party in the usa: salt lake city

according to google maps…

Reno, NV to Salt Lake City, UT
519 mi – about 7 hours 9 mins

tommy and i had a fun day ahead of us 😛

the stretch of I80 across northern nevada is home to:

• thunder mountain monument in imlay, nevada
• lovers lock plaza in lovelock, nevada (i was so sad to miss this…i fell asleep and tom didn’t stop!)
• legal prostitution

sketch!

we passed through mountains…

deserts…

and a whole lotta nothingness

until we finally reached the beehive state!

we got to salt lake city around midnight and checked into our hotel and went straight to bed. the next morning we got up super early (another long-ass day of driving ahead of us), i ran on the treadmill in the gym (really proud of that!), ate breakfast and set out to explore salt lake city.

we went to temple square to check out the mormon temple and the tabernacle organ. i remember seeing the organ as a kid and thought it would be something tom would appreciate since he’s really into music. however, it was still early and the tabernacle was not open yet so we walked around in a museum about mormon history.

while we were in the museum a nun and church elder approached us and offered us a tour. while i was saying no thank you, tom was nodding “yes”…so we ended up getting our own private tour of the square. they had a key to the tabernacle choir and gave us a demonstration of the acoustics and organ- it was pretty cool.

after the organ demonstration, the nun stopped to talk to another couple and i took that opportunity to quickly thank them and escape slip out. but of course the elder ended up running after us (i saw him out of the corner of my eye and actually sped up for a sec. i’m so mean 😦 ) and we listened to his evangelizing bit, got some brochures, and went on our merry way. i ended up reading the pamphlet about joseph smith out loud in the car…and wow…what an interesting man.

have you ever been to salt lake city? it’s actually very nice…really really clean and modern. i bet the mountain views are incredible when it snows but in the middle of september there really wasn’t much else to see other than the mormon stuff so after the temple and a quick drive around we got back on the highway and got started on our next destination.

next stop: dinosaur land!