8.12.2009

The best laid plans...

Plans, plans, plans...

Our intention was to drive from Tahoe to Wendover, UT so that we could get up and check out the weirdness of the Bonneville Salt Flats. At a truly unique truckstop/restaurant/motel/casino in Puckerbrush, NV (Puckerbrush??!!!), I picked up the phone to call the Motel 6 in Wendover and got a nasty surprise...they were completely booked. Apparently, it's something called Speed Week? Yea, it turned out that every motel between Winnemucca, NV and Wendover, UT was booked solid. And I had already been driving all day. Gulp.

Thank goodness for Justin...now, granted he wasn't doing the driving, but he just said, "Well, let's just drive through the night!!" Ugh. And so we did. Now that I've looked at a map of our route, I can't believe I did it. By the time we got here at 5:30 a.m., I was so exhausted that I could barely see.

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The landscape from just beyond Reno, NV to here has been otherworldly. I prefer the desert up here to the desert of Arizona. I don't know if this makes sense, but it seems newer here. There are wide expanses of flat, russet colored nothingness and then a mountain range appears out of nowhere.

The Great Salt Lake is amazing to say the least. I still have to process the views before I can say much about it. The size is awe-inspiring and I find it difficult to comprehend that it is basically a leftover. Millions of years ago, the area of what is now eastern Utah, was submerged under what people call Lake Bonneville.

Salt Lake City itself is fantastic. Apparently, its a very liberal enclave of the state of Utah. There are tattoo shops all over town and lots of live music to be seen. A guy I went to high school with, Ian Brandt, owns two restaurants in town that are completely vegetarian and organic. We went to his Sage's Cafe and were pretty damn impressed. If you're ever here, go. Justin's a pretty die hard meat eater and he loved the vegetarian tacos (we all got them and man, that's some good stuff).

I believe that the streets here are organized around the Temple, so the streets immediately surrounding that Temple in all four directions are numbered 200, 300, 400, etc. I searched for a Walgreen's on E 400 South for about an hour yesterday. Finally, in my rage and frustration I stopped to ask a local and they explained the system as best as they could...I get it now, but damn!

So, everyone is going to have to forgive me if the writing from here on out is a little rushed and "hurky jerky". I have a lot on my mind and frankly, I could write pages, just on Salt Lake City, but I also want to keep up with our drive.

All right, we're getting ready to check out and get on our way to Park City. I'll check in tonight when we get settled in Grand Junction. Wahoo!!

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