Utah!

I saw Utah with an exclamation point on a license plate and loved it. It's got pizzazz! As the recurring theme of our trip, we were pleasantly surprised by Utah. Everyone we met was super nice and the landscape was quite pretty. I wasn't a fan of eastern Utah so much (very sparse and dry) but Park City was gorgeous. We started our day in Park City with breakfast on an outdoor patio; the weather was perfect. Then we hit yet another Best Buy to exchange our camera and equipment. The pictures are already better, though I'm still getting used to the new lenses. Then we stopped at the Great Salt Lake, which I've always wanted to see.

The Great Salt Lake

It's much bigger than I expected and much less calm. I don't know why, but I anticipated a shallow, glassy lake and it was anything but. There were swimmers and sail boats, lots of birds, and plenty of small waves. It smelled like the ocean and felt kind of like being on the coast, just smaller.

Marshall at the Great Salt Lake 

Another odd landscape/weather phenomenon is the quick change between mountains and desert. I understand why one side of a mountain range gets more precipitation, but it's interesting to actually see it (in our case over and over again). One moment we're going through mountains covered in greenery and trees, and the next moment driving through the desert. So after the cool weather and lush Park City landscape, we were back in the desert:

But there was one major treat in store in the middle of Utah: the Bonneville Speedway! It was truly like being on another planet. I though Death Valley was weird, but I think the salt flats beat it out. The salt flats seemed to go on forever, and were quiet and eerie. There were plenty of people driving around but no one even got close to each other. Marshall and I took turns driving the Tahoe really fast (and got it on film). Marshall will post the videos soon. It was beyond exhilirating! Marshall had to keep telling me to slow down that afternoon. :)

On the Bonneville Salt Flats

Then we saw some wild horses on our drive into Nevada. Which was pretty much awesome!

Wild horses. I never thought I'd see that.

(We saw more prairie dogs too, but they were too quick for pictures).

We stayed for the night in Ely, Nevada (pronounced Ellie). It is an old mining town and still feels like the old west. Very old, small, a few casinos and bars, in the middle of nowhere; we actually saw the Pony Express Trail on the way into town. We ended up at the historic Hotel Nevada, which is really a kitschy casino hotel, but it had good reviews and we took a chance. We got one of the last rooms: the John Schneider Suite. I kid you not. Here is evidence of our room:

It ended up being a great place to stay, though the casinos made us kind of sad. They didn't have the joie de vive of Vegas or Lake Tahoe, so we skipped gambling. Instead, we had dinner in the converted jail house across the street (our booth was in its own cell) and finished out the evening with some beer and table top shuffleboard.

On a random note, there were signs all over the hotel warning of the old pipes and rapidly fluxuating  shower temps. But that was the price of staying in the John Schneider room. :)