Vacation Day 4: What season is this?


Today started out cold yet again.  Isn’t this supposed to be summer?  Listening to the weather on TV, the western part of the U.S. was experiencing temperature 30 degrees below normal.  You would know this would happen on my vacation.  And it was upper 80s and 90s back in Chicago!

We left Park City this morning on our way through Salt Lake City.  The town has grown since I had come through here in the mid 1990s.  And they have had several other changes in their attitudes.  In the 90s, we tried to watch TV, but it was heavily censored.  Screens were blacked out when content was inappropriate.  There were limited channels.  Beer was limited in alcohol content and quantity that you could buy.  Now, there were more than 25 different religious channels and there were no limits on beer.

Our visit stop today was to the Great Salt Lake.  We rounded the southern edge of the lake until we found the Salt Lake Marina.  We could drive to the lake and got out to take pictures.  A couple were having their engagement pictures taken out there.  Then a set of Japanese tourists arrived.  We walked around and took pictures.  Rich told us about Antelope Island that we could make out through the fog.  The guys had to taste the water to be sure that it was salty, and it was. 

The drive from the lake out to the Nevada state line was rainy.  It was like driving on one very long causeway.  There was water and salt flats on the left, right, and in the middle the entire way. 

At Wendover, we were looking for the Bonnieville Salt Flats where they do all of the speed racing over the flats.  There was the Bonnieville Salt Flats park.  There were signs for the Bonnieville Speedway.  So we stopped at a gas station to ask for directions.  The man said to go to the end of the road we were on, but not to drive on the flats because the rain had made them soft. 

Good, we had found the flats!  We drove the 5 or so miles out to the flats.  We parked.  I had Rick take my pictures with the sign.  No Rose pose this time.  I did my best Vanna White though.  It was amazing.  It was miles and miles of white salt.  The salt around the road had hardened into a type of concrete. 

While we were standing around taking pictures, a group of Mustang convertibles started arriving.  They turned and backed onto the salt flats.  There were probably 20 cars.  The first guy jumped out in shorts and a tank top.  He was waving his hands and shouting something about having arrived.  He asked where we were from.  We explained from northwest of Chicago.  He was amazed and said they would be there next week.

Turns out, these people were visiting New Zealanders on tour from California over Route 66 to Chicago.  They called themselves Kiwis on Tour. When we left, they were kissing the salted ground and taking turns driving their Mustangs out on the salt they could get to and saying they drove on Bonnieville. 

Going out of Wendover, we began to climb into the moutains to get over the Silver Mountain range into Nevada.   At about 6,000 feet, it began to snow!  It was a  little snow either, it was flying and pretty white conditions.  I had Rick take a picture out of the window.  We had snow until we got out of the mountains and still had some off and on at the lower elevations.

It rained and stormed almost the entire way to Winnemucca, our next stop.  At one point, the clouds seem to fall down from the sky to touch the ground.  It was a very eerie feeling. At least there were no tornadoes.

In Elko, we stopped for lunch.  Once again, the place we chose to eat was closed.  We’ve had that kind of luck on this trip.  We have a Basque-American diner.  The food was OK, but I didn’t see anything special that made it Basque.  I guess the Basque came from Spain to look for gold.  After finding nothing, they looked around and liked the land.  It reminded them of home and they went back to sheep herding.

Arriving in Winnemucca, we found out that the town was hosting a motorcycle rally.  Not too many bikes, but some part of town were closed off for them.  I think I counted 6 individual casinos.  I forgot that Nevada has major gambling.  Even the restaurants have slot machines in them. 

We decided to go to the BBQ place down the street from the hotel, The Pig.  It was really good.  I had the pulled pork, Rick got the BBQ chicken sandwich, and Rich went for the Smokehouse platter with pork, beef, and chicken.  The only problem was the beer.  The selection was OK, but Rich found something to go with dinner.

Tonight, we settled in.  I realized I didn’t have Fran’s number to call her to arrange our meeting tomorrow.  I guess I’ll have to do that as we drive down tomorrow.

Most of the pictures exceed the upload limit here.  Only a couple of pictures from our day.

 

My Rose pose at the Great Salt Lake.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This is snow at 6,000 feet in the mountains. At the end of May on my vacation?