My Cross Country Trip, part 2
Sunday, July 17th
We woke up and began to look for Carolyn's ID. She checked the car while I looked for the phone number of that Super 8 from the night before. No luck. She wanted to go back and check at the motel and I refused. I seriously doubted that it was there b/ it was the only thing missing from her wallet. Besides, if it turned up, they had her number and they could mail it to us.
Onward. As we left Elko, NV, there were many a phone call. Lisa used my AAA magazines and went camping up in Gurneville. Nice area. Heather worked at their elementary school, which was surrounded by the river. Grandma Barbara says that her parents used to take her up there to go swimming in the river and for the fresh fruit of the area during the summer... Anyway, I'm glad that she put the magazines to use. Lots of interesting stuff in those Vias.
As for Carolyn, her parents found her birth certificate and her Social Security card to be her two forms of government ID needed to get on the plane in Chicago. Andre, her roommate, found her San Jose State ID card. He sent that to us so she'd have a photo ID. I told Carolyn that if the airport objects, just tell them that the ID was issued by the state of CA and therefore a government ID.
Nevada is fairly bland, but pretty in its own right. That's how I felt about all the states that Carolyn thought were boring or lacking interest and variety. Nevada is dry and flat and surrounded by mtns. A casino or two in every town with hotels (usually in the hotel). Colors are orangey-red, sage, grey, green, and that greyish-purpleish. Not many developments, but that is to be expected. Grasses, bushes, a few trees, and giant bugs.
As we crossed into Utah, it, too, was a dramatic transformation. You could see the stateline as well as the transformation between CA and NV. It went from NV to bright white salt flats. On either side of the highway was nothing but sand/salt. On the side of the road, people wrote messages in rocks, but I couldn't really read them. We would have been needing a truck or something to be higher off the ground. I'll always have the visual of UT as being on my left side while I was driving. It was the bright white salt flat running as far as the horizon. There were some lingering mtns that looked that dark purple, and the sky didn't have a cloud. It was bright, bright, bright blue. Almost the color of an Internet Explorer tool bar. It was BLUE. No picture, though, b/ Carolyn couldn't get a good shot w/ me in the way.
Outside of Salt Lake City, we stopped for a snack at Burger King. We chatted it up with the cashier who saw that we were from CA b/of my ID in my wallet. Kinda scary, chickie, b/ there's just the edge showing... As it turns out, she's from Bakersfield. Went to school in Fresno and spent some time in LA b/of her husband's job. Carolyn told her that she was from the city and the cashier turned up her nose. She didn't really like it in LA or SF and that she liked living in UT near her husband's family. She didn't like SF b/of all the DIVERSITY. Carolyn and I looked at each other and then back at her. What did she mean? Well, we knew. Um, no we did not. Realizing that she sounded like a racist, she tried to amend herself by saying that it really was all the gays in SF. She just thought it was disgusting and awful to see to men kissing in the middle of public. At that point, we all realized that the conversation was over. Carolyn and I politely said good-bye and then laughed as we found our seats.
Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore....
Kathy lives in a beautiful home. Freshly built a few years ago. She's in a housing division that is surrounded by farming fields. From her back windows, she has an awesome view of everything around her - all the way over to Lake Utah (I think that's the name of the lake). Both her and Mark hope that the new housing that is set to go in beneath them don't ruin the view too much. I hope so too. Carolyn played with the kids and I chatted with Kathy and Mark as he made dinner. That evening, we watched "Madagascar" with the kids and had fajitas for dinner. Later, us girls stayed up to watch "War of the Worlds". Not my favorite movie. Lots of action and not much story. I guess I had different expectations b/ I've never read the book. Lots of death and destruction and not much else.
Somewhere in all this activity, Krishneel called me. This is when I found out that I'd made the right decision about backtracking through San Leandro on Saturday. He says that the accident had happened early that morning and that a truck with a trailer had caught on fire in the center divide. The news reported that the flames were 7 ft in the air. Some of the fire hit oncoming traffic and 3 people died. Hence, the freeway closure. Can you imagine? What an awful story. No wonder why traffic was so bad!
Monday, July 18th
We slept in as Kathy took the kids to swim lessons. We then went out to lunch at Sonic's. I was in 7th heaven with my medium sized strawberry limeade. I would have gotten a large one, but that would have been waaaaay too much. We left town around 1230pm and drove into Wyoming. The border of these two states was also dramatic. The mtns of UT were rocky and full of trees. The rocks were very red and white and the trees were dark green. Purty. WY, in contrast, turned brown and dead-like.
WY has a lot of plateaus (is that the correct spelling?) and hills. It is mostly dirt and brush. The dark colors of UT had faded into a bunch of pastels - mint, blue, peach, grey-brown. There were no farms and no animals from what we could tell driving along 80E. There were these strange fences throughout, though. What for?? They were tall, made of wood (possibly), and didn't connect to themselves or the fences along the highway. We took pictures to investigate further.
As it turns out, a few days later, Uncle Ed told me that they were for the wind. They helped to break up the wind as it whipped across the land. OK. Interesting.
We arrived in Cheyenne around 830pm. Both of us felt a little "sun kissed", but not fully sunburned. We vowed to double the sunblock efforts during tomorrow's drive.
Tuesday, July 19th
Neither of us woke up feeling too well rested. Our hotel happened to be near some train tracks. The trains ran about every hour ALL NIGHT LONG. Not only did they drive by, but they'd honk twenty million times as they drove past. Why? There was also another horn throughout the night that sounded like a fog horn. Do they have those in other places besides the coast?
We drove on to Des Moines, IA. The rest of WY was still boring. It was waaaay more boring than NV or UT. Just ask Carolyn. :>)
Nebraska was a rush of life. Dramatic border changes, people. It was GREEN. Green, green, green. It looked farm-like. It had lots of corn fields and it was flatter than WY. This is where the country's corn supply starts and it doesn't end until about New York state (along 90E, that is). Lots and lots of corn. Carolyn soon got bored with the greenness, flatness, and the corn. I thought it was nice. Different than suburbia. I think that Carolyn is just too much of a city girl to ever consider living elsewhere...
We drove on to Iowa. It still had a bunch of farms, but it felt more country-like. Carolyn called it "quaint". There were more flowers along the highway, and therefore, color. It was more hilly and there were a ton more trees. They grow a lot of corn and "green stuff". They were short, dark green, leafy plants. We took a picture to ask about them later.
As it turns out, the mystery plant is soybean. This country lives off corn and soybean. Corn for the ethanol in gasoline (thus unleaded plus is cheaper than unleaded in IA) and soybean for all the soy we put in all our food.
Our hotel was next to the airport. Ok. I suck at getting cheap hotels, people. It didn't look that close to it on the map! We were directly under the flightpath of the planes. They could land on us b/ they were flying so low. But, the good news is that the trains in Cheyenne, WY were worse. The planes stoped running about midnight, so we got some good rest for a few hours.
A local later told us that there was major construction going on at the airport to fix the main runways that run north & south. So, in the meantime, the planes were going to land on our hotel b/ they were using the secondary, shorter runways that ran northeast & southwest.
We woke up and began to look for Carolyn's ID. She checked the car while I looked for the phone number of that Super 8 from the night before. No luck. She wanted to go back and check at the motel and I refused. I seriously doubted that it was there b/ it was the only thing missing from her wallet. Besides, if it turned up, they had her number and they could mail it to us.
Onward. As we left Elko, NV, there were many a phone call. Lisa used my AAA magazines and went camping up in Gurneville. Nice area. Heather worked at their elementary school, which was surrounded by the river. Grandma Barbara says that her parents used to take her up there to go swimming in the river and for the fresh fruit of the area during the summer... Anyway, I'm glad that she put the magazines to use. Lots of interesting stuff in those Vias.
As for Carolyn, her parents found her birth certificate and her Social Security card to be her two forms of government ID needed to get on the plane in Chicago. Andre, her roommate, found her San Jose State ID card. He sent that to us so she'd have a photo ID. I told Carolyn that if the airport objects, just tell them that the ID was issued by the state of CA and therefore a government ID.
Nevada is fairly bland, but pretty in its own right. That's how I felt about all the states that Carolyn thought were boring or lacking interest and variety. Nevada is dry and flat and surrounded by mtns. A casino or two in every town with hotels (usually in the hotel). Colors are orangey-red, sage, grey, green, and that greyish-purpleish. Not many developments, but that is to be expected. Grasses, bushes, a few trees, and giant bugs.
As we crossed into Utah, it, too, was a dramatic transformation. You could see the stateline as well as the transformation between CA and NV. It went from NV to bright white salt flats. On either side of the highway was nothing but sand/salt. On the side of the road, people wrote messages in rocks, but I couldn't really read them. We would have been needing a truck or something to be higher off the ground. I'll always have the visual of UT as being on my left side while I was driving. It was the bright white salt flat running as far as the horizon. There were some lingering mtns that looked that dark purple, and the sky didn't have a cloud. It was bright, bright, bright blue. Almost the color of an Internet Explorer tool bar. It was BLUE. No picture, though, b/ Carolyn couldn't get a good shot w/ me in the way.
Outside of Salt Lake City, we stopped for a snack at Burger King. We chatted it up with the cashier who saw that we were from CA b/of my ID in my wallet. Kinda scary, chickie, b/ there's just the edge showing... As it turns out, she's from Bakersfield. Went to school in Fresno and spent some time in LA b/of her husband's job. Carolyn told her that she was from the city and the cashier turned up her nose. She didn't really like it in LA or SF and that she liked living in UT near her husband's family. She didn't like SF b/of all the DIVERSITY. Carolyn and I looked at each other and then back at her. What did she mean? Well, we knew. Um, no we did not. Realizing that she sounded like a racist, she tried to amend herself by saying that it really was all the gays in SF. She just thought it was disgusting and awful to see to men kissing in the middle of public. At that point, we all realized that the conversation was over. Carolyn and I politely said good-bye and then laughed as we found our seats.
Dorothy, we're not in Kansas anymore....
Kathy lives in a beautiful home. Freshly built a few years ago. She's in a housing division that is surrounded by farming fields. From her back windows, she has an awesome view of everything around her - all the way over to Lake Utah (I think that's the name of the lake). Both her and Mark hope that the new housing that is set to go in beneath them don't ruin the view too much. I hope so too. Carolyn played with the kids and I chatted with Kathy and Mark as he made dinner. That evening, we watched "Madagascar" with the kids and had fajitas for dinner. Later, us girls stayed up to watch "War of the Worlds". Not my favorite movie. Lots of action and not much story. I guess I had different expectations b/ I've never read the book. Lots of death and destruction and not much else.
Somewhere in all this activity, Krishneel called me. This is when I found out that I'd made the right decision about backtracking through San Leandro on Saturday. He says that the accident had happened early that morning and that a truck with a trailer had caught on fire in the center divide. The news reported that the flames were 7 ft in the air. Some of the fire hit oncoming traffic and 3 people died. Hence, the freeway closure. Can you imagine? What an awful story. No wonder why traffic was so bad!
Monday, July 18th
We slept in as Kathy took the kids to swim lessons. We then went out to lunch at Sonic's. I was in 7th heaven with my medium sized strawberry limeade. I would have gotten a large one, but that would have been waaaaay too much. We left town around 1230pm and drove into Wyoming. The border of these two states was also dramatic. The mtns of UT were rocky and full of trees. The rocks were very red and white and the trees were dark green. Purty. WY, in contrast, turned brown and dead-like.
WY has a lot of plateaus (is that the correct spelling?) and hills. It is mostly dirt and brush. The dark colors of UT had faded into a bunch of pastels - mint, blue, peach, grey-brown. There were no farms and no animals from what we could tell driving along 80E. There were these strange fences throughout, though. What for?? They were tall, made of wood (possibly), and didn't connect to themselves or the fences along the highway. We took pictures to investigate further.
As it turns out, a few days later, Uncle Ed told me that they were for the wind. They helped to break up the wind as it whipped across the land. OK. Interesting.
We arrived in Cheyenne around 830pm. Both of us felt a little "sun kissed", but not fully sunburned. We vowed to double the sunblock efforts during tomorrow's drive.
Tuesday, July 19th
Neither of us woke up feeling too well rested. Our hotel happened to be near some train tracks. The trains ran about every hour ALL NIGHT LONG. Not only did they drive by, but they'd honk twenty million times as they drove past. Why? There was also another horn throughout the night that sounded like a fog horn. Do they have those in other places besides the coast?
We drove on to Des Moines, IA. The rest of WY was still boring. It was waaaay more boring than NV or UT. Just ask Carolyn. :>)
Nebraska was a rush of life. Dramatic border changes, people. It was GREEN. Green, green, green. It looked farm-like. It had lots of corn fields and it was flatter than WY. This is where the country's corn supply starts and it doesn't end until about New York state (along 90E, that is). Lots and lots of corn. Carolyn soon got bored with the greenness, flatness, and the corn. I thought it was nice. Different than suburbia. I think that Carolyn is just too much of a city girl to ever consider living elsewhere...
We drove on to Iowa. It still had a bunch of farms, but it felt more country-like. Carolyn called it "quaint". There were more flowers along the highway, and therefore, color. It was more hilly and there were a ton more trees. They grow a lot of corn and "green stuff". They were short, dark green, leafy plants. We took a picture to ask about them later.
As it turns out, the mystery plant is soybean. This country lives off corn and soybean. Corn for the ethanol in gasoline (thus unleaded plus is cheaper than unleaded in IA) and soybean for all the soy we put in all our food.
Our hotel was next to the airport. Ok. I suck at getting cheap hotels, people. It didn't look that close to it on the map! We were directly under the flightpath of the planes. They could land on us b/ they were flying so low. But, the good news is that the trains in Cheyenne, WY were worse. The planes stoped running about midnight, so we got some good rest for a few hours.
A local later told us that there was major construction going on at the airport to fix the main runways that run north & south. So, in the meantime, the planes were going to land on our hotel b/ they were using the secondary, shorter runways that ran northeast & southwest.
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