Salt Lake city and then some............

This part of our journey consisted of driving many miles in blistering temperatures. It was hot, so we’d wind down the windows; even hotter air would blow in so we’d close them again and so on. We tortured ourselves like this for a while by avoiding using the air conditioning for the sake of fuel efficiency. Then we decided fuel efficiency could take a running jump and pressed the button marked ‘AC’ (which I think stands for ‘Ahhhhh cool’).
Talking to people beforehand, many had questioned our reasoning for going to Salt Lake City (SLC). In their words ‘Why bother?’ but it is one of those USA landmarks that had to be ticked off the list. The journey from fairly featureless desert drifted into suburban sprawl, through to huge shopping malls and yes, we’re in Provo, Utah. Stop for lunch, get lost, argue, find supermarket, sulk, get food, eat food, reconcile, keep on driving.

Not too much later we reached SLC, by now tired and in the late afternoon sun we headed for our new home, a KOA campground. By now we’ve stayed at quite a few campgrounds, several of them KOAs (Kampgrounds of America, I think). They are a bit like KFC: they’re everywhere, they’re a known quantity and they’re a bit better than MacDonalds! Unlike KFC they are also invariably close to railroad crossings where the train drivers delight in honking their train-horns. Anyway, they have showers and a pool and they’re cheaper than staying in a hostel.
By now we were also getting used to the strange looks from people with their massive RVs. The one in the photo was home for just two people… the car they’re towing is as big as Jeremy! We don’t care… Jezza does us just fine :o)
The following day we ventured in to SLC itself; taking advantage of the free shuttle bus from the campsite. Only as we were about to board did we realize it was operated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints… yes, the Mormons! The place had seemed quite normal up until this point but as we sat in the bus and listened to the well honed patter coming from the old lady all I could think in my head was ‘CULT, CULT, CULT!!!’. It took all of my will-power and self-restraint to keep from making any comments (it was too far to walk!). The good mannered agreement for the free bus was to agree to tithe 10% of my earnings to the church… oh no, hang-on, that comes later. For now, all we had to agree to was a guided tour around the mormon tabernacle and associated church buildings… as we were going to do that anyway, we agreed – it seemed like a no-brainer (also an apt description for a mormon from what I could tell).
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not particularly religious but I have no problem with those who are. But the two young women that met us at the drop-off point were like puppets – no, cyborgs (but without the cool electronics and lights)! They didn’t seem to be able to have an independent opinion and to me it seemed like a classic case of brainwashing, but each to their own. I asked them if they had converted from any other sort of religion but they said that they had been brought up Mormon their whole life. Ahh, I see. Nice buildings though.
Anyway, we toured the grounds whilst they provided the historical backstory. Everything was pristine and oozed friendliness; we ooh’d and ahh’d in all the right places but all we could think about was the bit about Mormons in Dave Gormans book, Unchained America. We finally got to see the Tabernacle which was good but a bit underwhelming (maybe it had been a bit too hyped). They finally got around to asking us whether we would be interested in joining their flock (my words). I said that I found the whole thing a bit far-fetched and unless they had any actual evidence my answer would have to be ‘no’. So they walked us to the exit (I couldn’t even see the wires) and we went to hit the City.
‘I think the City is closed’. It had all the normal glass and concrete buildings, even the occasional café… but no LIFE! We figured we were just on the edge of town so wandered a few more deserted streets… ah, a policeman, we’ll ask him! Alas, it turned out we were indeed in the town centre and this was a fairly typical day. I now started to understand peoples point of view. Boise, Idaho was quiet but it was clean, tidy and pretty… this place was just quiet and dull. Quite possibly the most disappointing city of the journey so far :-/

So we didn’t bother wasting any more time in SLC and started heading west again. As we left the city we found the actual salt lake, on the way passing the Bonneville Salt Flats and a place called Wendover which was as far from the UK version as its possible to be – very flat, very hot, very deserty.

Anyway, as we approached the Salt Lake shoreline we had plans of donning our trunks and floating in the lake. This planned changed as we parked-up in the dusty, hot, dry, windswept car-park. ‘We’ll just go and dip our toes’. This plan changed after we’d walked the half mile of crusty shoreline to the water’s edge… as we walked closer to the water, vast swarms of flies buzzed around our ankles – not biting or stinging, just very annoying… we didn’t stay long!
So, back on the road, we ploughed on past the scrubland and tumbleweed for as long as we could before the heat wore us down. This point occurred just outside a place called Winnemucca, a place you’ve probably never heard of and never will again. There is nothing particularly good to say about Winnemucca, but it is the kind of non-descript small town that I wanted so see. Now I’ve seen it, I don’t need to see another! All you need to know is that it had a campground and a pool – which has become a basic requirement in these parts. After a quick dip we hunted for food. The BEST we could find was Pizza Hut. The floors weren’t particularly clean, and it took us a while to figure out why the seats were so far away from the table, (it’s because people in these parts are on the LARGE size!) but the pizza was massive and cost just $10; enough for both of us with enough left over for lunch the following day… we’re starting to get the hang of this living on a budget thing!
Winnemucca was just a stop-over so the following day we continued our journey. We were eager to get San Francisco to see Justine & Lee. We’d planned to stop in Reno next as its another one of ‘those places’ you hear about but once we reached it and found casinos, other bland buildings and not much else we decided to drive straight on through. This turned out to be a good move because instead we ended up somewhere else we didn’t plan to be: Lake Tahoe.
We already knew of Tahoe as a snowboarding destination but as we entered the valley via winding mountain roads we reached the valley floor to find more picture perfect scenery: high cliffs, trees everywhere and a lovely flowing river. Actually, what was flowing was more rafts and inner tubes than I’ve ever seen in one place before. At one stage there was gridlock.
We found a nice spot by the edge of the lake and had lunch: the remains of the previous night’s pizza. Luckily the van’s engine casing is big, flat and runs fairly hot… a perfect hotplate! We put the pizza on, went for a stroll by the lake and when we got back, lunch was ready!
After lunch, more driving.
Getting tantalizingly close to San Fran now but not quite close enough. So we found a campsite in Placerville. This was a real diamond in the rough… not far from the freeway but it was still quiet and this time no railroad. The place was pretty quiet, we found a lovely shady spot for Jeremy then headed for the pool; the nicest one so far and we had it all to ourselves. So we stayed in until we got pruny then headed to the camp kitchen which is sooo much nicer than trying to cook on our dinky little bbq. The rest of the kitchen was being used by a big family which seemed to have convened from several different states so we had fun listening to them talk, laugh, bitch about non-present relatives and finally bicker (in that order).
I won’t lie to you, this part of the trip was fairly uneventful, but San Francisco is just around the corner!

Down a bit, right a bit and down a bit more...

So up early for a final run along the sea for me. Back home and pack. We head out of Seattle on a sunny morning to our next stop Portland. Now we have been winging it quite a lot – not booking accommodation etc - so as we headed towards Portland we we’re a little apprehensive to know if there would be room at the inn for us. At least we have the fall back that we can always sleep in Jeremy, not easily or privately but it can be done. We weren’t sure that parking on the side of the road in a suburban street and spending the night not sleeping was really “us” yet, god damn it we’re British after all! So using our new $10 cell phone from [the dreaded] Walmart we called ahead and they had room for us; once again we would be split up but it was cheap. And again, Tim lucked out with a lovely room down stairs in the shady quite area of the house with a dorm of boys, whereas I lost out with a small packed room, with no air-con, but a loud whizzy fan and the delights of the busy road outside the open window with a large, loud, snoring, bowler-hat wearing American oaf. Needless to say I was out the door bright and early for an explore and a lovely run around some park on a high hill with a massive reservoir. (I hope I’m not getting too technical - it was early, i was tired!)……after getting back, showering then finding my husband who had been consuming the free bagel breakfast we headed off.


Next stop would be Oxbow National Park, lovely big trees and fire pits, we turned-up and there was plenty of room for us, so unpacking our bits from Jeremy and paying our nights fee, we headed back into the City of Portland to have a look. It’s a pretty city, but pretty much like any other. The real bonus was that there was free Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream stand where we also got some USB sticks in the shape of an ice cream, fun fun fun and Just what you need on a scorcher of a day (though we did just miss out on getting our photo taken with a plastic cow).

Our main reason for going in was to try and get the snowboard bag back to Blighty. We went into UPS and chatted to a lovely lady who once she realized that the bag was full of stuff and not just a snowboard (because “they’re quite thin aren’t they?”) we had to provide lots more info. Armed with the dimensions and weight she typed in the info and gave us the cost: a whopping $700….now what we have to weigh up here is, is our “stuff” worth this much? As we stood there trying to work-out the conversion, (464GBP) we said thanks but no. So it would seem we’d have the bag for some time yet. Anyway you never know when you’ll come across snow again on the West Coast of America!?!?!?

Back at our campsite, we set up our bed and as we were sorting things out we had a welcoming committee from Disney….a lovely young deer came to say ‘Hi’ and hang out with us for a while, now we know the rules “ keep the wildlife wild, do not feed the animals” but it is so very tempting to have a pet deer for the evening but he decided to leave us when Tim started throwing up violently behind a tree (like I said it was hot day and I think he got sun stroke, poor Timmy Tim). So that was our camping in Oxbow, the following morning Tim was feeling 100% better (after going to bed at 8:00pm), I ran around the park and river, then headed back, packed up next stop who knows……

Actually our next stop would be Hat Rock – a place you will probably never hear of again (though this would be a shame)! We came across this campsite in the heat of the day, it was the first time we had actually had Jeremy’s air-con on (opening the windows just made us hotter, and closing them again made us hotter still)… that Jeremy even has a/c is amazing; the fact it works really well? what a delight!
…anyway so Hat Rock, this is a massive hat shaped rock, in the middle of barren land, which is the closest we have come to being in a desert, it was HOT BABY! We decided to both go in and see if we could stay, our first excitement was that there a pool, please let there be room for us? And what a delight to be greeted by Sally a lovely American lady who absolutely loves us Brits and everything British, she is a gem indeed.

We got a lovely site for Jeremy under a tree and close to the pool, which was our first port of call. It was so nice to be somewhere with lovely facilities, we did our washing then as we sat down eating our BBQ dinner we made a decision to have a day off, I know you must think that this travelling lark is like a holiday and it is, don’t get us wrong but it is really draining driving on highways in the heat and always having to plan where we will be the next day, so the next morning I went for the hottest run in the world and Tim stayed in bed under the tree in the shade.

We went to see Sally and hope that it was ok for us to stay another night, thankfully it was, so a day without driving and just chilling by the pool was in order after we had breakfast, we sat outside in the shade with our big map deciding where to go next and when the heat got too much we headed inside to power up the Toshbook and see what was on our route and where to go. We we’re joined at our table by a lovely retired couple, Bev(erly) & Cal(vin) Sherman, we offered to move but they insisted we stay and thereafter we chatted for ages. They are practically locals, they come from Heppner, but have a fifth wheel (BIG caravan to you & me which attaches to a BIG pick-up truck like an artic-lorry) at the boat-club just down the road but always come to see Sally as she does the best breakfasts (‘tis true). We had a lovely talk with them; it was obvious that they really adore their family who have now all grown up and left home - bless them. They invited us round to see them later that evening. I went to the counter to settle up with sally to be told that she was buying us breakfast just because we’d come all that way and we’re British… what a surprise and what a nice lady. Its common knowledge that all Canadians are nice; let me tell you there are some pretty good Americans too!


So, a relaxing day in the 100°F heat by the pool – dipping in and out to avoid frazzling… just nice not to be driving anywhere really. Later we headed down to see Bev & Cal, but there was a pot-luck dinner going on with their friends in the boat club and with too much British reserve couldn’t interrupt them so we had a walk around then headed for home.

The following day, another HOT run, then back to pack up and go, but not until we’d had another superb breakfast. As we sat outside Bev & Cal turned up for their breakfast as usual and we explained our Britishness and were suitably told-off! Apparently they had told their friends we’d be turning up the previous night and were looking out for us but we walked along the other side of the building - DOH! So we were invited down again before we left, as Bev had made us a “care-parcel”, like I said lovely people. So we promised we would head down to the fifth wheel and see them. Breakfast was once again magnificent and - once again - on the house (apparently because there was a bit of a wait!)… we left a good tip! We packed up and said our goodbyes to Sally leaving her with mum’s address for when she’s next in the UK (she’s yet to do Wales and there’s a lovely little cottage on the river Wye you know).


We kept our promise and headed to see Bev & Cal, and what a lovely caravan 5th wheel thingy it is, they even have fake grass as a carpet where they have their table and chairs outside, honestly it’s like a little home from home. Bev was getting very excited as the family and all the grandchildren would be coming to stay for the 4th of July weekend, she was going to be in baking mode for the next week in preparation for the event. We sat and chatted about where we were going and where we had been, during which Bev wheeled out her own concoction: Pretzel Salad! Kind of hard to describe (but a bit like a savoury cheesecake which is actually quite sweet… wacky Americans!), anyway, it was dee-lish! Then the time came for us to hit the road. Bev handed over our delicious “care-parcel” of crackers, cheese, grapes and cherries a delicious feast for us to have on our journey. Such lovely people… hope you had a great 4th of July!


So good bye to Hat Rock - a very pleasant find indeed, our next stop would be Boise, pronounced Boy-Zee, apparently the Americans dropped the French pronunciation, lazy Yanks! Boise is the capital of Idaho, so we’re hoping for big things.
This was another long hot dry drive in near desert like conditions with flashes of bright green as you drive by irrigated fields (it is the potato capitol of America after all… even has a potato museum and no, we didn’t go).

We found the Boise Hostel (which was actually in Nampa); the place was lovely – more like a big bungalow and we even got our room (for $30 night!), you do kind of forget how nice it is just to be able to go to bed, rather than having to inflate it every night. The place was shared with a PhD student from Germany (Heidi – yes, really!) studying plant disease; a religious guy called BJ who organizes cruise holidays (we’ve got his email address!) and Ken – ex-Navy guy and verrry fit! We had a great nights sleep, I got up and ran along the straightest of paths, in the hottest of heats. On my return, the owner was in the garden and offered for me to pick some of his strawberries for breakfast… what a treat!! Then into Boise to see what the capital had to offer, now don’t get us wrong - Boise is lovely, really clean, some lovely gardens, bars and cafes but it just seemed too clean and so quiet for a capital city (think The Truman Show).

Whilst walking around the city we were stopped twice by the same woman handing out flyers for a hairdressers salon and twice asked if Tim would be interested! After the second time we chatted for a while and she said if we came back through Boise, so give her a call and go for a drink! Boise is also the place where Katy’s long and often fruitless search for a hat came to an end… a nice straw trilby which you will no doubt see in many pictures from now on.

We had a nice lunch then the heat got me and I flagged, we found the tourist info office with air-conditioning where we chatted to a very helpful man who gave us lots of info for our next stop - Yellowstone and the surrounding area, while we cooled-off. Feeling better we headed back to the hostel, and chilled for the evening watching the most amazing thunder storm erupt, it was like watching in a movie, and my god there was some heavy rain, the stuff that really gets you wet. On the plus side, next day’s straight-run was a lot cooler.



Yogi & Booboo here we come - but not just yet… bit too far for one day’s travel so we stopped off in Idaho Falls (via the Craters of the Moon). Idaho Falls was notable only for the most amazing downpour of rain which greeted us as we exited the supermarket with our bbq goodies (it was a bright blue sky when we went in 20 minutes earlier)! A quick look at the soggy buns and a re-think found us in Chilies Restaurant followed by an early but sleepless night as we watched the tent become detached from the van… some muttering and rope tieing later and all was secure. I got up for a run, Tim was left to find the free coffee and some internet access, Idaho Falls was all out ready for 4th July celebrations, god bless America, they love a good national holiday, so there we leave you on our way to Yellow Stone, next instalment coming soon.....