Travel to Escapade, 5/6/14

Day 4 - Tuesday, May 6, 2014
Wyoming to Nebraska

It has been cloudy to partly cloudy everyday so far on our trip, but today, we woke to a bright sunny day.  It was cool, but not cold.  The view that we had out of the car window, as we continued across Wyoming, was of rolling hills, mountains in the distance and mostly ranch land, some oil wells and a few cities.

We did go up in elevation, but it was mostly by going up rolling hills.  There was very little long haul mountain driving.  We did see many, many snow fences used to keep the snow from drifting across the highway.  If you noticed, in the previous picture, there aren't many trees to stop the wind from blowing the snow. 

Just before we got to the highest point on the highway, we saw how the snow had drifted along the fence and has not melted yet.  As the wind blows across the prairie or field, the snow blows up against the fence which acts like a riffle causing lower pressure behind it   That causes the snow to be "sucked" down rather than continuing on across the highway or where ever.

There is the Summit rest area, which is located at the highest elevation on I-80.  The leaves still haven't come out on the trees, in the background, at the 8640 ft. altitude.

There is quite a display explaining the history of this area, at this rest area.  Mostly, ranching and farming are current occupations, but in the 1880's there was a lot of logging of the forests that used to be here.  The logs were used for housing and for building the railroad which was used to transport the livestock and crops to market.

Much of I-80 was built along the path of the Lincoln Highway.  The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental highway going from New York City to San Francisco.  It was completed in 1913 when automobiles were first becoming popular and affordable for families, who , of course, wanted to travel to see things that they had only heard about before.  In 1959, a monument of Abraham Lincoln was built and it is the only monument to Lincoln along the highway that was named for him.

Some stats of the monument are that it weighs 4500 lbs. and it is 13 1/2 feet tall.  That is the head only.  See it compared to the man in the picture below.  The monument was moved to this location in 1969 when I-80 was completed.

 

There is another monument dedicated to Henry Joy, who was the first president of the Lincoln Highway Association as well as president of the Packard Motor Car company.  He is often referred to as the father of the national highway system.

As we were walking back to the truck, we passed this little guy, a prairie dog.  He seemed very brave to stay out of his hole while we were only about 5 ft. away.  A crow flew by and that made him disappear.  It is so unfortunate that someone did not take care of their garbage and now the prairie dog has taken that plastic bag into his hole.

 

Tonight we are in Sidney, Nebraska at the Cabela's RV Park right next to the store.  Cabela's has outdoor supplies and sporting equipment.

Tomorrow we will continue across Nebraska.  It is a very wide state, so we may still be in Nebraska by the end of our driving day.

Travel to Escapade, 5/5/14

Day 3 - Monday, May 5, 2014
Utah to Wyoming

We continued traveling on I-80 into Utah.  The Bonneville Salt Flats are near the western entrance into Utah.  This is an amazing site.

The actual Bonneville Raceway is located far off the highway back closer to the mountains. We did not go there.  There is an observation area at the rest area near the beginning of the approximate 50 mile long section of the highway that passes through the salt flats.  Here is a photo of the salt flats taken from that observation tower.  All of the white area in front of the mountains is salt.

 This is our trailer at the rest area.  The salt is everywhere that is not covered with asphalt.

 

This gives you an idea of what that 50 +/- miles looked like.  Pretty boring and white, huh?

 

 

There were a couple things, to break the monotony, that you won't see anywhere else. 

 

















How many times have you seen an 80 MPH speed limit?  The tree with Christmas balls on it are actually microwave and communication antennas in disguise. 

As we neared the eastern side of the salt flats, we saw several salt processing plants.  The salt is piled so high that it towers over trucks and buildings.  THAT'S A LOT OF SALT!!!

Next along our route was the Great Salt Lake.  It is difficult to see because we had a very cloudy day, so everything had a blue hew, and the road is just about level with the lake, but the bluish color at the base of the mountains is the salt water lake with some areas of salt where the water has evaporated along the shore.

There is a copper smelting company along the highway west of Salt Lake City.  It is so huge that it took two photos to show how big it is.  The stack in each picture is the same one, just to give you a perspective.

We do not like to take I-80 through Salt Lake City because there is a very long steep hill going out to the east.  Instead, we go around on the western side and north of the city to get to I-84 east then meet up with I-80 after that hill.  There was a rock formation along side of I-84 that was called Devil's Slide.  I think it looked like a child's slide only made of rock and very long.

Not far past this formation, on I-84, there was a dramatic change in the terrain.  First there were these outcroppings.  Then we went around a curve.

When we got around the curve, this is what we saw.  I can't even imagine what sort of earthquake or other force caused the mountain to be tipped on its side like this.

After we got back on I-80, we completed traversing Utah and entered Wyoming.  When we got into the Green River area, the terrain changed again.  Now we saw very definite layers of sediment which were white on the bottom and brown on top.

There were more tunnels to go through with many layers of rock above the tunnels. 

 Then, on the other side of the tunnel, we saw these formations.

 

Shortly after this, We arrived at our campsite for the night.  We will continue traveling tomorrow.