7th August, 2017

Yes, I know, I am typing this up some 2 months late, in OCTOBER!! Still, I am determined to finish this USA Road Trip, not least as Val and I are off on our travels again soon! So here we go, to the best of my memory…

Well, we left Cody early in the morning in order to make the long drive south and then west towards Salt Lake City in Utah. Our overnight was to be Evanston, still in Wyoming, just short of the Utah border and the journey there was meant to be pretty uneventful, not least as it is a good 6 hour drive. We travelled through towns such as Thermopolis, which claims to be the world’s largest mineral hot spring. Sadly we had no time to take the waters even though there is free bathing, but continued south to Shoshoni (pop 649) where we turned right. Not much to report – there is a mushroom processing plant, I believe, though we did not see it. It is pretty arid, but redolent with names that brought up images of the West – Shoshone, Arapahoe and even, decidedly incongruously, Atlantic City. Having read the guide book, I thought it would be interesting to take a detour down the Red Canyon Road, though it did not look too promising as it was only a dirt road and the SatNav kept pleading with us to turn around at the next opportunity. We persevered and although I did wonder a couple of times if we would be up to our axles in red sand and dust, we did make it and it was well worth it. Just a bit stressful!

That was enough excitement for us and we pulled up gratefully onto the forecourt of the Days Inn, Evanston and unloaded our bags. Nothing much to report on the hotel – clean and utilitarian. We had an interesting time finding somewhere to have dinner. Our first choice was closed, so we drove about trying to find something other than a McDonalds or Burger King and finally settled on a so so Mexican restaurant. We would probably have done better to have eaten at the restaurant next to the hotel!

8th August, 2017

This was to be our last day with Chris and Shivonne who were going to get a plane from Salt Lake City to Texas, but we had time to look at the heart of this famous Mormon city. The layout is pretty standard with the ubiquitous grid system, but the main buildings that make up the HQ of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints aka the Mormons are conveniently located in one area. Founded by Brigham Young, patriarch of the Mormons in 1847, the metropolitan area has over a million inhabitants and much of it is very typical of your average US city, though the backdrops of the mountains to the north (site of the 2002 Winter Olympics) and the Great Salt Lake to the west, do make it pretty spectacular.

We, as ever, were in a hurry, so we were only able to wander past the main monuments such as Young’s house, the wonderful gardens, the cathedral and the famous Tabernacle. The latter we did go into and listened for a while to a free concert on the enormous organ. Sadly there was no free rehearsal of the choir, but it is still spectacular (no photos, sorry). We did manage a visit to the museum where some very clean cut young men and women were keen to help us. No attempts at a conversion, though. Worth a visit if you are in the area.

We dropped Chris and Shivonne off at the airport and the four of us (Val, me, Caroline and Nick – the last two luxuriating in the extra legroom in our minivan) headed south through 210 miles of dry Utah scenery to our overnight stopover in Junction, Utah. This was an AirBNB in what was one of the smallest towns (villages? roadside cluster of buildings) you could imagine. Population 177 in 2000 and I think most of them were out of town! Still, the house we were in was comfortable enough and had a washing machine!

OK, that is two days done, more soon, I promise… Lots and lots of canyons!