Mountain Time

Editors note, it has been a month since I returned from my trip and I am just now finishing the blog post. It was started in a hotel room in Salt Lake City.

Day 2
Nothing much happened on day 2, we sat around and eventually went to Nini's a great little restaurant tucked into a neat and sleepy residential neighborhood close to where I was staying. I have been here many times as I nearly alway get breakfast here when I visit the San Francisco area. Just let it be said, the breakfast gods love this place.
After that, we did some shopping. I didnt buy anything but had a good time. Went back to my buddy Jeffs house and we ordered in some Greek food. Slept.
Day 3
The big road trip begins. We covered California, Nevada and half of Utah today. I hadn't been to the Sierras since I was a child and the mountains were breathtaking. Just beautiful. I had told my sweetie back home I would get some desert rocks for the garden while we were traveling and I got my first at a rest stop on Donner Pass, over 7,000 feet up in the mountains. Donner pass still had snow in the shady places, under trees and in folds of the earth. I could tell by the left over rinds of snowfall they get serious snow in the Sierras. I got a nice piece of white granite and a large piece of red granite. I am sure CalTrans wont miss them.
We descended the mountains and came to drier, more desert like terrain. Before we knew it we were in Nevada and buying gas in Reno. I hadnt been to Reno in a very long time. The town has really grown up and modernized since I was last there. They say it is the fastest growing city in the fastest growing state. I never understood why anyone would want to live in Reno, given its altitude and climate but this time I found myself thinking I could live there. San Francisco was only three hours away, yet the cost of living is much more reasonable.

We drove across Nevada, we talked and listened to the satellite radio, no fading and changing of channels, we had radio from space. I became fascinated with the terrain, vast sinks of alkaline waste land that was surprisingly not so lifeless. There was water everywhere, poison to humans of course but I thought it endlessly ironic that there was so much water in this desert. All of these areas have names too, named by the railroad, the early settlers, folks that had to cross this land to reach California in a wagon and on foot.

We left the barren alkaline flats and came to real high altitude desert terrain, miles upon miles of hills covered with blue green sage brush cradling valleys of more said sage brush. Every once in awhile we would pass through a town and since I had googled the route through Nevada, I gave a running commentary on the history of the towns. See, I am intensely intrigued by people that live in these small communities, miles from anywhere. I mean, if you live two hours from Reno, you probably arent commuting, what do you do for a living?

We arrived in Winnemucca Nevada late in the afternoon. It is a clean little city nestled in some mountains that still showed remnants of winter snow. There were casinos, but mostly it just looked like any other town to me. We stopped at a western and tack shop. Jeff wanted to try on hats, and look around at the custom made western wear. I almost bought a book about the black rock desert (black lava rocks everywhere, and even some minor volcanic activity) we had just passed through but decided $20.00 was too much for a paperback. Jeff had struck up a conversation with the woman behind the counter, apparently she owned the place and was very friendly, I listened politely for a bit and finally piped up and asked my question. I asked what do people who live in this area do for a living? She smiled and explained that all there was to do in northern Nevada was work in a mine, or work a ranch. That seemed perfectly logical to me. The photo at the beginning of this blog is of downtown Winnemucca Nevada

One could see mine tailings every few miles up in the hills, I read that most of the nations silver comes from Nevada as well as gold, uranium, and copper. The high desert was beautiful, and stark and unforgiving, yet it has a romance that transcends the ordinary. The sky is so big and blue, the light in the morning and evening is at once brilliant and subdued, depending on the mountain topography.

We then sped out of Nevada, towards West Wendover Nevada. West Wendover is a small city on the edge of the Great Salt Lake Desert, home of the Bonneville salt flats in Utah. West Wendover is the sister city to plain old Wendover Utah. West Wendover is thriving due to low taxes, loose liquor laws, and gambling, while the Utah side has nothing to offer and withers in the parched landscape. In the course of my research I discovered that the residents of these twin cities wish to join up and be in Nevada, and both state legislatures agreed to the deal, however it takes an act of congress to change state lines and we all know how that goes. Thus the Wendovers remain forever twain, one sister healthy the other dying a slow death.

As darkness fell, we found ourselves barreling across the salt flats, nothing much to see or look at, but still pretty cool, just he countless acres of nothingness held a sort of beauty. We rolled into Salt Lake City near 10pm only to find that we had crossed a time zone in the meantime and it was really 11PM. The air in Salt Lake stinks, it is a vile cross between cow shit and swamp gas that frankly shriveled the hair in my nose.

The hotel in Salt Lake was near the airport, and it was nice enough. Both Jeff and I being warm blooded men, know that hotels have the best air conditioning in the world. The first thing I did when I got to the room was crank up the AC. I slept like a log, in my ice cold room in Utah.

I could write more about the trip, but frankly it wasnt that remarkable. I found I loved Wyoming even though there is nothing there. I decided Nebraska sucked ass. Iowa was just non nondescript and by the time we were in Illinois I felt as though I was back home and the ride was a bit boring. The beds in the hotel rooms got worse as we drove east, by the time we got to Indianapolis the beds were hard and lumpy. Each night as we approached the city where we planned to stay the night, I would get hopeful that it would be early enough to find a bar or lounge and catch a buzz, I mean I was on vacation and all. However, each night we had just crossed a time zone and it was too late to do anything. Damn time zones.
I didnt get a chance to view the locals, didnt drink with road weary travelers or hear their stories. I didnt even see anything bizarre as we stayed in name brand hotels and didnt veer off the standard, interstate path.

The most precious part of the trip was time spent with my friend Jeff, I miss him when the years go by and we do not see each other. He is a good man, and I would drive to Mars with him if he asked me to. Mars couldnt be much different than Nevada, mining and ranching.

SLF 5-25-07