Salt Lake City - 23rd March

Always sad to say our goodbyes to Amy and Steve. Everybody who knows me knows how much I love it here in CC.

It's just a tad over 400 k' from Cedar City to Salt Lake City. Rayls drove whilst I did the hard work of keeping the music playing and keeping a tally of the Walmart trucks. We made a stop at Draper which is about 60 K's short of SLC. Rayls checked out the quilt shop which is either called Thimbles and Threads or Quilters Lodge. The sign out the front says the former, they welcome you inside as the latter. It is a goodie as Rayls was here well over an hour.

The drive between CC and SLC is very scenic - the mountains are at your side the entire way and are often snow capped, The speed limit is 80mph, so it's fast going.

After Draper we headed to Gardner Village. Brick-lined paths and 22 boutique-style, locally-owned shops surrounding the historic Gardner Mill. It is a sensational setting and I had a good time wandering around as Rayls checked out Pine Needles, a quilt shop. I love it here, it was around 15C, the sun was shining and the water in the stream is crystal clear. None of the shops interested me but the setting is just great. Rayls enjoyed the quilt shop and then we were on our way.

It was dinner time and the GPS was set for a Texas Roadhouse which was packed. There was a waiting time of an hour and half so we continued on towards a Black Bear Diner near the hotel but we stumbled across a Cracker Barrel restaurant and that was where we had dinner.

It was just dark as we arrived at our hotel - 420 K's from CC. Good day and tomorrow we head back into Nevada.

Elko - 24th March

330 K's today, Salt Lake City to Elko in Nevada.

Lots of salt lakes either side of the road as you start out on I80 towards San Francisco. 

We stopped at a Maccas for breakfast (it was nearly midday) - overheard one of the staff talking about the 3 jobs he juggled. One of them was picking up road kill from the side of the road. Nice!.

Rayls is still doing all the driving, I'm still 2 days from being able to drive.

Elko is an exciting place. It has been the home of the annual National Cowboy Poetry Gathering for the last 33 years. Luckily its in January so we missed it. Elko is also home to legal prostitutes and contains active brothels. Under Nevada law, any county with a population of less than 400,000 is allowed to license brothels if it so chooses.

Just before dinner we called in at a K Mart, dreadful store but it had a casino. Amazing.

Very disappointed about the news from Cricket Australia. No room for cheating.

Tomorrow on to Reno.

Reno - 25th March

A long day driving. Years ago we could do 700, even 800+ in a day but the 460K we did today was tough. Nice scenery, light traffic but still tough. However we are getting closer to our goal of reaching the redwood forests north of San Francisco.

We stopped at Winnemucca for a look see. Nice town. Then onto Reno. We passed the town of Lovelock which has a correctional facility which housed OJ Simpson until November last year. 

Reno is pretty much a smaller version of Vegas. Not much for us here but we sure had a nice dinner at the Texas Roadhouse. We were in bed early and even I managed s decent sleep. We are still at altitude, nearly 5000 feet which seems to play havoc with sleep patterns. Tomorrows drive to Red Bluff is just 320 K's but takes us 4500 feet downhill back to sea level.

I keep looking at the news outlets hoping all the cricket disaster was just a bad dream but alas no. Disappointed does not even come close to expressing how Rayls and I feel. It has kept the conversation going though.

Tomorrow my sling can come off and I can start to drive a bit!

Red Bluff - 26th March

320 K's today, Reno to Red Bluff, very scenic and I drove the entire way! Lake Almanor was a particular bonus. 

Red Bluff is bisected by Interstate 5 and is situated on the banks of the upper Sacramento River. Interstate 5 runs from San Diego north to Seattle and the Canadian border.

In the evening we went to a movie - "I Can Only Imagine". The story line looked interesting and it was a very good movie. Only problem was that it was religious based and the large church group that were there sang along and waved their arms to the two songs that were in the movie. Never had that happen at a movie I've been to before.