I’m supposed to be at the 2 hour waiting lot at Denver International Airport to pick Amy up but instead, I’m stuck on I-25 North just south of Castle Rock, CO.   There was a huge accident and all northbound lanes are closed.  Instead of doing nothing, I can watch Amy’s approaching flight on Flightview  and check my e-mail.  The problem is that her flight is now somewhere over southwestern Idaho with less than an hour remaining.  A trooper told the car in front of me that it’s going to be quite a while and with guardrails on both sides, there’s no way to move the existing traffic onto local roads. 

So I’m pretty screwed and I feel bad for Amy because DIA pretty much shuts down after midnight (it’s a pretty good airport to be stuck in when the stores are open.  There’s also good Wi-Fi but I doubt she brought her Mac Book Pro.

At least I have broadband here on the road courtesy of my Sprint EVDO Rev A service.  I’ve loved it so far but this is the first time I’ve really been able to use it.  Even this far out of Colorado Springs and Denver, I’m still able to get about 970k down and 310k up.   Ok, not much substance in this post but at least it will cover my ass :) 

[EDIT: A few seconds after I pressed "publish" a large crane moved one of the semis enough to allow one lane of traffic to pass and I'm now waiting at the DIA short term arriving flight wait lot for Amy to call. It all worked out and I got a real excuse to use my Sprint mobile broadband service. All is well tonight.]

This segment, scheduled for 18.5 actually took me 26.5 hours because of a major adventure high in the mountains of Wyoming and a Jeep trail on the Colorado/Wyoming border. My co-pilot was a trooper and we will write more after a long slumber.

Before I sign off, I’d like to thank the Academy, All Wheel Drive and most unexpectedly my acute insomnia.

(As recorded by my Garmin GPS V)
Miles: 2,591.44
Moving Time: 42 hours 58 minutes 33 seconds
Stopped Time: 3 hours 53 minutes 27 seconds
Maximum Speed: 82.5 Miles Per Hour (East of Green River, Utah)
Average Speed: 55.34 Miles Per Hour
Maximum elevation: 11,588 feet (just west of the Eisenhower Tunnel in Colorado)
Minimum elevation: 158 feet (1 mile east of my house in Fall City)
Nights In Hotels: 3 (two in Salt Lake City, UT and one in Limon, CO)
States: Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and Indiana
Speeding Tickets: 0

The Route On Google Maps

Well, I’m finally leaving now and should be in Salt Lake City sometime after midnight tonight. If you want to track my progress, check out my Twitter Status Page (see tabs on the top of this page) or go to http://www.twitter.com/gigamike.

To view my timeline on my Twitter page, you’ll need to have Adobe’s Flash 9 browser pluging installed which you can get for free HERE.