Today is my son's 44th birthday. Happy Birthday, Scott.

Today was the day we were not really looking forward to because we crossed Nevada from one side to the other, and anyone who has done this knows it is difficult to get inspired to take photos. The landscape is monochromatic and does not provide a lot of food for the camera. But I did take some photos to document our trek. We left Reno at 6:45 and 61 degrees with clear skies. The temps fluctuated all day long, up and down, as high as 90 degrees and as low as 60. We did not experience a lot of elevation changes, so I am not certain what caused it. In a prior blog I opined, after driving this road, that the reason Nevada has legal gambling and prostitution is because without it no one would come here. I still believe that.

There was a lot of haze in the air today. I don’t think it came from traffic, for there was little of that. Moisture? Well, the area is VERY dry, with many dried up lakes, so perhaps not fog. Fire? We didn’t see any, however, my research tells me that serious haze was caused in Nevada by fires in Russia last year. Hard to believe, but using that information, perhaps the fires in California and Nevada have something to do with what we saw today. The mountains in the distance were often barely visible, and I could actually see, at times, something floating in the air. In any event, the visibility was poor and not good for taking photos.

Did I say dried up lake? There is a huge lake on the map in western Nevada, but today, and perhaps for some time, there is nothing but dry, and in places moist, sand. If it was full of water, it would not be a deep lake, but it does cover a lot of acreage. Apparently Nevada is in a drought, too.

We drove through a number of small towns, like Lovelock, where there was a McDonalds, a Chevron station and a small casino. Priorities, I guess. We saw miles and miles of desert, sometimes yellow ground cover, and often tan sand with sage brush…some silver green and some brown from a lack of water. The road passed through flat land which was always sandwiched between two mountain ranges, off in the purple haze. And that was it, for 400 miles. But wait…the border was coming, and Utah was in our sights. Why is that important?  Because as soon as we crossed the border we were in the Bonneville Salt Flats. The ground was white and there was nothing growing in most parts, not a cactus, not a sage bush, nothing.  It was a dirty white color but where wheels had rolled over the ground, the tracks were pure white.   Salt. Along the way, there are a few industries, mining, refining, and salt…remember "When it rains, it pours"? …the little girl with the umbrella carrying a bag of salt that is spilling all over the ground behind her? OK. I am aging myself. But my peers will remember. Morton Salt.

Eventually we reached Salt Lake City. This is really a very pretty town, but from the highway, one would never know it. The roads are a tangle of raised highways, crisscrossing over each other. The backdrop is a range of beautiful mountains, but it is masked behind a view that is noisy with big green signs and tall light poles and billboards, everywhere. There are no photo ops here. None, sad to say.

We made our way 40 miles south of the city and found our hotel for the night. Tomorrow, we drive to Colorado, one of my very favorite states.