Truckee (63) to Moab (66 – under 71)

Today’s drive to Elko was to be a big one so an early start was required, and thankfully everyone helped; we were away by around 8.35. I know 8.35 is not that early but I’m a little concerned about very early starts due to the road temp and the chance of ice, a slightly later starts gives the ice more of a chance to thaw, particularly assisted by traffic movement.

The first hour or so of driving was downhill most of the way to Reno, very easy driving despite some foggy patches and the declines weren’t too steep. We’d heard Reno had been built by income from casinos and that was obvious as we passed by – quite unattractive multi storey casinos galore on both sides of the road.

Highway 95 turned out to be not much of a challenge at all other than the potential for boredom, and Homer’s display was a reminder of just how far in both time and distance I needed to concentrate before I was required to turn or listen to him – over 500 kms.

From time to time something popped up that was worth a photo, but it was a good day for the girls to do schoolwork. The highway across Nevada comprised both rolling hills and plains and was generally quite flat for the entire day. We passed some natural springs about 1 km from the side of the road and plenty of beautiful autumn coloured trees.

Something that I’ve not commented on but should is the number of casinos in the middle of absolutely nowhere. I have no idea where they their customers would come from – I’m talking about halfway across the Nullarbor stuff, well not really but it sure looks like it, no houses in sight for miles and miles. They must come from passing traffic I suppose.

We arrived in Elko around mid-afternoon, tired but not exhausted with ¾ of Nevada behind us and still plenty of time to relax before an overnight stay. We discovered the Elko campground was right beside a train track and level crossing and almost every hour throughout the night, very loud train horns were sounded as the trains neared the crossing, again as they crossed it, and it seemed one for luck when they were through to ensure that all around were as awake as the train driver.

Despite feeling quite jaded, we left reasonably early bound for Salt Lake City (65) and today’s driving time was expected to be about 2 hours less than yesterday’s. The road for the first 2 ½ hours was as flat as a pancake so we made good time and stopped at a rest area on a small hill for a coffee, toilet break and a photo of just how flat the road was behind us.

As we entered Utah we drove through a number of what could be best described as large hills rather than small mountains, but nothing excessively steep. Having described how little challenge the road was, we were surprised to come across an accident scene with a semi-trailer lying on its side adjacent to the highway.

Actually, we were very lucky because the traffic accident team were in the process of closing the road to use large tow trucks already at the scene to right the semi. Who knows how long we would have had to wait if we were 10 minutes later than we were.

I have no idea of precisely how many kilometres we travelled through salt lakes, but we drove for well over an hour, possibly 1 ½ hours averaging 60 mph (100kms). It wasn’t until we passed a turn off to the Bonneville Speedway that I started to pay more attention – if I’m not mistaken, it’s been the site for numerous world land speed records.

About the only thing I could do to break some of the driving boredom was to look at all the mirages on the road ahead and on both sides of our rig in the salt flats. Grace took a few photos to help relieve her boredom as well. At least some of the time was put to good use. Grace discovered that her camera could take photos with a panoramic view. Lots of fun was had by the girls and Grace experimenting with the new “find”.

We arrived at Salt Lake City around 1pm and although we were only staying one night, had time to disconnect and find a local Walmart to buy some school supplies for school projects. One reminder that we were in Utah, a Mormom state, was that we couldn’t buy wine in Walmart although beer was available.

The city’s appearance is very attractive and reminded us of a much larger version of Colorado Springs. There were many huge, snow capped mountains behind the city and they would look spectacular in winter with snow to ground level.

At various times in our planning, we were going to drive, then fly to the city to experience Xmas there: I’ve mentioned in a previous blog of our desire to have a white Xmas, but that may no longer happen this year because we’re yet to figure out what we need to do about our visas that expire on Feb 19th requiring us to fly out of the USA and return – if we were to do it though, this would be a great place.

After returning to the campground, we had time to give the Chev a much needed “tubs” in an adjacent car wash. Then, much to our disappointment we soon discovered we were again near a train line as we could hear the loud train whistles, not just disturbing the tranquillity, but completely devastating it! We had hoped to have a better night then the previous night, however it wasn’t to be.

Skiing is particularly popular here but as we’re not adept at skiing and broken limbs and sprained bits of the body seem hand-in-hand with the sport, I don’t think we should try that, particularly due to the cost of medical help as an alien in the USA. An example: I need to have a blood test every month for my INR level (more often if it goes out of the acceptable range) and a blood test that is free in Sydney is neither simple nor cheap here. I would have to check myself into a hospital ($800), pay for the test ($20), wait for the result then discharge myself; expected time, a full day. Hence I paid $1000 for a machine that will do the same thing before we left Sydney.

As we left Salt Lake City bound for Moab, suburbs with beautiful houses seemed to go on and on showing us the size of the city. In a way it felt similar to leaving the Sydney or Melbourne CBD and heading out, however for the entire journey until our turnoff (about 40 kms), dwarfing the houses on our left were large, rugged mountains with a sprinkling of snow.

Highway 191 heading SE was quite easy driving and the road soon lost contact with the mountains and became undulating hills. I’m still very happy to drive on roads that, despite being one lane each way, provide no challenge such as ice and snow and the travelling today was in great driving weather, blue skies and around 15°C.

Mountain ranges appeared again as we neared Moab, not the large, rugged, snow-capped kind but beautiful red, orange and white-coloured monoliths carved by nature into rounded shapes of all sizes. On the way into town, we passed turnoffs to the locations we intended to visit and were now very excited to see what they were like – the drive past was almost as if we were watching a preview of what we were soon to discover.

Our campground in Moab was on the south side of town that meant we needed to drive through the small town’s centre. Grace and I scoured the entire town for signs of railroad tracks...and found none!! Yay, we were to enjoy a much needed better night’s sleep. Our site was close to the entrance of the campground and only about 75 metres from the highway south, however truck noises can’t be compared to that of a train whistle. Just what the doctor ordered, a good night’s sleep and time to explore Moab and surrounds for the next few days.