Fit: Fully Loaded

10:02AM

Trevor's car is fully loaded, goodbyes have been said, and nearly two hours after our initial goal go time, we are off to Salt Lake City. The family Trevor stayed with had a really cool giant white dog; it took a lot of energy to supress my urge to knock it out and hide it in the back of the car to take home.

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11:28AM: Snow!

We are on/in the Rockies. It is currently snowing, as we have (according to Trevor) reached the highest elevation of the U.S. Interstate system: 11,013 feet. To Trevor's dismay and disgust, I missed the chance to take a picture of the sign telling us as much.

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2:39PM: Grand Junction - All Aboard!

Grand Juction! Doesn't Grand Junction sound like a railroad stop? Here we are at the information center, where we received some very helpful information on fooding and the best way to Salt Lake.

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4:27PM: No Country

No Country for... anything. Old Men, wild life, or development. They do, however, have an Arby's attached to a big rig gas station. We had to stop here 'cuz I had to pee. Welcome to the Utah desert, where nothing can be seen except for more desert stretching away from the interstate.

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8:25PM: Mmm, Salty

We have arrived at Salt Lake City and took up lodging at the motel with the largest and most colorful street display sign we could find. The rooms are actually pretty nice and according to Trevor's AAA Tourbook, it's the cheapest lodging available here in/near downtown. We can see (and are within walking distance) of Energy Solutions Arena, where the Utah Jazz play, which may or may not mean some midnight sabotage is in the cards. As I am writing this, sitting on the toilet, I can't help but notice the bathroom is especially clean and comes complete with three (well, two and a half) rolls of toilet paper. It's these details that make a person feel comfortable when they are away from home.

It's still early enough to go out and explore a little bit, but the concern over violent overzealous Mormons might keep us indoors and hooked on the TV. The only thing worst than driving ten hours a day is driving ten hours a day without enough sleep the night before. Retiring early would not be the worst idea -- we'll see what's om HBO first.

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11:53PM: Saviour!

After searching nearly two hours for food (one hour and twenty minutes of which was by foot), by pure luck we stumbled upon IHOP (a personal favorite) while searching for a third McDonald's. Starving for food and perilously close to getting dinner from a gas station mart, one could consider this a Godsend in Mormon country. It was not all a waste though, as we managed to get some really nice pictures of downtown as we walked through. I should mention we saw both John Stockton & Karl Malone Drives... yeah. The whole commercial district and a pretty cool outdoor mall was empty, but probably because we went through at 11pm on a Monday night. So much for waking up early tomorrow. Ah well, pancakes!