Salt Lake City

We got back on the road the next morning, bound for Salt Lake City, UT. On our way East, we were once again amazed by the Nevada desert's beauty, and at how early it had started to snow this year.

We encountered some construction near the Elko area, where we were going through the opposite traffic's lane in their tunnel!

You can also see the vastness of the road, just because of there not being anything to block your view, such as trees, mountains, etc. (Sorry for the dirty windshield picture)

Soon we arrived to the Bonneville Speedway (Bonneville Salt Flats) where we were planning on stopping because Sean wanted to take the Jeep out and drive on it, but due to recent rains the dry lake bed had retained a bit of water. This made the surface of the lake bed very muddy and slick, which wouldn't be much fun if we had gotten stuck.

The Bonneville Speedway is famous for having numerous land speed records set by various vehicles, mostly being jet-powered. It is amazing to see such a flat area, so flat and vast that you can actually view the natural curve of the Earth! It is interesting, in such a flat area, to not be able to see the bottom of the mountains, as you can view in the picture below.

Eventually we were about 15 miles from Salt Lake City, and where the Great Salt Lake is visible from the Interstate. Also, this area is where the Morton Salt Factory resides.

We found an RV park that was about 5 miles from downtown Salt Lake City, and also happened to be very expensive, but with there not being many parks around the city itself we were somewhat stuck with the bill. The up-side was the park was very nice!

The next day we headed up to the Hill Aerospace Museum, where we were excited to see the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird that has broken many speed records with its top recorded speed being 2,193 mph...( :-0) Apparently, its evasive tactic from a "surface-to-air-missile" is to simply outrun it, haha!

It was a very neat museum, and the best part being there is no admission fee.

After exploring the museum, we headed back to SLC to view the Great Salt Lake, which is both great and salty (and stinky)! It was a surprise to have to walk out through salt crystal flats a long way to actually get to the water.

While we were in Salt Lake, we really wanted to witness the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which amazingly we were able to see the next morning when they hold a live broadcast.

After being serenaded by the Mormons, we decided to visit Park City, which is East of SLC in the enormous mountains that the city lies next to. This is also the site of the 2002 Winter Olympic Games.