TORREZ TRAVELS

I’m combining yesterday and today. Yesterday there wasn’t much to tell you. We pretty much just drove through the desert till we got to SLC, and then hung out in a library. As you know it’s been hot everywhere, and we have stayed mostly indoors. Our love of comfort has been keeping us in. Our daughter sent us a cartoon showing two older people asleep in a gondola. The pilot is just staring at them. The caption says, “Why you shouldn’t wait until retirement to travel.” I laughed all day about that. I find a sense of humor is very helpful as you age.

Yesterday we were surprised to get rained on. We had not been expecting rain in Utah.

The Trees seemed to appreciate the water.

I liked the various colors in the trees, but it may be lack of health rather than fall colors.

The rocks were pretty neat also.

This is a Pinyon Pine. It’s one of Nevada’s state trees, but they grow all through the south-west states. I think we saw this one in Utah, before we crossed the border between Utah and Nevada. It takes about three hundred years to mature, and many live to be 1000 years old.

We went to the Great Salt Lake State Park, but we didn’t stay long, and none of my pictures turned out. This is an irrigation channel running along the highway between us and the Great Salt Lake.

A beautiful flag in the wilderness.

A very old barn.

A pyramid in Nevada, actually there’s more than one.

Is this a mirage, or actual water?

This is a crazy area. It’s very flat, because it’s an old lake bed. They have a place where they test how fast a vehicle can go. This says the fastest land speed record is 622.407 miles an hour! That record was made in 1970! I can not imagine driving that fast!

The surface of the Bonneville Salt Flats is a crust of salt that has melted when rain comes, and hardens again as it dries out. You can’t see from one end to the other because of the curve of the earth! I would love to hear the story of how this great basin was formed, and how what was once a large sea is now only a salt flat, and the Great Salt Lake!

There were several places where small hills of salt was piled up. We saw one building with Morton Salt written on it.

Tonight is the last night of our trip that we will spend in a hotel room. We have experienced so many crazy situations, it’s been a major source of entertainment; people trying to come in our room late at night, us trying to go into someone else’s room, key cards that quit working as soon as the employee walks away, doors that don’t close with out lifting them up, doors that don’t open unless you pull the door handle up, motel hosts that can’t hear when you knock, tonight we went to the wrong hotel for the first time!

We have so enjoyed traveling across the continent. It’s been good for our relationship. We didn’t expect it, but we have grown closer. And we discovered we really are blessed to live in this beautiful world!