napping and eating and Bernice getting us lost

June 18, 2007 1:51:46 AM EDT
Subject: napping and eating and Bernice getting us lost

I'm really tired. I don't know why, we didn't do a lot today, and I did pretty much nothing except eat and nap, Nia did all the driving - some control-freak thing. ;) Although I was in charge of navigation. That didn't go so well.

Anyone surprised?

So today was a driving day. We wanted to get to Salt Lake City by this evening so that we could have tomorrow to explore - we made it, but there were hotel issues. Somehow - and really, I'm blushing so much over this that I can't bear to go into detail - I managed to goof up our hotel reservations and we didn't realize it until just before we hit Salt Lake City - I had reserved us a room - for JULY 17th. Oops. And of course, there's a huge conference in town and not a room to be had anywhere - except this one that we finally scored at the Radisson in downtown Salt Lake. We have sleep number beds - woo-hoo!

The drive was really good, the scenery beautiful and we weren't in any rush. We stopped at Trader J's this morning and got salads and figs and water so that we wouldn't be tempted by the fried roadside yummies - although it turned out that wouldn't be an issue - not a whole lot out there on highway 80 - including potty stops - not even bushes, which we were actively seeking out at one point - those were BIG bottles of water we bought at Trader J's.

At some point in our drive I fell asleep for about an hour or so. Apparently Nia yakked on the phone the whole time to various friends and family members. When I woke up I asked where we were. Nia replied, "I don't know. Somewhere in Utah." As bad a navigator as I am, I'm the one in charge, because Nia is even worse. So I pull out the atlas and find our location. We're about 3/4 of the way through Nevada. Really, no where near Utah. Nia starts laughing because she's told everyone who's called for the past hour that we're in Utah.

Eventually we did get to Utah, and when we were close enough to Salt Lake City (after fixing the hotel problem), we plugged in Bernice. Bernice is the GPS system we've been using. She speaks to us, her commands shrill and demanding, often leaving us very confused. Bernice frequently tells us to "stay right" while in the same electronic breath telling us to "go left 200 yards." Bernice would never make it in San Francisco - too many cars, we would never be able to follow her commands in time - but thankfully there's precious little traffic in Nevada and Utah and Nia has been able to successfully cross 5 lanes of traffic, with little or no notice, in order to fulfill Bernice's shrill directives. Many times she instructs us to make U-turns, not because she's a such a big fan, but because we just couldn't maneuver as quickly as she wanted us to, and she was forced to "recalculate the route."

So here we are. Much as last night - laptops up and running, tv droning in the background and an almost empty bottle of red on the nightstand between us. It's late, and I'm going to bed. Tomorrow we're sight-seeing here in Salt Lake, then heading over to Arches National Park. We have a hotel reservation for tomorrow night. Nia made it, so if it's wrong, I won't be the one left feeling dumb!

Mileage: 523 Time: 8.5 hours Destination: Arches National Park