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Our adventure began late in the afternoon of July 30, 1999. The boys left Mountain View, CA (which does not have a view of any mountains, by the way) for Reno NV. As you can see, mixed emotions gripped our heros as they left Mom & Wife and headed off for adventure. (Left to right: Caleb, Glenn, Jacob)
Our trip over Donner Pass went quite smoothly. The original Donner Party did not have such good fortune. Maybe it's because they were headed West instead of East? We got into Reno late Friday night...
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Here we see our young heros in the parking lot of the Reno Holiday Inn (our first & last Holiday Inn of the road trip). Two things of note in this picture (Click on the pic for a closer view). One, notice that there appears to be a giant spider on top of the building behind the boys. It's a sculpture on top of an auto repair shop, and the body of the spider is an actual VW Beetle! Pretty cool! Also take note of the mouse in Caleb's hands. He will be involved in an adventure of his own in just a few days! Stay tuned!
We spent the day on Interstate 80 crossing the Great Basin. There is lots of empty space, dotted with truck stops and exits that say "no services". It's beautiful country -- not a sandy desert but a high chapparal. The land was filled with striking rock formations, and the sky with striking cloud formations.
Glenn's Road Trip Tips, Vol. ITo keep us all entertained, and to add to our spirit of adventure, we use Road Trip Music. We bring along lots of CDs to listen to on the road, of course. One of these CDs is a special one that we only use during road trips. We listen to it a lot when we're on the road, and never when we aren't. Just the sound of this CD will now set the road-trippin' mood! Our road trip CD is the Sky Blue Catfish. You can choose your own, but this is the one I recommend. |
To some folks on the trip (I won't name names) even the strikingest of rock formations can get old after a few hours. Fortunately, we had Color Gameboys with brand new games.
Our first stop in Utah was at the Bonneville Salt Flats , the remains of an ancient salt lake , and the site where our friends the Dannenfelzers go to set land speed records. In the title picture for this page, you can see Caleb exploring one small arm of this vast salt plain. This is the first time in Caleb's life that he's got as much salt as he wants!
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Salt Lake City was not a destination for us on this trip, just a stopover point to get some sleep. There was an awful lot of freeway construction going on in SLC, but the city itself seemed on the decline to me -- much of it looked run down and empty. Of course, we were just passing through. Maybe I missed the cool parts. One more thing of note -- as near as I can tell, every single street in Salt Lake City is seven lanes wide. All of them! Really.
Leaving SLC, I-80 goes up through canyons into the Rockies and heads for Wyoming. This was gorgeous, green country and quite a change from the deserts that had surrounded us so far. It was still hot, of course. Here we see the boys enjoying some cool refreshment at a gas station, our last stop in Utah.
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