<< Day 60: Grand Tetons To Park City, Utah  | Day 62: Home! >>

Park City to California Border

 

This morning we set off to ride the “world’s longest luge” in Park City, Utah. During the winter, the hillsides around town are covered in snow and thousands of skiers. Someone came up with the brilliant idea of putting in an adventure wonderland on the slopes during the summer months. We were prepared for the adrenaline rush!

During the 2002 Winter Olympics (in nearby Salt Lake City), 26 events had taken place within Park City. On our way to the luge, we passed the ski jump runs:

The outskirts of Park City reflected a prosperous community, with well-maintained buildings and landscaping.

Some apartments/condos:

We caught a peek of St. Mary’s Catholic Church through the trees:

The large white barn at the McPolin Farmstead made my heart start fluttering:

The barn was constructed in the 1920’s with recycled mining materials, from the silver mining operations in the area. The farm was started in the late 1800’s, and produced dairy products to meet the needs of miners and their families who had flocked to the area after silver was discovered here in 1868. The McPolin Farmstead is listed on the National Register as a “historic site” and continues to be one of the best-preserved farms in Utah.

There was a small white house in the back, with a wrap-around porch:

As we neared the downtown area of Park City, we could see the luge tracks down the mountain.

This big sign reflected the pride that Park City has for its participation in the Olympics.

Custer, South Dakota, may have its painted buffalos, but Park City has painted moose.

The street signs and addresses were a bit confusing to us, and we circled around and wandered a bit before we finally found the ticket booth for the luge. We opted to get a combo ticket that gave us each a ride on the “Alpine Coaster” and the “Alpine Slide” (the luge).

Here we are heading for the coaster:

The coaster consisted of small cars that were connected to a center rail. After climbing in, the rail attachment would pull each individual car to the top of a hill and then release it for the winding, downhill stretch (4000 feet long). Your car would zoom down the hill as fast as you dared to go—you remained attached to the rail (like with a regular roller coaster), but you could pull a brake lever to slow down around curves and to stop.

Sebastian and Ben rode together, as Sebastian did not meet the height requirements for a solo ride.

Genevieve and I rode in separate cars. Here is Genevieve loading:

Up we go!

The coaster track swooped and turned as we zoomed downhill—what a rush! Genevieve said that she didn’t touch the brake the entire time.

With smiles plastered to our faces, and hearts still racing, we boarded the chairlift to the top of the mountain for the luge ride.

As we looked down on the track, we could see chubby little marmots by the side.

(One of these little creatures would be perched on the edge of the track, and one peering over the side, when I zipped down the hill—adding immensely to the unforgettable experience!)

We enjoyed the scenery around us:

Looking back from the chair lift:

The luge was like the coaster, except that you weren’t attached to the track and could fly off if your speed was too fast. To slow down the sled, you pulled up on a handle in the center.

Sebastian was tall enough to ride by himself.

At the top of the chairlift, we selected our sleds and then carried them down a path to the luge entrance. There were four tracks to choose from, with a small line for each. Here are Ben and Sebastian, lined up and patiently waiting their turn.

Genevieve:

(She and I were riding on the “Last Chance” chute, while Ben and Sebastian were on the “Crooked Shaft.”)

Sebastian’s getting close!

Ben and Genevieve were given the “go” signal at the same time—they’re off!

Sebastian’s brake seemed to be stuck in the “on” position, even though he wasn’t touching the handle. He crept down the track. Ben soon caught up with him, and they crept together, with Ben pushing Sebastian from behind. At the bottom of the run, Ben explained the problem with the defective sled to several workers. After much-too-much discussion, one of the men reluctantly allowed Sebastian to take another ride.

The workers must get a lot of people who try to coerce a free ride out of them because they acted as if we were making up the defective sled story, even after Ben demonstrated how the sled would not roll. Even though Ben had been stuck behind Sebastian, and didn’t get to zoom down the hill as anticipated, he didn’t even try to convince the man to give him another ride too.

The man also said that if Sebastian wanted another ride, neither Ben nor I could ride up in the chair lift with him; he would have to ride by himself. Sebastian insisted that he could do it (and promised that he wouldn’t lean out of the chair while up in the air).

I watched him depart, with a bit of an anxious heart. (He is the person on the right—doesn’t he look tiny?)

(As a parent, it’s sometimes hard to walk that fine line between being reasonably protective and fostering independence.)

Sebastian did it! Here he is near the bottom of the hill (with a woman and child riding his bumper):

Sebastian declared his blue sled to be “super fast”!

While we were waiting, Genevieve tried out the rock climbing wall:

Both children were happily chatting non-stop on the way back to the RV. This had been a great experience for both of them.

After climbing in the RV and buckling up, Ben and I looked at each other and realized that we were now, officially, “on our way home.” We didn’t have any more planned stops or activities. We had done everything on our “to do” list, and more. Our hearts were full. After two months on the road together, we were ready to complete the last leg of our journey—making a beeline across Utah, Nevada, and California, to reach our home on the Pacific Coast.

We had spent several days in the Salt Lake City area during the first week of our cross-country journey. However, we still got a thrill from seeing the cityscape:

I called out to the children, “What’s the capital of Utah?” They both responded in a chorus, “Salt Lake City!” (Education can be fun!)

Across the dry stretch of land, we could see Antelope Island in the distance.

Views of the Great Salt Lake:

Another familiar sight near the Great Salt Lake was the smokestack from the smelter of the Kinnecott Copper Mine:

We passed some graffiti-covered train cars:

Here was a salt processing facility, with the Morton “umbrella girl” logo on the side.

Morton extracts approximately 550,000 tons of nonfood-grade salt each year from the Great Salt Lake. Brine is flooded into ponds at the facility twice a year. Through a natural evaporation process, crystallized salt forms in layers that are 12 to 14 inches thick. The salt is then harvested with a plow.

There were a number of fires burning today in the crevices along a distant mountain top, and along the side of the highway.

Next to the road was a series of telephone poles, whose bases were planted in a long stretch of water. The poles had a lot of dangling wires, and some had no wires attached at all. Here is a set of poles with wires looping down from the right-side pole.

A colorful train rolled along:

The road stretched out ahead, shimmering in the heat:

We passed several bright yellow signs that gave warnings to “drowsy drivers.” Here is one:

To our right was the expansive Bonneville salt flats, which cover 159 square miles. The salt flats were formed when this area was covered by the ancient Lake Bonneville.

Next to the road, people had decorated the salt flat surface with rocks to spell out words (e.g. “Hi”, “Shut Up”, etc.), write initials, and draw designs such as hearts and smiley faces.

The salt flats stretched for miles and miles. We could see something sticking up in the distance—what was it? We were flabbergasted! It was a huge sculpture with six large balls coming out of the top of a large cylinder.

We later found out that the sculpture, called “The Tree of Utah,” was created by Karl Momen, a Swedish artist, in the 1980’s. He paid for the materials to make the sculpture and then donated it to the State of Utah. The sculpture is 87 feet tall; the base is made from cement, and the balls are covered in tiles, natural rock, and minerals that come from Utah. It was installed here in 1986. The sculpture has parts of a broken sphere on the ground, as if one of the balls (like a leaf) had “fallen” naturally from the tree.

Despite the sculpture’s intrigue, the highway department apparently does not want motorists to stop and take a closer look. There were several signs in front stating “Emergency Parking Only.” The construction vehicles around it appeared to be there for the installation of a giant chain link fence (with barbed wire?) around the artwork.

The sky above the salt flats and distant mountains was constantly changing.

I was mesmerized by the dark clouds, streaking downward with falling rain.

We passed the exit to the Bonneville Speedway, which was made famous in the 1930’s when a racer set a new land speed record here, breaking the 300 miles per hour limit. After that many new land speed records were set on the salt flats.

Campers and vehicles were parked near the speedway, perhaps belonging to people who hoped to go faster than they ever gone before, and maybe break an existing record.

This group of rocks was covered in graffiti:

Welcome to Nevada (the Silver State)!

We exited the freeway, looking for a nice lunch spot, and found some huge casinos (which we didn’t visit).

These triple-trailer trucks always fascinate me, perhaps because we don’t see them in California.

The road ahead:

We had miles to cover, and enjoyed being on the interstate today. Our sensory receptors were full from our travels over the last two months, and we were on a mission to get home as quickly as possible.

The top of “Pilot’s Peak” was 10,704 feet in elevation, and it seemed to have its own storm brewing.

To the left of Pilot’s Peak were white clouds and blue sky.

This row of buildings looked like it had some stories to tell:

This “Oasis” was not very inviting today:

The next mountain pass had some beautiful rocky areas.

We climbed up Pequop Summit, with an elevation of 6900 feet. This highway, like countless others across the U.S., was in the process of being repaved.

The next valley was filled with sagebrush and other desert plants.

Some houses in the valley:

The distinctive, curved shape of this home made it stand out in the crowd:

There was a small housing development near one side of the valley:

This barn had an interesting overhang in the front, as well as a capped vent on top:

Beyond the town of Elko was the newly constructed California Trail Interpretive Center, which will be opening in 2010.

These porous rock formations appeared to be made from volcanic rock:

A small railway tunnel:

The highway tunnels through the same mountain:

At first glance, we thought that this was some form of prison because of the tower and layout of the buildings. However, we realized that there were no tall fences around it, and then saw a sign identifying it as the Crisis Management Center (and Fire Science Academy) for the University of Nevada, Reno. The Department of Energy's "Flammable Liquids Fire Fighting Class" is taught here.

In this valley, the sagebrush was taller and had bright green tips.

The surrounding low hills were shimmering and seemed as if they were covered in golden velvet.

We passed one processing plant after another.

This hill looked as if it were draped in nubby fabric.

We never tired of watching the ever-changing swirls and patterns of light and dark in the sky:

The flat desert stretched out on either side of the highway.

The sagebrush here looked quite lush.

Clouds blanketed the mountaintops in the evening.

Light from the setting sun:

More photos of the sky:

We didn’t want to spend time preparing a lavish dinner (or going to a restaurant), so I fixed sandwiches and other small items for us to eat—Sebastian called it a “lunch dinner.”

There was a lot of road construction, with one long stretch after another, reducing the highway to one land on each side.

The lights through Reno:

We cheered as our headlights brushed across the “Welcome to California” sign!

Then the RV immediately bumped down onto a bad road. Bumpity bumpity. The left lane closed, and the right lane narrowed to 10 feet around a curving mountain—YIKES!

We stopped at the agricultural inspection station north of Lake Tahoe. An inspector asked to come aboard, and he opened our refrigerator and rummaged through our vegetable bins, looking for fruit and other "forbidden" items.  After he left, we drove off, not realizing that our side door hadn’t latched shut properly (we had been having problems with it sticking). As we were passing a long line of orange and white barrels in a construction zone, we heard a “WHAM!” Ben and I looked at each other and asked, “What was that?!” I ran back to see if something had fallen over, perhaps in the refrigerator. Oh, no! The side door was open—about 2 inches. I pulled it shut and stood in the stairwell holding it closed with all my might until we reached a rest stop several miles down the road.

Upon examining the door, we discovered that the automatic stairs had unfolded when the door had opened; the “wham” sound had been the stairs hitting one of the construction barrels. The hit had bent the stairs back, and now they wouldn’t retract all of the way under the door. Ben managed to straighten them a bit by using his superhuman, old-fashioned kicking technique. (It wasn’t pretty to watch, but it worked.) It was a good thing that we were almost home. We would all have to enter and exit the RV through the driver’s door tomorrow. (The handle on the passenger door had started malfunctioning yesterday, so I could no longer get in and out of that door.)

This was our stopping point for tonight. We didn’t need hook-ups for the RV, so we decided to park in a good spot in the rest stop and get some sleep. We planned to get an early start tomorrow morning, and hopefully would be home by noon!

 

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