5/25/14 -- San Francisco to Salt Lake City

Dear Valerie,

Emily and I are currently working our way back east towards Denver (I bet you thought this letter would be from Emily, but this is Aidan writing). Today or tomorrow will be one of our longest days of driving, so preparing yourself for a thrilling letter filled with… well not a whole lot interesting really happened so I will try to add some flair to parts when I can.

In a pleasant change from our usual routine of packing up the tent and making breakfast on the propane stove, all we had to do this morning was check out! We took advantage of the complimentary coffee in our room and Emily took advantage of the complimentary coffee in the lobby. Maybe that is why we have had to make so many bathroom stops… As we checked out, the concierge asked us how many cookies we would like. Thinking that asking for a dozen might seem excessive, I paused to decide between two and four. Before I could answer, the man behind the desk asked me how far we were going. When I told him that we planned on driving to Salt Lake City, he immediately gave us four cookies and wished us luck on our journey.

Thankfully, the drive from San Francisco to Salt Lake City has fewer turns than a game of tic-tac-toe, we got on Interstate 80 and stayed on Interstate 80 for the rest of the day. After navigating onto this road, it was smooth sailing. As we drove over the Bay Bridge, we got one last glimpse of San Francisco before setting our sites on places east. We lucked out and did not have to pay a toll for crossing the bridge. Unfortunately, we did have to pay a toll at the next bridge. Traffic in the toll plaza was flowing slower than molasses in January in Boston (which isn’t really saying much since there was a terrible molasses flood in Boston way back when). Emily suggested that your solution to traffic would be an impromptu dance party, but this did not take place… Traffic on the other side of the toll plaza was not bad at all.

Leaving the Bay area!

As we drove east, the road rose towards Tahoe and Reno, and I consumed the first of many of the Double Tree’s famous chocolate cookies. We stopped for gas outside of Sacramento. Breakfast at the Del Taco seemed like less than an ideal solution so we continued on. The drive actually became somewhat pretty as we climbed towards Lake Tahoe. We stopped again, this time to empty our tanks rather than fill them, near the Donner Pass. This is near the location where the Donner Party turned to cannibalism in an attempt to survive the winter. I don’t remember whether they made it or not… The further we got into the mountains, the fewer radio stations were available. Pretty soon it was a Sunday morning sermon, a country station, or NPR fading in and out. We chose to listen to NPR as it aired Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. This is one of my favorite radio shows.

Once across the Sierras, we descended into Nevada. I think that not stopping for all we could eat pancakes for $2.99 in a casino in Reno would be my second biggest regret of the trip (my first would be failing to bring inner tubes to Zion and Yosemite National Parks). We chose instead to stop in Sparks, a Reno suburb, in hopes of finding someplace for a quick lunch. We found a large shopping center with too much traffic that looked very promising but didn’t have a single fast or quick food place open. There was a storefront with a Qdoba sign, but the interior was nowhere near finished. We settled for a lunch at Target, which consisted of a prepared ham sandwich and a walnut-cranberry-chicken salad. While this made for a hodge-podge lunch, it did provide a wonderful opportunity for another pint of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream! 

With Emily driving, it was my turn to see if I could stab her in the mouth while attempting to feed her (Emily had gotten me pretty good with a spork on the road outside of Vegas). I wasn’t as successful as she was. We managed to finish lunch as we continued east, being sure not to try to eat while passing semi-trucks on the highway.

We kept swapping driving duties as we crossed the nearly empty state of Nevada.  The roads here are quite boring. Flat and straight.  You could drive for miles and not even know you ever left the road. About half way across the state and in a lonely spot of cell service, we alerted my friend of our estimated arrival around 9 o’clock to Ogden. This wasn’t far off.

I got the joy of driving from Elko, Nevada to Ogden, Utah. When I crossed into Utah, I took advantage of the new 80 mile per hour speed limit. This was a mistake as I-80 goes down hill right across the border. The state patroller did not take kindly to my decision to go 89 down the hill… I saw him whip a u-turn in the rear-view mirror and told Emily to put down the corny joke book. For some reason, I don’t think he would take kindly to us asking where a penguin stores his money, or where cows go on dates (the snow bank and the moooovies). Thankfully, after some creative rounding (“89 is close to 90 and that is way too close to 100”) and a warning that they don’t give two warnings, I was let off with a warning.

I don’t know what the Mormon’s must’ve thought when they reached the promised land of Utah, but to me it looked like a whole lot of flat nothing. The most exciting thing west of the Great Salt Lake was honestly this obscure sculpture tower thing. As we got closer to the lake, it began to rain bugs (or maybe it was manna from heaven… – the windshield was a mess). We passed the Morton’s Salt Factory as we rounded the lake.

Salt Flats

Strange tower thing

Aidan driving the exact speed limit

Manna...?

The Morton Salt Factory!

Great Salt Lake

A beautiful sunset!

With the sun setting behind us, the lake didn’t look half bad, but the smell was quite terrible. I should’ve realized that a salt lake would probably smell a bit fishy… Unfortunately we were too tired to see the sights in Salt Lake City, such as the Mormon Temple. We were thankful to turn off I-80 and head north on Interstate 15 towards Odgen and sleep. We pulled up to my friend Troy’s apartment right on time.

Somehow Emily got the apartment number wrong but the giant Colorado flag clued me in. I am looking forward to seeing you for more road trip fun north to Montana.

Your sorta friend, more of an acquaintance,

Aidan