You Shoulda Tol' Me!

Part of today, Wednesday, is about people with roots in the east. It's also about some things totally western. While I was drying our car in the hotel lot after a quick car wash, a man approached having noticed our Jersey tags. Turns out he was born and raised in Riverside, Burlington County. He and his wife of 50 years were on the road from Oregon to Salt Lake City (our common destination) to celebrate their anniversary with family. He could not believe that we had started our business in the city of his youth.

 

On the road again I set the cruise control at 75, pointed our nose east and headed for SLC. We convinced ourselves that the high desert of Nevada was slightly different from the desert of Arizona or New Mexico. We stopped at the NV/UT state line town of Wendover for lunch. We no sooner crossed the border than we entered the Bonneville Salt Flats. How did we not know we would do this? How could this be a surprise? We clearly spent way to much time planning our westward trek following Rt. 66, and not nearly enough time looking at our trip home. The salt flats were amazing in a sensory deprivation kind of way. There was nothing to see. Nothing. No trees, no grass, no rocks. Anything that protruded above the surface looked as though it floated on a waveless sea. The apparition of water kept receding, replaced by more flat hard salty sand. We learned later that this was the same topography that doomed the Donner Party. They expected to cross the flats in three days, but took three weeks, heading into the mountains too late to avoid being trapped by snow.

When we finally saw the Great Salt Lake, I had to convince my self the water was real. Mirages are not blue. Salt Lake is blue. In SLC we met with an old college friend, the only kind I have. Our friend and his wife took us to Park City, UT, a nearby ski resort in the winter, for dinner and gave us the "fifty cent tour" of Salt Lake City. The city is beautiful, and they are clearly proud of the place they call home. More than 75% of the inhabitants of Utah, live in or around SLC. Today, Wednesday, was one of our most full, and longest days on the road.

We changed time zones today...now in Mountain Time. We saw 1 Corvette and drove 364.3 miles.