When we left beautiful Rockport State Park just outside of Park City, Utah two days ago, we spent the morning in Salt Lake City. It's an awesome city with the best library I have ever seen. It's not just a library, but a community arts center, cafe, local meeting place, movie theater, and much more. It was there that we created this blog. Before leaving Salt Lake, we gave some much needed TLC to our car with an oil change at the Jiffy Lube. The mechanic there asked us if we had family in Utah when I gave him our Pennsylvania address. I said no, that we were just passing through, and his reply was, "oh, good." I'm not sure what he meant by that...
Now, there is not much of anything from on I-80 from Rawlins, Wyoming to Salt Lake City, and there is even less from Salt Lake to Reno. However, the drive through northwest Utah is incredible. Leaving Salt Lake there are views of the Great Salt Lake, and then about a 100 miles of salt flats, which are simply amazing to look at eventhough there is nothing there. There is a rest stop at the Bonneville salt flat where the World Land Speed Records are set. You can walk out onto the salt which is just a two foot thick collection of crystals on top of a giant mineral lake. It's a surreal experience to walk on it, especially when you can see the water that is underneath you. All along the highway people write messages in the salt with their tire tracks, empty bottles, rocks, pieces of tire - whatever they can find. It gives you something to look at in an otherwise desolate landscape.
Jay on the salt flatsI have become a driving machine. I no longer need food or bathroom. I eat miles - and doing so, has only made me a little crazy. Patti has done her share of driving, but since we left PA, I have pretty much been the one behind the wheel. Audiobooks have only gone so far to keep me entertained, particularly when Patti is trying to sleep. I went a little crazy in Utah when the heat radiating off the road and the salt flats made it look like a train was moving across the salt near the mountains. I swear I saw it, but Patti tells me that it wasn't there. When we got into Nevada, Patti awoke at one point to find me giving the play-by-play and color commentary to some trucks in front of us as if I was calling a horse race. I think my sanity is a small price to pay for the distance that we've covered so far.
Back to why Nevada is the worst state ever - As I said there is not much to see other than Salt Lake City between Wyoming and California. I have driven on some empty highways before, but in the 410 miles I drove across Nevada there isn't anything...and I mean anything. There are small towns, but I'm fairly certain that casinos outnumber people there. There are mines, which they decorate with casinos, too just in case a miner strikes it rich and doesn't want to travel too far to lose it all. There are 160 miles between rest stops, sometimes more between gas stations, and about 410 miles before you get to anything good. Sadly, we couldn't make it across the state in one day, so we had to spend the night. Which brings me to why I hate Nevada...
Running out of daylight near Reno, we picked the closest camping area we could find on the map - Lohatan State Park on the Lohatan reservoir. It was a few miles off of the interstate into the Nevada desert where there was more nothing than there was near the highway. It made me ask, "How much more nothing could there be? The answer is none. None more nothing." We pulled into the park after the 'office' had already closed, so we used the self pay envelope and moved on to find a campsite. As it turns out, there aren't exactly campsites like most state parks. There is a beach along the reservoir and you just pick which plot of sand you like best to set up shop. I now believe that people actually do live in Nevada; I saw them there, but I can't tell you what they are like since I didn't speak to any of them.
Patti and I drove around to a few different areas of the beach, each time finding some characters that didn't really look like they would be good neighbors for the night. There were cars, trucks and RV's parked all over the beach, so when I pulled onto an empty area of the beach I didn't think too much about it. But, I quickly realized why no one was parked there... the packed sand we had been driving on turned to deep beach sand. We sunk in just as I realized my mistake. Patti got out and gave the car a little nudge, and I got moving again, but not enough to do a three point turn to go back the way that we came. The only choice was to follow some tire tracks across the beach to try to reach another access road. I'd driven about 100 yards when the sand got deeper still and momentum came to a halt. It was about another 50 yards to the access road and hard sand. I got out of the car and started digging. Luckily, there was some packed sand underneath the loose top layer. With Patti driving, and me pushing, we managed to move.... 5 ft. More digging, more pushing.... 5 ft. We switched roles... let some air out of the tires, more digging, more pushing 10 ft. We switched back. On about the 12th try, the tires grabbed, the engine raced, I pushed, and Patti made it out. It only took about an hour to go those 50 yards, and the people partying around us, the guy walking his dog, and the people driving by couldn't be bothered to offer some help.
Jay, covered in sand dust and exhausted from digging and pushing...We set up camp next to the car in the parking area, ate some dinner and went to bed. I was already done with Nevada. Unfortunately, Nevada wasn't done with us. On the packed sand, the ground was too hard to use tent stakes, so I set up the tent weighted with rocks as best I could. The tent wasn't going to fly away, but it's nearly impossible to get the fly tight. This means that when the wind picks up off the lake, the fly flaps loudly like a giant nylon sheet. I think that I slept a total of 3 hrs. Finally, at 4 am, I woke Patti up and said it's time to leave. We packed up and got back on the highway as fast as possible.
Our "campsite", the car covered in dust from the sand, the beach we got stuck in below...
Reno is really the only city along I-80 in Nevada. It was disgusting. The air was so thick and hazy that I could barely see the casinos from the highway. At first I blamed Reno for being such a dirty city, but then I realized that the smog had a distinct campfire scent to it. All of the smoke from the California fires was making it impossible to see more than a few hundred yards down the interstate. The smoke got worse as we approached the border. Patti slept, and I got out of the state as fast as possible. Just across the border the terrain picks up as the highway climbs into the Sierra's. It was interesting to look at, although the sweeping mountain vistas were all obscured by smoke. We stopped in Auburn, California for breakfast, and it was close to impossible to breath outside of the car.
The smoke- it was crazy! Outside, the air smelled like the largest campfire ever...After breakfast, I slept while Patti drove the rest of the way to the Bay Area. We're relaxing in a hotel right now to recover from our cross country drive, but mostly to recover from Nevada.
For all of the photos, click on this link to our second album:
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