Confessions of a Hit and Run Tourist - Day Seventeen

[Riverbrian]

I have recently completed a solo 18 day road trip covering 8 ballparks, 9 games, 14 states, national parks, normal tourist traps and not so normal stops. My fairly new 2022 Kia Seltos had 6,400 miles on it before the trip and the journey tacked on 8,522 additional miles. Some of you may find this interesting and some may say what's the big deal, it's a crazy man with a torture filled vacation plan. I was encouraged to tell the story here by individual day because it would be a very lengthy post if not broken down by day. Some days are not that interesting, some days were more interesting than others and some days need a new adjective, but each day was different and they were days that I couldn't experience in my living room. 

Feel free to comment, shake your head at my moments of stupidity or tell your own experiences of the places I experienced. This is hit and run tourism... I didn't have a lot of time to hit all the stops but I wanted to hit all the stops because who knows if I would ever be back in any of the areas travelled. I researched and scheduled the trip to the minute and followed the schedule to the letter.

Day Seventeen - August 14 - Reno to West Yellowstone, Montana

This will be a pure drive day with very few stops and I'm taking the long way just to catch a glimpse of Salt Lake City and the Wasatch mountain range. 834 miles is on the agenda and according to the schedule it starts with breakfast at the Purple Parrot here at the Atlantis.

Umm... Nope... Not Happening. I'm sure it's delicious but nope... not... happening. 49 tons of diesel locomotive couldn't drag me into any place serving food right now. I am still stuffed from last night's buffet, I went to bed in considerable discomfort, felt much better in the morning but I probably won't need to eat again until Labor Day. Besides, I won the exact amount of my hotel expenses last night, Breakfast expense would have ruined that beautiful symmetry. It's OK... I got a long walk across the parking lot and a long drive ahead. I should get going.  

This is as good a time as any to mention the Upside app. A friend suggested I download it for fuel savings on the trip so I did. At first, I was kind of loyal to it but on this trip that loyalty will wane. The Upside sponsored gas stations are never near an interstate in order to get that 4 cents of a gallon savings, you got to drive into a town for it. I bring this up now because I had to fuel up in Reno and the Upside led me down town to a place that wasn't open and the next place wasn't there. So... let's just say that the application isn't perfect. I will have to check the credit card bill for the final fuel expense on this trip but I probably spent around 3 million dollars in fuel give or take a little and I have a check of $11.94 from Upside just waiting for me to claim. 

When planning this trip, I was mentally prepared for the drive across Nevada to be a miserable experience. I had the impression that it was just a long drive of flat, unattractive, lifeless desert where nobody lives. I don't know how I got this impression but I was wrong. The Drive across Nevada, is hilly, gorgeous, lifeless desert, where nobody lives. I-80 across Nevada is a beautiful drive. It is a long long way between towns, Elko is the big city of around 20,000, I was thinking about how long the road game bus trips must be for the Elko High School football team just to put together a comparable sized school football schedule. It takes a while to cross the state, there is always a little mountain range in front of you that you can set as a goal to reach. The freeway has a rolling up and down to it but nothing steep as the road simply goes around the mountain range only to be greeted by the next one which becomes the next goal and this process is repeated across the entire state into Utah. It was beauty that I certainly didn't expect. If driving South Texas was like driving on the moon, driving across Nevada was like driving on mars. Keep in mind, that I have never been to the moon or mars but I did see that Matt Damon movie. The other awesome thing about I-80 through Nevada is this, it jogs North and South often enough and long enough that you are not driving straight east into the Sun the whole way. This was going to be the only time on this trip that I was Heading East in the early morning and I was expecting my eyeballs to be completely melted before Noon.

Right about the state line into Utah, you do climb a little mountain and when you get over it, you are greeted by the view of the Bonneville Salt Flats off. As I drive by... them? or drive by It? As I drive by, I noticed regular old vehicles driving around on... them? or it? So, I assume that they are accessible to the public. I immediately wanted to exit and drive around on them but there was no exit in the east bound lane and by the time I found an exit I was probably 10 miles past that spot and I wasn't about to go back. I'll just wait for winter in Minnesota to drive my Kia around on a bunch of salt.   

I did manage to pull over to see the Great Salt Lake itself. This is the flattest looking lake possible, it looks like a single layer of water that goes on for miles. It looks like you could walk across it, I've heard that you stay afloat in it so maybe you can. I didn't try. 

The interstate system taking you northward doesn't get you that close to Salt Lake City but you catch a glimpse of the skyline in the distance and you can see that the city is pressed up against the Wasatch. The Entire metro looks beautiful and is pressed up against that mountain range. With mountains to the east and the Great Salt Lake to the west. The Metro really doesn't have much choice, if it's going to grow and it is going to grow... it will have to grow to the North or South. Look out Idaho, Salt Lake City is coming like a cannonball and so am I. 

I did have a stop at an Arctic Circle in Utah on my schedule. Honestly, I am still alright, I don't need food, I'm good and I haven't eaten at all today but I was going to stop at an Arctic Circle because if I don't... I never will. Arctic Circle is a fast food chain in the Utah region only. The fry sauce is supposed to be the greatest thing ever. Turns out, It's Sunday, It's Utah, they are not open today, i am not out of luck though because I found one that was open in Pocatello Idaho. This might sound strange for anyone who has been following my food choices on this trip but I am not a fast food guy. Not at all... McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's. Arby's... I have no interest anymore. However, when you are on a trip like this, fast food is the simplest thing to do if you want to keep moving so I did want to try the regional chains that I can't find in Grand Forks this put Arctic Circle on my list. I order a burger and fries just to try that fry sauce that the internet was raving about. The Burger was the same weak fast food burger that caused me to stop going to these places because of consistent disappointment. The Fry Sauce... Well... Back in the late 70's as a teenager, if I wanted to snack on some potato chips and if for some reason there wasn't any chip dip in the house, I would make my own. I'm not a cook by any stretch of the imagination but I used to mix Salad Dressing and Ketchup together as a poor substitute for the sour cream and onion that I really wanted. I dipped a fry into the fry sauce and I recognized the flavor immediately. I had to swat the memories of sitting at the kitchen counter watching Gilligan's Island reruns on that little kitchen TV eating Old Dutch potato chips. I think it is quite possible that I... Riverbrian... invented that fry sauce that they sing songs about in the reviews. 

I had another pretty big chuckle at the restaurant that I had to work hard to suppress because people look at you funny when you break into laughter for no apparent reason. I have always been a big fan of the movie of Napoleon Dynamite and I knew that the story was set in this part of Idaho. The high school age kid who was working the back kitchen of the restaurant... looked like Napoleon Dynamite! Tall, Skinny, Messed up curly hair and that same constant socially awkward facial expression. They were not twins but they were the exact same format and to take it a step further. the young lady taking my order, she would have been a reasonable representation of Napoleon's love interest in the movie... Deb I think was the name of the character. I wanted to take a photo of both of them so I could show others but I thought that taking a photo of them just might be a little aggressive and I've heard that Guns are required by state law in Idaho so I opted not to, but... it was all I could do to keep from laughing out loud. 

Got to West Yellowstone, the hotel was decent enough but the outlets were hard to find. Actually had to move the bed to find an outlet just so I could charge up and this caused me to sleep slightly askew to the orientation of the room. I am scheduled to depart at 7:30AM.   

 

[ashbury]

Our older son played football in our small western Nevada town, and they did indeed play in places like Battle Mountain and West Wendover (at the Utah border).  Soccer and track and field were only slightly less strenuous, with 2 hour drives the minimal norm.  Always glad when they had to come to our field, as there was a significant home advantage versus the football team having just ridden seven hours on a schoolbus, and we of course usually got clobbered when we played a road game.  As I liked to express it to people, when our sports teams had road games, we had ROOOOOAD games.

Did you notice that Nevada towns tend to put up a big letter on the nearest hill (Mountain Monograms)?  Most people tend to overlook it but there is an R for Reno northwest of the downtown.  But once out of the Reno area, the succession of F for Fernley, L for Lovelock, W for Winnemucca, and so forth make an interesting diversion as you go along I-80.  Did you spot the lovely BM near Battle Mountain?

There is a place similar to the Bonneville Salt Flats, closer to Reno, called the Black Rock Desert where they hold Burning Man each year.  It is a total hoot get off the paved road and drive on that, because just like Bonneville there are no restrictions, although one of the times I was out there I was very grateful for our all-wheel drive Subaru as the son I was teaching to drive got into some rather softer sand before I realized from the passenger seat what was happening - he turned the driving over to Dad at that point and we barely got out (glad it was a stick shift instead of an automatic for a little lighter touch).  Another time I literally got lost, like I was in the middle of an ocean and became lacking in any visual bearings (very weird sensation), and didn't have a GPS with me to guide me back to the small town of Gerlach, and there are no tire tracks in the hard surface to guide you, and with sundown approaching I was in serious danger of having to huddle in the car to spend the night on the desert playa where it cools down real good after sundown.  Good times.

[Riverbrian]

2 hours ago, ashbury said:

Our older son played football in our small western Nevada town, and they did indeed play in places like Battle Mountain and West Wendover (at the Utah border).  Soccer and track and field were only slightly less strenuous, with 2 hour drives the minimal norm.  Always glad when they had to come to our field, as there was a significant home advantage versus the football team having just ridden seven hours on a schoolbus, and we of course usually got clobbered when we played a road game.  As I liked to express it to people, when our sports teams had road games, we had ROOOOOAD games.

Did you notice that Nevada towns tend to put up a big letter on the nearest hill (Mountain Monograms)?  Most people tend to overlook it but there is an R for Reno northwest of the downtown.  But once out of the Reno area, the succession of F for Fernley, L for Lovelock, W for Winnemucca, and so forth make an interesting diversion as you go along I-80.  Did you spot the lovely BM near Battle Mountain?

There is a place similar to the Bonneville Salt Flats, closer to Reno, called the Black Rock Desert where they hold Burning Man each year.  It is a total hoot get off the paved road and drive on that, because just like Bonneville there are no restrictions, although one of the times I was out there I was very grateful for our all-wheel drive Subaru as the son I was teaching to drive got into some rather softer sand before I realized from the passenger seat what was happening - he turned the driving over to Dad at that point and we barely got out (glad it was a stick shift instead of an automatic for a little lighter touch).  Another time I literally got lost, like I was in the middle of an ocean and became lacking in any visual bearings (very weird sensation), and didn't have a GPS with me to guide me back to the small town of Gerlach, and there are no tire tracks in the hard surface to guide you, and with sundown approaching I was in serious danger of having to huddle in the car to spend the night on the desert playa where it cools down real good after sundown.  Good times.

I love stories like that. 

I did see the letters on the hills. At first I was really curious what they would end up spelling but I eventually realized what they were doing when the vowels were not coming. 

[ashbury]

11 minutes ago, Riverbrian said:

I love stories like that. 

I did see the letters on the hills. At first I was really curious what they would end up spelling but I eventually realized what they were doing when the vowels were not coming. 

You hit on Nevada's State Motto: "Pat, I'd Like To Buy A Vowel"

(Actually I guess you blinked when you passed through Elko.)