(no subject)

We got up sorta early and hit the road around 9:30-10. The drive through Utah was eerie and beautiful and scary. The desert is so flat and the sand is mixed with salt, so it looks like concrete. Seriously. It's that flat and austere. The weirdest part was passing this "sculpture" in the middle of the desert, not near an exit, about 15 yards from the highway. It was this thick, concrete, flagpole looking thing, with 3 different colored spheres on the top, and one broken sphere on the ground next to it. We discussed for a minute whether it genuinely fell and broke, or whether it was intentional, and concluded it was part of the sculpture and not an accident. (Does anyone happen to know what the hell this is, why it's there, and who the sculptor is?) Then we hit the border of Nevada, and were welcomed into the arms of Utah's bastard sin-filled sibling. And loved it. We headed into the mountains, and could see the clouds dipping down and touching the tips, which deduced was actual rain. Welcome to big sky country. The drive was awesome, except for the hitting of the hills and mountainous the terrain, since the car had NO pick-up, which means on the grades of more than 3 or 4 %, I would have the accelerator all the way on the ground, and we would barely make it over the hill at a speed above 55 mph. I was keeping slightly ahead of the semi's, but would get passed by everyone else. Then we'd hit a downslope, and I'd suddenly make it up to 95 mph and pass everyone again. It became a game for us to have enough momentum before going up a hill to try and maintain speeds. Pole Position III – Nevada in an 86 Volvo. We made it to Reno, which brought up pleasant memories of visiting in December of 97 (wow – can you believe that's almost 4 years ago?), then I drove through Tahoe and Sierra-Nevadas and the narrow lanes, and rush hour traffic through wicked scary curves with semis and Rvs weaving into my lane. White knuckle driving indeed. But exhilarating. And the views were spectacular. We made it to Sacramento around 6, and decided to stop for dinner and avoid more rush hour traffic. I ate at Eppie's, a lovely California-type Bakers Square-type facility and I loved it. We stopped in Davis and visited for an hour with Melro's friends from college. Then we drove on toward the Bay Area and stopped at a Super 8 motel in Richmond. The sketchiest hotel of the trip, I must say, though mostly just because it was old.