Day Sixteen - World's Fastest Indian

When we set off this morning we had no real goals for the day other than to get as far away from California as humanly possible. We had a long stretch, almost 400 miles, to go to get from Reno, NV to the Utah line, with almost nothing in between.

While it was nice to watch the scenery change bit by bit across the state, it soon got pretty old. I guess I should also mention that we passed by numerous hot springs, but they were nothing more than a brief glance as we motored along. There was one hope keeping me going during all that time though, the prospect of reaching the legendary Bonneville Salt Flats.

As we crested the mountain on the Nevada – Utah border we could see nothing but a sea of white. Ahead of us lay the salt flats, the remnants of a by-gone lake that regularly finds its way into the history books. It was this stretch of land that caused the Donner party a great deal of trouble and delayed their entry to the Sierra-Nevada mountains.



Coming down the hillside we peeled off as the land flattened at the Bonneville state park. Expecting to find gates and signs instructing us to stay off the salt, we were pleasantly surprised when the road ended with nothing more than a sign and an endless bounty of flat, hard, salt.



Unfortunately we’re a bit early for the land speed record attempts, they will occur later in the summer. What this did mean though was that there were no swarms of people to prevent us from enjoying the salt by ourselves. After a brief stroll around we were out on the salt, with visions of land-speed record-breaking grandeur in my head. To learn a little more about that you may want to check out “The World’s Fastest Indian” starring Anthony Hopkins as Burt Munro, a New Zealander who traveled to Bonneville in 1967 to set a new motorcycle land speed record on his 1920 Indian.




Back on the road we headed for our stop for the night, Salt Lake City, Utah. Passing by the Great Salt Lake we could see the city approaching, and we rolled into the local KOA. The campground is very nice, and quite possibly the largest we’ve stayed at so far. On site and just nearby it has a homestyle resturant, a pizza place, a bar, a mexican place, and two car washes, but everything is still grassy, wooded, and away from the highway. Most exciting of all this is that I FINALLY got to wash the truck. Five+ days of sand, dirt, and salt, as well as 15+ days of splattered bugs rolled off the truck and camper, and everything is clean again. It is very quiet though, and the best part of all is that they have a pool; A nice, warm, relax-your-bones-after-a-long-day-of-driving pool. After a little swim we fixed dinner and went for a walk, and here we sit at the picnic table beside our camper posting this. It’s a comfortable 70*F, an unbelievable change after the 40*F weather we had just two nights ago on the coast of CA. Tomorrow we’re heading towards Colorado, with the goal of either Denver or Colorado Springs, to allow us to check out Pikes Peak on Monday.