I'm not sure how to summarize today's drive other than by saying that we went from the sublime crags and valleys of eastern Utah to the ridiculous Red Garter Casino by way of the jaw-droppingly astonishing Great Salt Desert. I've never seen anything like it -- and I hope I never see it again. But more about that in a bit.
We spent the first half of the day speeding through Wyoming, which I'm convinced has more cows than people. Much of the state is grazing land, rolling hills covered with grass and brambles which didn't seem too tasty or exciting to us but are apparently irresistable taste sensations to the cows. Many fields had long fence-like structures about 10 feet high set at angles to the road; we aren't sure what they are, but we speculate they're meant to force snow to drift up before it hits the road. Snow would tend to drift here -- Wyoming is windy. There's nothing to break the gusts that barrel down out of the mountains. According to a plaque we read at a rest area, the winds are good because they blow the snow off the vegetation deer and other animals need to survive the bitter winters. That was our educational nature moment.
We actually crossed the Continental Divide twice. No, I don't know why the Continental Divide splits into two forks which bisect I-80 some miles apart. It just does. Highway signs mark the spots. I was a little disappointed; I expected a visitor center with interpretive displays and maybe even a bit of pioneer history. Since every small town we've passed has its own historical museum with artifacts and re-enactments, though, I suppose there isn't much left over.
I confess with a bit of shame that we succumbed today to the lure of the McDonald's drive-through window because it was too warm to leave Surely in the car while we ate.
We also spotted a car with Mississippi plates, bringing our total to 47 states, one District of Columbia, and four Canadian provinces. I'm a little disturbed by how excited we were at this.
Not long after Wyoming becomes Utah, the rolling hills grow into actual mountains encircling a lush valley with tall grasses, numerous trees, and a fast-running river. No wonder the Mormons thought they'd reached their promised land. That valley leads on to canyons where I-80 winds through deep folds of rock. We craned our necks and boggled at the peaks and buttes. Before long, though, the highway spat us out onto the plain where Salt Lake City sits. Construction not mentioned in our Trip Tik sent us on a long detour along the south side of the city, where we spotted our candidate for Most Overwrought Billboard of the Day: a picture of a tow-headed little girl raptly gazing at a TV under the legend, "Porn: the War We Must Win." Since we'd also seen an earlier billboard reading, "Real Men Don't Use Porn," we concluded this is the current Mormon cause.
The detour eventually led us back to I-80, which skirts the edge of the Great Salt Lake for several miles before heading off into a flat, severe region of small bushy plants and grass. We spotted a few deer grazing, but for the most part, we didn't see much but fences. After Salt Lake City, there are only a handful of highway exits, all miles apart and many leading only to dirt roads that seemed to head nowhere. We made a brief potty break at one exit which wasn't even marked on our map. Tiny Delle can't be a town, because all it contains is a two-pump gas station with a disgusting restroom and a "cafe" which is essentially a trailer. We were sure we were in the middle of the famous Great Salt Desert, and we agreed it was without a doubt the bleakest spot we'd ever seen.
Then we came over a long incline and realized that the landscape we'd been driving through was a verdant paradise compared to what we were about to enter.
The Great Salt Lake is all that's left of Lake Bonneville, the giant lake which covered two thirds of Utah thousands of years ago. The surrounding mountains still show the former waterline clearly. Where the lake bottom once was is the Great Salt Desert, a crust of mineral salt stretching out in every direction. It is the most extraordinary thing I've ever seen, perfectly flat and utterly barren and gleaming dead salty white with the mountains rising around it in the distant haze. The only growing things were the tufts of grass along the side of the road. Every few miles, I found myself muttering, "This is unbelievable." Along the side of the road, people had spelled their names out with rocks and beer bottles in some kind of attempt to leave a mark in human scale on an unbearably immense wasteland. Even driving 80 miles per hour, it took us well over an hour to cross it. I'm glad I saw it, and I'm even more glad I never have to see it again.
At the very edge of the desert is Bonneville Speedway, a race track on the salt flats where crazy drivers set land speed records. After that the mountains jut up to mark the Utah/Nevada border. No sooner do you cross the border than you see the sign for Wendover. Even though Nevada is in the Pacific time zone, Wendover remains on Mountain time for the convenience of the Utahns who drive through the desert to gamble at the city's five casinos, which flash and glitter on a tiny strip. We are fairly sure the folks who are so concerned about porn are misdirecting their attentions. Sin is happening right here, and I'm willing to bet their neighbors are participating in it.
Tonight's Super 8 motel is at the far end of the strip. We wandered next door to the Red Garter Casino, a small and tacky operation with nickel slot machines -- where we got in trouble for taking a picture in front of a giant slot machine, but got out of it by pleading ignorance and swearing never to do it again. We'd asked permission, but the person who granted it obviously wasn't in a position to do so.
We didn't do so well on the slots, but I promptly won $35 in a single round of roulette by putting a $1 bet down on 28 (the 28th being my birthday). Pocketing the winnings, we moved on to the much larger and flashier Rainbow Casino, a hallucinatory neon nightmare with a mirrored ceiling and enough flashing lights to trigger an epileptic seizure. We dropped five bucks on the Elvis quarter slots and looked over the Rainforest Buffet, but decided to pass on it in favor of quite respectable meal salads in the casino restaurant called Over The Rainbow. Vegetables at last!
