Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Kuwait City, Kuwait on March 31st.

Friday, April 27, 2018

Heading north through an accident scene

We said our goodbyes to our Boondockers Welcome host and headed out around 9:00am. First stop was the town of Douglas, about 65 miles (104 kms) north.

We actually wanted to stay in Douglas... I had read about a city park where they allow three nights free camping and have a water and dump station. We stopped in to have a look. One other rig there, but a nice park. If we didn't need to put some more miles on, we would have stayed and visited the town. Another time.

I forgot to get a photo, but the park is located at GPS 42.762912, -105.39176

We stayed and did some computer stuff, had an early lunch, and continued north towards Gillette, Wyoming.

As we exited Douglas heading north on the 59, there was an electronic highway information sign warning of a "crash 27 miles ahead, expect delays". Well, we're in no rush and so we kept going.

On the way to Douglas, we were on the I-25 with a little bit of construction.

After that, the road was in great shape! 

Scenery along the way.

Wyoming.

Wyoming.

Now past Douglas, and on highway 59. Not much in the way of scenery. Lots of oil and gas work going on.

Eventually, we came to that accident scene.

 We were behind this dump truck, and brought to a stop.

I guess we had just missed the window of opportunity for traffic heading north. The dump truck ahead of us was brought to a stop and we couldn't see the accident scene very well, except for that pickup truck off to the right side. It seemed they were routing traffic on a dirt road around a lagoon of some kind off to the right.

We sat for about 15 minutes before the truck ahead began to move. But now, they had removed the orange cones and were letting us squeeze by without taking the detour.

Yikes.

Ouch!


While we sat there, we were thinking about how accidents like this happen on a perfectly straight stretch of road. Did one of the vehicles have a tire blowout and lost control? Did someone simply do something stupid? Talking on cell phone, checking for text messages? Did someone have a heart attack or pass out at the wheel? Who knows. One wrong move and many people's lives change.

We entered Gillette, Wyoming and stopped at the big Walmart Super Center to do some grocery shopping. 

There are no easy overnight spots in Gillette other than the busy Walmart on a busy street. No thanks. But, I did see from Google Streetview that the Gillette Airport has a decent sized parking lot, and so that's where we headed. It was along our route heading north, so it was an easy choice.

The parking lot was busier than expected, but it must be with mostly long term stays because we saw very few actual people. 

Managed to hook into an unsecured wifi coming from an auto body shop on the opposite side of the highway about a half a mile away using our new Winegard RV Internet Antenna

And it was totally quiet overnight with the exception of one small plane that took off in the early morning hours.

Yesterday's drive, 190 miles (304 kms).

Today, we're headed into Montana!

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And in Canada...




14 comments:

  1. It looks like we will miss you again this year. We will be in Swift Current Saturday night and it looks like you will still be in Montana. We will continue to follow you on your travels this summer in the Great White North. Safe travels.

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    1. Yep... we're going to miss you by a day! We will be in Swift Current on Sunday.

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  2. Nasty accident I suspect the pickup driver is in bad shape if he survived..

    Pretty country..
    Safe travels.

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    1. It did look like a nasty accident. I have tried looking on the internet for any info on it but can't find anything so hopefully that means there were no deaths. When we were in Douglas at the lights just before turning onto Highway 59 an ambulance with police escort came through the intersection and turned into the hospital, so hopefully they survived.

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  3. Hmmm Gillette, WY. It got late on us going thru there so we tried to check into a hotel but we didn't like it. A local lady happened to walk by and said they have a brand new hotel not too far so we followed and it was very nice & clean. We stayed at the new hotel. Oh, I've been a one car accident...no one hurt. Sister was driving and suddenly the car was swerving all over the place at high speed. I stayed down in the back seat (I was sleeping in the back seat at the time) for fear if I sat up we'd impact and I'd go flying out the window. We never knew what happened (at least that is sister's explanation). Also, while driving down highway 191 a van passed us and a short distance later it left the highway, turned over and spilled some of it's occupants. We rushed to help. An elderly driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Two kids and an older lady ejected but not badly hurt. We put compresses on bleeding cuts and called 911. It was a hot summer day so we had to put up a temporary shade with whatever we could find over those that couldn't move. People stopped by to help another lady partly trapped by the van. In all I believe there were eight people in the van. BTW, with our one car accident...a trucker saw us swerving and spinning all over I-40 and called the highway patrol who showed up seconds after we hydroplaned and landed almost into on coming traffic. Yikes!!

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    1. Luckily we neither one of us has been in a bad accident. It was pretty scary though when the ball joint broke on the motorhome in Mexico, several times we thought we were going to hit the ditch and tip over but Kevin was able to maintain control and bring Sherman to a stop.

      We are really hoping there were no deaths involved in this accident because it did look like there might have been. :-(

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  4. That Douglas city park was a godsend exactly 15 years ago this week, when I drove there from Las Vegas in a single day. The free hot shower felt SO nice after that long chilly day!

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    1. I guess it would have been! That was a very long drive. Would you still do a long drive like that now?

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    2. Probably not, I'm much older and wiser now lol! At the time my overpriced Arizona license plates were expiring that weekend---and I was hightailing it to South Dakota to become a "resident" there.

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    3. Didn't think that you would drive that far these days, also figured that you must have had a reason to drive that far in one day even back then.

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  5. Are you heading back to Calibri to help train the new Park managers?

    Hope all came through that accident without life threatening injuries.

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    1. Yep, we will be at Cabri Park for the first two weeks of May.

      We can't find anything in the news about the crash, so hopefully that means everybody survived.

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  6. You are making good time at a relaxing pace, continued safe travels.

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    1. That's the way we like to drive, short drives at a relaxing pace on as many side roads as possible. :-)

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