The 24hr Trek

First I want to talk about our little road warrior. Our mode of transportation across America is a beige '97 Saturn with 275,000 kilometres on it, and no AC. Oh yeah...it also has a small engine oil and coolant leak. It also doesn't really like to start right after it's been driving for awhile, which has made it actually much more exciting as every time the engine starts it's like winning the lottery. As long as we keep up on the oil and collant I have full confidence that it's going to take us the rest of the way, but if it doesn't, Sly and I are ready for that to be part of the adventure. I hope it does take us all the way as I'm already growing quite fond of the little guy.
Onto to the trip. We spent Tuesday in Chicago, walking all through downtown. I had no idea Chicago had canals and drawbridges throughout it, which makes for a beautiful looking town, and as I said in my last entry, the place is spotless and full of flowers everywhere, nice touch.
We dropped off Derick at the O'Hare airport for his flight Wednesday morning to NY, then stopped to fill up on gas and check all the car's fluids again. Then the big trek began. We headed out of Chicago onto Interstate 80 at 12pm Wednesday and made it into Salt Lake City Thursday at 2:30pm (Google Map those cities and you'll see what I mean).
Sylvana took the first 10 hours out of Illinois and through Iowa. There isn't much to see along the I-80 but cornfields. As one gas station attendant explained "Iowa's a corn state" and it most certainly is. We stopped in Kearney, Nebraska to eat and then I started to drive. It was dark during Nebraska, so I can't really tell you what it looks like.
I began to drive through Nebraska into Wyoming, which is when a Tumbleweed (yes...a Tumbleweed!) rolled by. It was dark, but I could make out some large rocky hills to contrast the flat cornfields of Iowa and Nebraska. I started to get drowsy so we pulled over at a truck stop around 4:30am Thursday morning, filled up on gas and fell asleep. 7am we wake up and head out on the road again, only one difference, the sunny fields of Iowa have been replaced by the cold, overcast mountain range of Wyoming.
I've ever seen anything like this except in Westerns. As we headed past Cheyenne and up into the mountains just before a town called Laramie we ran into some unexpected weather...snow! Not just a little snow, I'm talking road covering, white-out blinding snow. At one point the Windshield wipers were getting covered in ice and not working as the snow blasted out window and large transport trucks were passing up, splashing up fresh slush to completely blind us while driving on snowy roads, and of course we don't have snow tires on. This insanity and near death experience only lasted about 30min until we drove past Laramie and into lower elevation, where the sun was out and the weather was warm again.
Through Wyoming the desert mountains were beautiful, until we entered Utah, and then I realized how much the mountains in Wyoming were total wussies in comparison. Utah mountains are massive and absolutely magnificent. I won't try to describe them any further, and will allow a photo blog which I'll post soon to show it.
Although we've been moving constantly there has been some interesting people along the way already. In Wyoming, I forgot to flush and a weathered and lanky old guy asked "Don't you flush" I went back in the stall and made some lame excuse about how it wasn't working before, flushed it, and then the guy looked at me and said "Won't it be nice when we don't have to worry about this anymore, when we're up in heaven. Won't it be wonderful?" I said, "Yeah it sure will." Which I think was the best way to answer. Somehow saying "No, heaven doesn't exist, and this life is all we have so enjoy it while you can...and I'll remember to flush", wouldn't have been the smartest move while stuck with him in a Wyoming gas station bathroom.
Now in Sunny Salt Lake City, just writing this in a Starbucks. Sylvana loves the people here, she says it reminds her of Whistler, B.C. including the friendly laid back people. She also saw a T-shirt that said "SLUT" , which actually stands for Salt Lake city Utah. We camped out at a KOA campground last night, which we didn't realize is right downtown. So we basically set up a tent on a "campsite" with a fence being the only thing blocking us from a city street, with people walking their dogs, going to work, etc. It was hilarious, it got so cold at night that after 4 hours of shaking, Sylvana declared it the "worst night of my life", but in true Sylvana fashion, she was still laughing the whole time. There's plenty more to talk about, but we're going to hit the road again. I'll have some photos up in the next few days to go along with the stories. Except for the guy in the bathroom talking about heaven, I don't have any photos of him.