Wednesday Morning: Salt Lake City

Good morning from Salt Lake City. We got into SLC late last night and drove by the Tabernacle and some other buildings of the Mormon Church downtown (breath-taking at night) and then went over to check out the 2002 Olympic remnants at the University of Utah’s campus. First night in a hotel — somewhat refreshing, but definitely missing the loved-ones-charm. I need to make some friends in Utah for my next adventure.

This morning we’ll see the Great Salt Lake on our drive to San Francisco, via Reno. It’ll be a long day….11 hour drive. We should probably start….I’ll go wake up Josh.

The Rest of Wyoming

Cheyenne is the largest city in Wyoming, as evidenced by the lack of people for the rest of the state. Some of my favorite signs were the ones that said “Food, phone, camping. Next services 150 miles.” Yowzah. It is absolutely gorgeous — you can see beautiful blue skies and puffy clouds for miles and miles. We’ve seen cows and gazelles (at least I think they were gazelles), highway exits that lead to nothing more than a dirt road that rides off into the distance, and tiny tiny towns.

We found a Lincoln Monument overlooking the highway – so we got out and made snowballs. Seemed logical. Yes I threw one at Abe Lincoln — but not because I don’t appreciate him, primarily because he was large and in-charge and I was looking for solid competition. There was no retaliation and I was forced back into the car to gawk out the windows for a few more hours.

Cheyenne, Wyoming

Around Noon O’Clock Mountain Time, Tuesday

I had never been to Wyoming before today. Check another one off the list of states-to-see. It is gorgeous here. In Cheyenne we checked out the train depot and met a man that formerly worked for the State Department and lived in Alexandria, Virginia. There were gigantic statues of boots all over town — painted with different themes, kinda like the pandas in D.C. We visited the State Capitol building — there was a bison statue out front.

The highlights of Cheyenne:
- We went into a cowboy clothing store. There are a few downtown.
- I sold some of my old CDs to a store in downtown Cheyenne (making $40 on music y’all claim is awful).
- I’m pretty sure I was hit on my a gas station attendant.

All great reasons to consider moving back there. There are about 80,000 people in the metropolitan Cheyenne area….and…..the largest outdoor rodeo is there (Frontier Days, I think it what it is called) at the end of the summer bringing in nearly 250,000 people .

Hello Wyoming.

Denver – Tuesday morning

Denver was awesome. Seeing Sara and Alex was fabulous — the four of us spent hours reminscing about middle school and high school. If you haven’t had an opportunity to spend hours thinking about high school ridiculousness, I highly recommend it. My favorite moments were when Sara would say “We were 14 then,” we would all nod, and return to another absurd and obnoxiously great story.

We went into Denver Tuesday morning for brunch with another Grand Rapidian, Josh. The Denver Diner was our establishment of choice. I, of course, had the Denver omelet in the Denver Diner in Denver Colorado — it was Alex’s idea. It was great to see Josh — he had some great ideas of what to see in the Pacific Northwest. Plus, how often can you eat a meal with three people from Grand Rapids, Michigan in a diner in Denver.

I also tried my hand at Guitar Hero…..I’m basically a rock star.