Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Welcome to Oregon

 We finally made it to Oregon! Wow, did it look different than we expected! We expected a lush green forest, and what we got was Eastern Oregon which is practically a desert. Looked just like the great basin except it had a little bit more green and some of these yellow flowers growing everywhere. It turns out that it was called the Oregon outback.

 We also saw these chain up areas every few miles. Which we found out was where trucks and cars could pull over to put chains on their tires in the snow months, because this is such a high elevation.

 Then finally everything got more green and we could start seeing giant redwoods and Sequoias as peak over the top of the usual tree line.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : The Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah

 At the very Western edge of the salt lake basin, is the most serial place we've visited which was the Bonneville salt flats.

 It began as this salty slush on the side of the road. It looked exactly like slush after a snowstorm.

 It even felt exactly like slush, with none of the coldness though! You can tell by my face that it was very surprising!

  Then suddenly, on both sides of the road for miles and miles, were these  Salt flats marked by many cracks in the crust. After feeling the strange salt slush, we thought this was going to feel like table salt or more like the salt in the slush on the side of the road, but it did not. It was very very hard and sharp!

 As you can see from this picture, if you put your whole weight on it, you would make footprints, indentation in the salt crust.

 Seeing the sunset over the salt flat was one of the truly magical moments of this entire trip.

You can see from this picture that the salt flats were literally right beside the road on both sides. In fact, you could DRIVE ONTO THEM if you wanted.  And we noticed that many people actually did! It seemed to be the popular thing to take your truck and drive donuts around the salt flats with your friends if you were a teenager. After the beautiful sunset over the salt flats, we also saw people made fires in the middle as well. Such different activities in this part of the country!

 And even though it is a strange photo, I thought it was important to show the amount of salt on our feet after coming back from here.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : Salt Lake City Utah

 Even though it wasn't one of our scheduled stops, we thought it would be worth taking a few minute detour to sea Salt Lake City and the biggest mormon temple. Sure enough, it was made of white marble and, even though it was being renovated, was absolutely gorgeous! We walked up as close as we could to it, passing by sets of mormon girls in  long skirts walking 2 by 2. It gave off quite a creepy Stepford vibe. Everyone was smiling a sickly smile and greeting us as we walked by.  Even though everyone was sickeningly sweet, we had a feeling that they would rip our heads off if we got too close to the temple.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : The Great Basin Utah (& Nevada)

 As a geological phenomenon, the great basin is absolutely huge! And it is full of absolutely nothing. Nothing and nothing for miles around. Before we entered the great basin, we kept seeing these signs for a port of entry and last gas for 180 miles. It was quite creepy and one of those worrisome places that you realized that you could possibly die if your car broke down, because nonody would come along for hours. It turns out that the great basin is truly a basin, there was a port of entry with steep mountains at the side of the basin, then you would enter the basin and you could see the other side and the mountains that marked it, but you would drive hours upon hours and never reach it. Then randomly, you would come upon a Mesa again, or a strange rock formation carved out by wind.

 And in the middle of the vast nothingness, we decided to get out and take a few pictures for scale.  As you can see there is nothing and no one for miles around. Vast and dangerous and a little bit creepy.  In fact, if you zoom in to this picture above in between the truck and the edge of the picture you will see a small memorial mound which. the landscape along the road where people's cars have broken down and people have died.

You can see the large truck we drove cross country which is a reminder that the real reason why we are doing this is to bring Leia and Harvest all of their things and get them settled in Oregon.

THEN ... in the absolute middle of nowhere,  There was a weird purple solitary building called the Twilight Zone. We did not stop, and I didn't think enough to take a picture which I regretted later. So I had to go online and find this picture. It really is a real place and is famous for its beef jerky.

As an interesting comparison to the mountains at the beginning of the great pace and, you can see later and closer to Nevada, the mountains suddenly become Gray with streaks of white.Why were there lighter mountains with streaks of white?… 

... It turns out that the streaks of white were SALT! Little did we know we were arriving at one of the big drains of the great basin called the salt flats.

Driving Crosscountry 2020 : The Desert Rose Hotel in Utah

Truly one of the treasures of the desert, we came upon the Desert Rose Hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere! It was such a beautiful resort with grounds that had many picture taking capabilities and beautiful views of the mesas from every room.

 And just as another example of the hidden beauty of the desert, as we were walking along the grounds filled with parched Earth where nothing could possibly grow unless it was watered extensively, we found this naturally growing desert plant with these beautiful yellow flowers!