Wanderlust IV

Complimentary catch-up links: I, II, & III.  

The preceding italics are links to the previous chronicles of Road Trip 2011. In case you don't trust links I offer on this blog. I suppose I understand what you're thinking:

This is a blog that incessantly provides links to previous blog posts. This is most likely a tool to drive the view counts of each post up. How shameless and self-promotional of the blogger. Also, I now have a million tabs loaded onto my browser and it feels cluttered. X-ing out of I've Been Gone a Long Time. 

Valid, sobering points. But I refuse to assume that everyone reading this post has already pored over each chapter of the Wanderlust chronicles carefully. The method to my self-aggrandzing madness. 

Despite this tongue-in-cheek self-deprecation act, I really just needed an excuse to mention my blog's view count. I've Been Gone a Long Time hit a flattering view count milestone the other day and I wanted to sincerely thank you, readership. Couldn't have gotten the views without you. I appreciate you clicking on my blog, even if you're just scrolling down and mocking my pictures. And to anyone that has directed someone else to these pages, I am deeply indebted to you and am dedicating this post to you informally. To all my readership, I appreciate your time and hope you at least mildly enjoy these posts. Cuz it is certainly a hoot writing them. 
  
With that being said, we resume in western Nebraska. I mentioned the strength of the winds we felt that morning. It turns out, per the Historical Atlas of the American West, that the western part of Great Plains region is among the most consistently windy places in the world. SCIENCE LESSON: Basically, the winds blow off the Rockies from the west and there is no vertical relief in its path to slow it down.The average wind speed of Kimball, Nebraska, the town we stepped outside to on that day, is around 12mph. Doesn't sound very significant. But think about it. At any given time, winds are blowing at 12mph. Extreme gusts are both frequent enough and strong enough to drive the wind speed average up to 12mph, at any given moment throughout the year. So, hold on to your hats. 

It was an incredibly gorgeous morning as we peeled out of the Super 8's dirt parking lot back onto I-80 West. We shortly hit the Wyoming state line and our Western suspicions were officially confirmed: 

The first sign with cowboy imagery! Along this stretch I also captured one of my favorite shots in all of Road Trip 2011, a colorful Union Pacific train chugging alongside the interstate and into the West:  

As that train passed by it was like I could smell the greatness in the air. And shortly after that, we got our formal introduction to the West courtesy of the landscape. We curved around a bend and there it was: our first glimpse of the Rockies!!!!

(with the help of the windshield/windshield wipers)

That moment is a lucid memory. I almost felt dazed. We were one with Lewis & Clark; we were Kate & Travis. We had grown up on the East Coast and had never seen a real, geological masterpiece like a legitimate mountain range (sorry Appalachians). It had taken almost twenty-two years to be among them. And I knew that I never wanted to let them go. 

We made our first stop at a Laramie, WY Sonic for lunch. Please recall that the previous day's lunch was in Omaha, NE and it was about 102 degrees. In Laramie, it would be a stretch to say it was 60 degrees. Also, the winds had strengthened since Kimball. The town gave off the distinctive "college town" aura and seemed charming enough, but frankly, it was a straight-up 50 degree drop in temperature from the previous day's lunch. And did I mention it was ridiculously windy? We rolled out of Laramie pretty quickly.     

But we could not escape the wind. Driving down the interstate in east/central Wyoming consisted of Kate white-knuckling the steering wheel to prevent the winds from blowing the Nissan Sentra into a ditch. It was a challenge. The old-school Nintendo Boss-Level equivalent of highway driving. But we managed. All the while, the elevation was rising. We were driving into the heavens. We soon found ourselves on a mountain pass that, mercifully, had a rest area. We pulled in and got out of the vehicle to recuperate. 

I will reiterate that it was a crystal-clear, beautiful day. The winds I experienced at that rest stop were stronger than any non-hurricane-condition winds I had ever experienced in my life. And they were constant. Unrelenting. I had to use significant leg strength to stand up straight. Kate fled for her life almost immediately and got back into the car. I stayed outside a little longer to feel the PUNISHMENT. An official acknowledgement of the conditions:

Elk Mountain, from the rest stop grounds. 

A mind-altering experience.

SIDE NOTE: We saw another young couple with a New Jersey license plate at that rest stop. We hypothesized that they were on the same journey: post-graduation road trip from coast-to-coast. I wanted to talk to them and bond over the preposterous Rocky Mountain winds but shyness got the best of me. I have always regretted this. MESSAGE: if you were at the Wagonhound Rest Area around June 8th, 2011, and are a young couple from New Jersey, please contact me. I want to apologize and befriend you and talk about road trips.     

The wind was never as much of an issue after we conquered that particular mountain pass.  Our drive through Wyoming continued at high elevation with rocky (not Rocky)/dirt colored peaks in the distance, with the high plains dotted in green shrubs in the foreground. It doesn't sound like much excitement, but I was transfixed all the while. We were in the West and it was never getting old. Also, Wyoming is the least populated state in the country. So that meant few exits and even fewer signs of civilization. There was a ranch here and there, but zero farms. Meandering cows sometimes in the distance. A couple of frolicking deer in a shrub-filled meadow. But other than that, it was just us and the Frontier. 

It seems like the Wyoming DOT tries to maintain your driving focus by peppering signs throughout the state advertising "Little America," which is located in the far western part of the state. However, the signs never really let you know what Little America is. My best guess was that we would drive by a mildly-amusing-looking patriotic-themed amusement park. It turned out to be an extremely ho-hum (relative to the sheer quantity of advertising) rest stop. Wyoming 1, travelers 0.   

By late afternoon/early evening we had crossed into Utah. I still wager that every state has a unique landscape, no matter how slight the differences may be. The first thing I noticed about Utah was a distinct redness to the dirt and rocks. The trains chugging alongside the interstate became much more immediate and the road itself was much more winding. Snow-capped mountain peaks were also very close in proximity to the road as opposed to appearing far off in the distance. The sun descending in the sky made it all that much more spectacular. 

I swear it looked reddish (not radish).

Snow-capped.

The sunset quickly became dusk and we were coasting through the winding highways of Salt Lake City, navigating the many lanes of the I-80 & I-15 interchange. At this point, the plan was to stop off somewhere in downtown SLC, grab some dinner and find a place to lodge, given we had already covered some pretty solid distance on that day. But before we could blink, Salt Lake City was in our rearview mirror. The constant lane changes that come with interchanges had did us in. Focusing our energy on staying with I-80 had prevented us from exiting the highway. So we did what we could, exited at the actual Great Salt Lake, a few miles west of the city. 

This wasn't a total loss for me, as I have always been intrigued by the Great Salt Lake. So I suggested that we go down to the waterfront and scope it out. It was quiet and deserted where we parked, on a side road adjacent to the beach. And when I say beach I mean large dirt area bordering the Salt Lake. And when I say deserted I mean aside from the one million mosquitoes. 

The Great Salt Lake "Beach," w/ lonely cigarette butt.

Not pictured: 1,000,000 mosquitoes. Me trying to morph into a mosquito's worst nightmare and failing.

And when I say one million mosquitoes I mean one trillion mosquitoes. I don't mean to sit here and whine about mosquitoes like every other fucking human being. I am trying to paint a picture. My best summary is: I didn't even know this many mosquitoes existed on Earth. Kate and I couldn't stand still enough to snap a cute picture together alongside the lake because we were too busy fending mosquitoes off. After I snapped the shot above, both my camera and any of my exposed skin were promptly swarmed by mosquitoes.

In this moment on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, I believe Kate and I encountered the mosquito perfect storm. It was a not only a lake, but a salt lake. Not only a very shallow standing body of water, but a tasty salt version, which probably these miniature flying vampires of the sweaty human skin they love to feed on. It was early/mid June, which seems like mosquito primetime to me. It was dusk. There were no other human options around. They probably knew we were tourists. Needless to say, our tour of the Great Salt Lake shoreline was abbreviated.  

We quickly hopped back into the car and made our way back to the frontage road (note: all the lights in the above photo). We still hadn't had any dinner; a secluded Del Taco ended up  being the destination. Advice to future blogging self: don't go back to Del Taco. But it got the job done. The only problem was that we had seemed to bypass all the Salt Lake City area hotels. 

No matter, I told Kate. Our road map, a 2009-edition "American Map," (I WILL NEVER OWN A GPS) which had served us admirably up to that point, showed a few more exits and a few small towns  on our route until a vast, 50 mile stretch of the "Great Salt Lake Desert," in which there were no exits or towns until the Nevada border. It's fine, I insisted. No way do we have to go back into Salt Lake City to find a hotel. The only rule of this road trip, I decreed in that moment, was no backtracking. So we soldiered on in search of lodging. 

First town/exit up, according to our Utah map, was Rowley. Please follow that link. Yeah. There was a gas station immediately off the exit, and then a dirt road leading into darkness. We got back on the highway. Next up on the map was Delle. I swear I remember seeing signage for a hotel off of that exit, but when we neared the off-ramp, there was nothing but darkness as far as we could see. We stayed on the highway. Our last hope was Knolls. I remember seeing the exit for Knolls. There was no "Knolls 1 mile" or "Knolls 1/2 mile" warning signs. Just one "Knolls" and an arrow pointing in the direction of the off-ramp. What did that one look like, you ask? Complete darkness. 

By then it was about 12:30am local time. We had already driven about 600 miles total on the day. There was a "rest area" shortly after "Knolls" in which you could presumably pull into a parking spot and "rest." In the pitch-blackness of the Great Salt Lake Desert. We figured we probably wouldn't be getting any "rest" since we'd be "fearing" for our "lives." So we coasted onward.  Next exit? Wendover, about 50 miles away. 

For those 50 miles, the road was a perfectly straight line. I didn't even need my hands on the wheel. The Great Salt Lake Desert was to our right. We could see the moon reflected on the desert floor. It was the strangest thing; it seemed like we were driving alongside the ocean. It felt like this would be an appropriate area for UFO's to land, or at least for secret government operations to take place. We were tired and a little cranky, but it was amazing. We felt alive. Despite the lack of exits, I was noticing a lot of cross-highway turn-around spots. As in, you could stop and take a left onto the other side of the interstate if you needed to.

About 45 minutes later, we hit the Nevada state line in Wendover and checked into the first hotel we saw. I also made a vow: we would wake up early and drive back east for a little, through a part of the desert. We would utilize one of the turn-around spots to head back west. I had to see the Great Salt Lake Desert in daylight. 

Listening...