The green grass of Wyoming

Today it occurred to me where I might first have learned about Basque sheepherders. Something like 55 years ago my grandmother gave me a book, My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara, about a boy and his horse. I loved it - one of the few cases where she and I weren't bitterly at odds. Over the next couple of years she gave me, and I devoured, the sequels Thunderhead and The Green Grass of Wyoming. I wonder if I would love them still - I certainly enjoy other fiction written for pre- and adolescents.

No green grass today - it is March, after all. But just being in Wyoming feels magic to me, and I caught myself looking across the valleys and hillsides for horses. In vain. Also, Wyoming is where the driving finally got as easy as the first part of Nevada was yesterday.

Nevada, continued

The two inches of powdery snow on top of Penny the Prius at the hotel this morning was pretty enough, but as I-80 climbed through eastern Nevada toward the Pequop and Silver Zone passes (7,000 and 6,000 feet respectively) things got ugly fast. There was the crust of thick brown ice on the road, sometimes broken by clear wheel tracks if I could stay in them and sometimes covering the whole road so I had to jounce over them. There were the signs telling me to tune to an AM frequency that told me I-80 from god-knows-where to the Utah line was closed to vehicles without chains or snow tires. But assuming I wasn't past that point already, where was I to go?

Finally there was the sign saying the road ahead was indeed under a snow-tires-or-chains restriction, and a row of 30 or so semis stopped on the shoulder getting ready for the climb to Pequop. A scary sight. I tucked in behind a truck that was laboring up the pass and hoped that my brand-new all-weather tires could handle it. I was happy to slow down as the truck did, since by then the temperature had dropped to 25, but finally near the top of the pass I got up enough courage to pass it, and two SUVs followed me (but then left me behind as I'd expected them to do much earlier). Going down the other side of the pass was no fun either but I just went at a speed I felt safe with; an SUV and a couple of semis flew past but that was all. Oh, and my windshield washer had quit spraying so I was using my wipers to try to rub off the salt before it dried so I could see. It was a relief to reach the valley, though it was a high one with plenty of ice and the temperature was still below freezing.

The road was better through Silver Zone but heavy snow was falling near the top of the pass. Fortunately it wasn't sticking to the pavement or to Penny's poor smeared windshield. After that came West Wendover and the Utah line at last. I pulled off to check Penny's washer fluid and spray nozzles and both were in great shape. There at the gas station the washers started working again.

Utah

The first 100 miles or so of Utah were as flat and straight as the Lake Pontchartrain causeway, with the Bonneville salt flats on the right and more salt flats on the left that the map said were part of the Great Salt Lake Desert. I shot this photo from the "beach" at the edge of the salt, looking back at the Nevada mountains. Occasionally I saw car tracks that veered off the road, curved across the salt and returned - or ended in a car-sized puddle that might mark the final resting place of someone's vehicle. The wind was ferocious and I kept a firm grip on the wheel.

Then it started to rain. It poured. That helped Penny's appearance some, though she's still a sight. As we came up against the Wasatch mountain range and turned north to Salt Lake City after our 100-mile straightaway, the sun suddenly appeared.

By the time I snapped this photo of the Mormon Temple the clouds were back. And so it went as the road climbed east out of Salt Lake City and across the mountains: For a while there was a near-blizzard snowfall. Then the sun came out for these photos of the frozen Echo Reservoir and the beautiful red rock walls of the gorge below it. All the way the road was clear and easy to drive.

Wyoming

I haven't taken any photos here yet; it's just brown foothills and strip mines so far, but hundreds of miles of the state lie ahead. I'm in Rock Spring just west of the Continental Divide, and have just 5 1/2 hours' driving to reach my friend in Scottsbluff tomorrow.

Nothing to report on the dining front today. Lunch was at a Denny's in Salt Lake City. I asked the hotel clerk here in Rock Spring to suggest a place with interesting food and she eagerly recommended a Thai restaurant! OK, now I'm the one being smug and snarky (see last night's post) since I come from where Thai restaurants of all descriptions are everywhere. As it turned out, I couldn't find the "Sam I King" (Siam King?), so dinner was at another plastic-menu place here in Rock Spring called the Village Inn. They claim to have the best pie in the U.S. I'm a sucker for a fruit pie and loved the triple-berry pie. End of story.