I have been thinking of upgrading the ten year old eMachines laptop for quite a while. It has served me well but has a couple of problems. The power cord will not stay plugged in and the screen flickers in a maddening way. Plus, The battery only holds enough for about fifteen minutes. Ten years is enough to expect for a laptop, especially one that has been used and abused as much as this.
They had a Compaq with an AMD Processor and 2 GB of RAM on sale for $348 that looked nice. It is actually a re-branded HP but what the heck, for $348... I specially liked it because it has a built-in numeric keypad that will come in very handy for working with Quicken. I cannot believe the prices of these things. I paid $1200 for the reconditioned eMachines in 1999 and those were 1999 dollars! This Compaq is much faster, has a hard drive that is six times as big and four times the RAM! The only thing I am nervous about is that it comes with Windows 7. I know this is much better than Vista which I managed to skip but I am concerned that some of my software will not install on it. I will wait until I get home before playing with it. Taxes are the first consideration before playing with Operating Systems.
We left Springville at about 9:00 and headed for SLC. The traffic was a nightmare. There was construction everywhere and the lanes narrowed until they were only a few inches wider than the motorhome. I tried driving in the middle of the three lanes to avoid all the merging traffic in the right lane but with trucks passing on the right and cars on the left it was a very stressful situation. We stopped for gas and lunch and headed north and the road soon became much less busy.
We are in another Wal-Mart in Mountain Home, ID. It rained much of the day and came down quite hard before we parked. It is nice now and there was actually a nice sunset a few minutes ago.
Tomorrow we head towards Portland and I-5 up towards Port Angeles and the ferry to Victoria. We will not make it all the way but should make the early ferry on Sunday. We will see Brooks and Linda and, with any luck, the grandchildren. After that it will be a fast run home to do our taxes in time for the April 30 filing date.
It is Friday Morning now and we are driving through heavy winds. We found a truck stop for breakfast with WIFI so you are reading this…
So, I can expect you Monday or Tuesday?
ReplyDeleteI find it interesting that even though there was a looping back turn off from the I-15 S to the I-515 S going to AZ through Vegas versus straight through on the I-15 at SLC, I dread SLC much more greatly than Vegas.
ReplyDeleteWe detoured to I-15 N at Searchlight on our way back and avoided the whole mid-City change off coming back.
There is just something about SLC. It must have been AWEFUL during the run up to the Olympics that year!!!
Beating feet for home; boy do I know that feeling! Nothing fun about it either.
ReplyDeleteIt is amazing how much computer you can get these days for just a little money. We are talking about putting all our dvd's on a couple of terabyte hard drives. Then plug the drive into the tv and watch. Sounds amazing; haven't actually tried it yet though. We'll see!