After driving 8 hours, we checked in late to an B&B. It was a nice house, but we did not explore it as we were very exhausted and sleepy. I cooked some veg soup and shared some with David, then went to bed.
In the morning, our host cooked the most delicious breakfast for us. Home made whole wheat bread is my favorite. I love the scrambled eggs from their back yard chickens. Coffee is pretty good too. Lucky! A great B&B.
Mormon TempleOrgan and podium in the Tabernacle building
Mormon temple, Salt Lake City
As out host suggested, we went to the center of Mormon religion, the temple at downtown of Salt Lake City.
There are amazingly recruited beautiful girls from different countries to be volunteers providing tourists free guided tours. They are from Thailand, Taiwan, Columbia….
After the tour, we started our trip to west Yellowstone. It was raining, so not much to say.
-Yanmei
Another 3 state day
One thing I found interesting in the Mormon buildings is the pews and other wooden parts are made of white pine, but they wanted it to look like oak, so they painted wood grain lines. They are remarkably well done, especially considering they were done by the original settlers in the 1870s.
Hand painted to look like oak
After Salt Lake City we headed North towards Idaho. Yanmei was taking a turn driving so it was my job to take a picture of the Welcome to Idaho sign, but I wasn't paying attention, so I failed.
Fail
Idaho definitely had more signs of life than most of Nevada and Utah. There were farms all along the road. By the way I forgot to mention one of the great things about Utah: 80 mph speed limit on their highways! Idaho has the same limit, so we were able to make pretty good time, although they had a lot of construction zones.
Eventually we crossed into Montana as we approached West Yellowstone. The forecast was for a thunderstorm. We didn't hear any thunder, but it rained fairly heavily for a while. Hopefully it will clear up by tomorrow when we go to Yellowstone National Park.
Since we had a long day planned, Yanmei suggested we start early. It sounded good to me, but I was skeptical about her because it was hard to get her out of bed by 10am yesterday, she's still a bit jet lagged from China. But she was up at 6:30am, traveling really energizes her. When I checked the weather I was shocked to see it was freezing (literally, it was 32F). I guess it cools off a lot at night at higher altitudes.
We went to the breakfast buffet when it opened at 7am, and had a big breakfast for the road. We hit the road at about 8:15am, and it had already warmed up to a nice 55F. I drove the first leg, about 1 hour the the Reno supercharger. I should have guessed, knowing Nevada, the charger was in the parking lot of the Atlantis casino, so you could play some blackjack or slots while waiting for your car to charge.
I didn't do that, but I did go inside to find the sundry shop, because both Yanmei and I forgot to bring toothpaste, or rather we each assumed the other would bring it.
Inside Atlantis casino
After that it was Yanmei's turn to drive. She drove from Reno to Lovelock.
Yanmei with her driving gloves. If you look closely she's cruising at 85mph.
Since this is a road trip it needs some pictures of the road.
We also saw a dust spout.
We took turns driving, until finally we got to a town called West Wendover, which is on the border between Nevada and Utah. As we crested the hill and got our first look down into Utah we saw a huge salt flat. It seems like the border was drawn along the edge, the Nevada side has scrub and rocks, the Utah side salt flats.
After a long day we finally arrived in Tooele, Utah where Yanmei had booked us an Airbnb. Tooele is about 25 minutes from Salt Lake City, so our plan is to go there tomorrow morning and have a look around.
-David
California-Nevada-Utah
We had a long day today. We started from the border between California to Nevada to the east, crossed Nevada, finally arrived to Salt Lake City, UT.
3 words make me think about Nevada: gambling+silver rush +desolation
On our way cross Nevada, we saw a couple of signs like “Prison area, hitchhiking prohibited”. Also, we saw a group of cars on the other side with blinking lights on. What was it? We guess that must be cars carrying prisoners. What do you think?
Driving 6 hours at Nevada, we both realized this state is very special. First, We saw Casinos everywhere, even in a Food Mart, a small supermarket at gas station, they have several gambling machines there.
Looking at the landscape besides freeway, I asked David what is the word he is going to describe it. He told me “desolate”. “Is it like the combination of desert and isolation? “”Probably”. It is great to keep prisoners as it is hard for them to escape. No trees, no residents, no where to hide. But Nevada has a lot minerals, we saw some factories beside the road.
It's not as ambitious as our around the world trip from last year, but this summer we are driving across the United States to my cottage on Lake Huron in Ontario. We're taking the Tesla, which is very comfortable and easy to drive, but it means we have to take a route where we can charge easily.
For the first leg we decided to take it easy and only go from Walnut Creek to Lake Tahoe. We got started fairly late, but since it is Sunday the traffic towards Tahoe is light while the traffic coming back is heavy. Once we got past Sacramento, we stopped at the Roseville supercharger for a bathroom break, although we didn't really need to charge yet, we needed the bathroom break, so we charged up while we were there.
If you're not familiar with Teslas, there is a network of supercharging stations which Tesla owners can use for free (technically you paid for it in the price of the car), and they charge up to 10 times faster than a normal high power plug, meaning it can recharge the car in less than an hour. Normally the superchargers are placed near some restaurants, shops, etc. so you have something to do while it is charging.
Anyway the Roseville supercharger is in the parking lot of a giant mall. We went inside to use the restrooms. Yanmei found a Panda Express in the food court so we decided to have that for lunch :).
Truckee supercharger
After that we continued on towards Tahoe, up and over the Donner pass to the Truckee supercharger. Going up mountains uses a lot more juice than driving on flat ground, and I believe the peak elevation we made it to was 7227 feet above sea level. One nice thing about the Tesla is it doesn't lose horsepower at altitude like a gas engine does.
Truckee is just a bit north of Lake Tahoe, so after charging up a bit we headed south towards our destination for the day. We'd booked a room at a hotel in South Lake Tahoe, so we got a scenic drive along the lake shore.
We stopped a couple of times for pictures. The lake was an incredible shade of blue. Yanmei kept exclaiming “It looks fake!”
Finally we crossed into Nevada!
Then we crossed back into California in South Lake Tahoe, by a few feet at least. Our hotel is on the California side of the street, if we walk across the street it is Nevada and there is a Harrah's hotel and casino there.
That's it for today. Tomorrow our goal is more ambitious, we want to get all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah.
-David
Honey, let's rock
Today, we finally started our road trip to East Canada after several days' discussion. Originally, I refused to start our trip this early as I still have some jet lag from my previous trip to China. However, David has stayed at home alone for 2 weeks and he can not wait to see his family there. I am glad we both made compromise and we decided to leave today. Sometimes, not for the first time, I feel we are really a good couple who are good at dealing differences and making compromise.
Sorry, I got lost
At lunch time, we arrived to a Tesla supercharger. It takes about one hour to recharge Tesla to full, so we walked into a shopping mall and tried to find a restroom and the food court to have lunch. The mall is very nice but crowded, even hard to hear clearly from David. He suddenly told me to separate and he wanted to buy “pencil”. I did not ask what it is, just agreed, then I went to find a restroom.
After a couple of minutes, I realized the sign was wrong but I found the bathroom after asking a couple of people.As David follows signs and never others, I need to tell him about it. I called him but he did not pick up the phone. Anyway, I went to bathroom and found Panda Express. I was worried about David. He suddenly called me but I could not hear him at all as it is noisy there. Finally after separating 20 minutes, we met again and he he told me he was lost and he walked the bathroom far far away to the food court, where there was another bathroom.
“We should not separate in a noisy mall we both not familiar with”, I realized,”Where did you go?”, “I went to buy a pretzel” he said…
I found David was a little bit frustrated and I told him getting lost made him feel bad emotionally but actually good for him physically, it might be helpful for his goal of walking 10,000 steps everyday:)
We finally made it to Lake Tahoe. Tomorrow I will drive more.
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