Vince's Trans-continental Trip
22 May 2005 - Sunday
0 Miles - Left Jackson, Wyoming
We headed Southwest toward Idaho on US-89. We caught up with the
Snake River, which was extremely scenic. We followed it until we got
to the
Palisades Reservoir.
One odd thing to note, is that in some western
states the government puts little roadsigns alongside the road where a fatal car
accident has happened, to warn you to drive carefully. There was
a disturbing number of them all throughout Wyoming.
We passed through
Afton, Wyoming, which has multiple claims to fame.
They have the world's largest intermittent cold spring, they have the world's
largest elkhorn arch (which we drove under). Butch Cassidy and the Sundance
Kid were all over the areas we've been driving through, practically every town
claims to have been robbed by them. And finally, Afton is the home of
Rulon Gardner, the famous Grecco-Roman wrestler from the past few Olympics.
We continued on, and soon we were on the
Oregon Trail
headed toward Soda Springs, Idaho. You can see Soda Springs just
to the left in the picture:
Luckily Susie got better and we decided not to head to Soda Springs, but
toward Bear Lake.
97 Miles - Arrived Idaho
We passed through Montpelier, Idaho (named for the capital of Vermont, where
Bringham Young was from) and on to Bear Lake. There was some sort
of bicycle race happening, we kept passing teams of cyclists going the other
way. There were large numbers of black birds with odd white stripes on their
backs; probably a common Western bird but it looked strange to our East Coast
eyes.
142 Miles - Arrived Utah
Bear lake itself was very pretty,
but half-way around we left its inviting shore and headed straight up
the mountain.
We climbed over the Wasatch Mountains and came down toward the Great Salt
Lake. We passed through Logan and Bringham City and came suddenly upon I-15.
It was quite a shock to be on an interstate again, especially one that
was so busy on a Sunday morning.
We continued through Ogden and into Salt Lake City. We decided to drive
around the downtown area just to get a feel for it. We saw the famous
Temple Square
but my picture of it did not turn out. So instead, here's the State
Capitol building:
We then drove out of Salt Lake City and on to the more barren land along the
lake. We stopped at a state park
to view the lake; I was disappointed.
The beach, Saltair Beach, was slime-covered, dead birds littered the area, and the water
had a rank smell. You could walk right up to the shore and see the brine
shrimp swimming about. I wouldn't have wanted to swim in the lake, even
if it would be my one chance in life to actually float in a body of water.
My face got coated in salt spray, which was falling into my eyes the rest of
the day.
We then drove the deserted stretch of I-80 through the salt flats. It was
just the highway, the train-tracks, and nothing else for miles, except
a few salt mines. Oddly the flats seemed to be coated with a thin layer of
water. I do not know if that is normal (note... upon some research, yes
it is normal for there to be a thin layer of water on the flats in the spring).
After many miles we reached a rest area overlooking the
Bonneville
Salt Flats. It too seemed to have a layer of water on it, not at all
what I pictured a dry lake bed looking like:
We continued on until we reached Nevada.
392 Miles - Arrived Nevada
We are now in the Pacific Time Zone.
Nevada was barren, but surprisingly Mountainous. I-80 kept going up and over
some surprisingly large peaks. Besides that though there's not much to say
about Nevada.
After a lot of driving we arrived in Reno. After some debate we decided
not to eat supper in a Casino, but we drove through the city which was
opulent. We continued south to Carson City, the capital. We
stayed at the Motel 6, which had possibly the ditziest hotel clerk ever.
We celebrated the near end of our voyage by eating at the Sizzler there.
844 Miles - Arrived Carson City, Nevada
Day 5 - 844 Miles Traveled, 3845 Miles Total
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