Just on the driving time between Mesa & Kingman (does vary depending on route taken):
I dipped back into the thread that includes my trip out there & the group sleuthing (July 2016).
It took me about 4 hours to drive from Mesa to Kingman (12:30PM- 4:20PM), on a weekend day.
I'm pretty sure I subtracted the time of my brief pit stops for iced drinks along the way, but I know I didn't subtract the time I spent stuck in bumper to bumper traffic (on 60, iirc) on a section of road leaving the Phoenix area she would have known to avoid.
The roads & speed limits are fast once one escapes the Phoenix area, and from my experience that day (and from driving literally many thousands of miles on road trips through AZ, New Mexico, and Utah), only a small minority of drivers observe the speed limit on major routes (I'm not typically in that minority, lol), and many drivers, especially after dark, speed along at 10 plus mph over the limit. For a good bit of the way from past-Phoenix to Kingman, that translates into going an average of 75-80 miles an hour.
The road from Kingman to Hoover Dam at the time she drove it (I'd guess it was approximately 10PMish when she flew past Kingman) would have been very sparsely travelled, easy & fast to drive, and no reason to worry about being pulled over by LE (too far out in the middle of nowhere to be worth their while to lay in wait for an occasional car to whizz by).
Adding- the best evidence that the timeline is accurate is that the desperate enough to call Ryan while she was still in Arizona.
I dipped back into the thread that includes my trip out there & the group sleuthing (July 2016).
It took me about 4 hours to drive from Mesa to Kingman (12:30PM- 4:20PM), on a weekend day.
I'm pretty sure I subtracted the time of my brief pit stops for iced drinks along the way, but I know I didn't subtract the time I spent stuck in bumper to bumper traffic (on 60, iirc) on a section of road leaving the Phoenix area she would have known to avoid.
The roads & speed limits are fast once one escapes the Phoenix area, and from my experience that day (and from driving literally many thousands of miles on road trips through AZ, New Mexico, and Utah), only a small minority of drivers observe the speed limit on major routes (I'm not typically in that minority, lol), and many drivers, especially after dark, speed along at 10 plus mph over the limit. For a good bit of the way from past-Phoenix to Kingman, that translates into going an average of 75-80 miles an hour.
The road from Kingman to Hoover Dam at the time she drove it (I'd guess it was approximately 10PMish when she flew past Kingman) would have been very sparsely travelled, easy & fast to drive, and no reason to worry about being pulled over by LE (too far out in the middle of nowhere to be worth their while to lay in wait for an occasional car to whizz by).
Adding- the best evidence that the timeline is accurate is that the desperate enough to call Ryan while she was still in Arizona.
Last edited: