Contemplating a long drive? My family and I have driven all the way across America. Twice. For travel tips, click here.
Mileage: 437
Total mileage: 2695
Today’s time in car: 6 hours 5 minutes
Starting from: Cheyenne, Wyoming
Ending in: Salt Lake City, Utah
States visited: Wyoming, Utah
Today’s boredom buster: picking up a cuddly hitchhiker at a truck stop store
Mood: bored, then energized
Today was just a whole lot of driving.
Here are the highlights:
• People in Wyoming wear these. In their honor, I am using lots of bullets today.
• We saw real mountains again. Sorry Pennsylvania, what you call mountains just don’t cut it.
• We crossed the continental divide. Now all the rivers run west toward the Pacific. Just like us.
• I finished “The Thirteenth Tale” and loved it. When I get a chance, I’ll give it five stars on goodreads.
• We are back in familiar territory. I must have ridden along on the drive from Utah to Oregon at least 25 times. At least. I found myself getting excited, thinking “We’re almost there!” Then I remembered that we still have thirteen hours of driving to go.
When we got to Salt Lake, we checked into our hotel and then walked over to the Joseph Smith Memorial building for dinner at the Garden Room, where as an appetizer we enjoyed deep-fried pickles. They were actually quite good.
Here’s how I knew we were really in Utah:
• A random man on the elevator quoted an LDS (Mormon) General Authority (leadership in the LDS church) to us.
• We saw lots of women in really long skirts.
• The man at the table next to us at dinner was talking about how a difficult project at work compares to stories in the Book of Mormon.
• I heard a woman saying how she “loves a good dill”. I thought ‘pickle?’ but she was referring to shopping (deal).
After dinner we enjoyed a good swim in the hotel pool. Abby made shy friends with two little girls. They played Marco-Poolo with us (more fun to say than Polo). Later, we ran into them at the elevator and they both gave Abby hugs. She felt so good about herself and her ability to make friends at her new school.
Tomorrow: Museum of Mormon History and Art, visiting with family, more driving
