Driving to San Francisco - Day 2

Day 2 started just peachy. We were worried about winter storms but seems like we had clear road from Gillette to Rock Springs, Wyoming. After that I was worried.

Our goal was to get into Salt Lake, Utah were we had a reservation at the beautiful Monaco Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City.

This was going to be our "easy" day with only 9 hours of driving vs. the 13 hours we put in on day 1. We reserved a beautiful room at the Monaco which is pet-friendly!

The day went as planned. We were making great time driving through Wyoming. Such a beautiful state but boy is it desolate! It makes South Dakota look like downtown New York city.

After not seeing a single state trooper in South Dakota we encountered three of them in Wyoming. I kept the cruise control at 78 MPH (speed limit is 75) so I wasn't worried.

One trooper pulled behind us then he right next to us where he drove for about a minute side-by-side... then he pulled behind me again for about 2-3 minutes before taking off.

I suspect he was running the plates and checking us out and decided we were clean. :-)

Later on that day we had another trooper who was heading east on I80 (we were driving west). The then made a u-turn (not a good sign) he then sped past me and pulled over the car in front of me who had just passed me.

He was going maybe 80 MPH since I was going 75-77 MPH at that time. So the poor dude wasn't going that fast but got pulled over.

So note: Don't speed in Wyoming!

Everything was going just fine...

... until we hit the top of the mountain about 70 miles west of Rock Spring, WY. It had just turned dark around 5:30 PM when the snow started to fall.

It slowed us way down but were moving forward. We were about 2-3 hours from our goal for this days drive, Salt Lake City and the beautiful Monaco Hotel but mother nature had other plans.

All of a sudden traffic stopped on I80.

There was  huge truck just feet from us that jack-knifed and slip onto the ditch. We were at a complete stop. We were there stuck on I80 for about 30 minutes not knowing what to do.

Finally ONE state trooper showed up. There were all over I80 before now just one trooper shows up. Then an ambulance trying to get by all us stopped cars.

Finally I got out and spoke to a trucker who got out of her truck. I asked her what was going on. She said there were at least 7 jack-knifed trucks and several accidents with injuries. She suggested we turn back.

Lucky for us we stopped right by one of the those "authorized vehicles only" u-turn areas so we decided to turn back.

The only decent hotels were back in Rock Springs but that 60-70 miles... we didn't want to back track that far.

The OnStar operator told us there was a motel in Lyman, Wyoming which was about 10-15 miles away so we headed there.

Lyman, WY is tiny! And the motel wasn't pretty. It reminded me of the Bates Motel from Psycho but we were in the position to be picky.

I checked and they did allow dogs so that was good. We paid $10 per dog fee and checked in. The motel old. The carpet needed to be replaced about 10 years ago! The chairs had stains which I didn't want to know what they were about. And the ceiling had mold spots. But the beds were fine. They had dish satellite TV so we were happy to be off the road.

Especially when we saw on the news that they closed I80 and the this little motel quickly got filled up. So we were happy to get a room when that "No Vacancy" light went on!

I called the Monaco Hotel in Salt Lake City to cancel my reservation. Even though they could have charged me since I wasn't giving them 24-hour notice they were super cool and didn't charge me or hassle me at all. Which was great since I was pretty stressed-out and didn't feel like arguing about it.

So the Monaco Hotel... you're mega cool in my book!

So instead of staying in the Monaco Hotel in beautiful Salt Lake City we were stuck in a motel in Lyman, WY but were grateful to have gotten a room!