Today we drove from Green River, UT to Meridian, ID. Much of the drive was through the deserts of Utah, Nevada, and Idaho. It was interesting at first, but once you've seen the brown hills and desert for a while, it kinda gets old. There were a few interesting things, however.
We drove through some interesting canyons between Price and Provo, UT
Sarah took a few photos of downtown Salt Lake City as we drove through, but it was a little difficult because of the traffic and walls along the freeway. Here's the best one. It's a little hazy mostly because of wildfires that are burning in the southern part of the state.
Next we turned west and drove along the south part of the Great Salt Lake where we saw a salt factory/mine. If you look closely, you can see the logo of a girl in dress with an umbrella. Most of you should be able to figure it out from the description, if not...click here.
While driving across the salt flats, we saw an art installation called the Tree of Utah, or sometimes, the Tree of Life. There is no good place to pull over to take a decent picture, so Sarah shot a bunch from the car as I slowed down to about 65 MPH (the speed limit in these parts is usually 75, and I didn't want to get run over). Here are two of those photos. Photo 1, Photo 2.
The next thing we saw in the salt flats was a rest area with a historical marker talking about the Bonneville Race Track on the salt flats, and an area where you can walk out on them. It is actually all salt, I still have some on my sandals, and it's a bit damp, probably because the salt sucks all the moisture out of the air. If you don't know any better though, it just looks like a giant snow covered cornfield to me.
After the salt flats, we come to Wendover, UT and West Wendover, NV that have a somewhat interesting story with regards to legalized gambling on one side, and not the other. In West Wendover, in amongst the casinos, there is this historical marker commemorating the first atomic bombardment near the town.
At the northern Nevada border with Idaho, there is a town called Jackpot, NV. I didn't post the photo, since none of them turned out real well, but it also has an interesting story. In a town of about 1500 residents, with four smallish casinos, they have some pretty big name acts...Willie Nelson is playing there this evening.
We drove through Twin Falls, ID, which has some very interesting falls...apparently taller than Niagra, but we didn't have time to stop and take a look today, we're actually staying there one evening on the way back, and we've included time to stop and look...and of course, take pictures.
Eventually we got into Meridian, ID after passing downtown Boise, ID, home of Boise State University, famous for their blue astroturf football field, and their undefeated football team finishing with an exciting overtime victory of the University of Oklahoma in the 2007 Fiesta Bowl.
Meridian is a suburb of Boise, just to the west, and the location of our hotel. Most of the ones we are staying in are Holiday Inn Express hotels, but this time it worked out to be cheaper to stay at a Candlewood Suites...Holiday Inn's step up properties from the Holiday Inn Express line, and I must say that I'm impressed. Too bad we're only going to be here for about 12 hours.
Oh well, tomorrow it's on to Oregon. We only have a 6.5 hour drive tomorrow (vs 10 hours today), so we have plenty of time to see the Columbia River, hop over to Washington for a bit, and see Multnomah Falls (for those of you who have seen my laptop's screen, it's been my wallpaper for a while...if you haven't, click here). We should have some great photos tomorrow. G'nite.
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