Mike & Kris - Enjoying The Ride

We have embarked on our first multi-week trip and it starts on Interstate-80.  We will stay on this highway for the entire first leg of our journey.  The final destination is Canton, Michigan where we will spend a few days with Hannah and John in their new house.  This requires us to drive 2400 miles in 6 days or about 400 miles per day.  We really wanted to get through Nevada as quick as possible so we hit the road at 6:00 AM on Sunday, July 17th and drove until 6:00 PM (Mountain Time) to West Wendover, Nevada.  This town is on the Nevada/Utah border with Casinos galore.  Nope…no gambling for us!  We didn’t take any pictures but rest assured, you didn’t miss anything. 650 miles completed.

Day 2-Up early again, we left at 7:45 AM and entered Utah.  Wow, they have miles and miles of salt flats.  Both sides of the freeway were a sea of white.  We probably should have stopped for a picture-maybe next time.  After passing the Great Salt Lake we entered Salt Lake City.  What a beautiful city bumped up against the Rockies.  This will be added to our list as a place to come back and spend some time.  Unfortunately we passed through Utah relatively quickly and were crossing into Wyoming in no time.  There is some beautiful scenery and then miles of nothing.  Did you know that the entire population of Wyoming is less than 600,000?  That is about half the size of just San Jose, CA!  A couple of interesting facts:  the state’s mean elevation is second only to Colorado’s, and the lowest point in Wyoming is higher  than the highest points of 17 states.  I think we were above 4,000 ft. for the entire drive.  We also crossed the Continental Divide at 6,900 ft.  They also have these weird wood partial fences everywhere.  Finally, curiosity got the best of us and I looked it up on the internet. They are called snow fences and they slow down the wind which allows the snow to fall to the ground and it accumulates on the other side of the fence.  This keeps it off the freeway and the farmers then can harvest the water in the spring.  Pretty smart, right?

Okay, we reached our destination of Laramie at about 5ish and set off to see town.  They have a big, old-fashioned downtown that even has a Sears Roebuck.  We found the above sign explaining some interesting facts like:  Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote, and the importance of Laramie to the construction of the  intercontinental railroad.  Tomorrow morning we plan to visit the Wyoming Territorial Prison–stay tuned!