Laramie greeted us this morning with some light rain and a cool breeze. We pushed off pretty early, eager to make our appointment in Park City to pick up my pre-ordered motorcycle at a dealer there. The morning drive through the high plains and desert of western Wyoming was a pleasant surprise. The country was beautiful, just huge expanses of sky, plateaus and the ribbon of I-80 disappearing off in the distance. About the only station on the radio we could pick up was NPR, and they had some sort of special where they read off the complete Declaration of Independence. It was pretty cool to hear the words that started this country while driving a road that connects the two coasts.

All pictures from today.

At some point we crossed the Continental Divide, meaning that if we turned in to water we would officially end up in the Pacific, not the Atlantic. We actually crossed it twice on 80, which was weird. I’m not really sure what the water is thinking, but you can see the little curly-queue of the divide on the map.

The mountain climbs and thin air were pretty brutal on the truck. It operated almost entirely one gear down from top, which wasn’t really a big deal but makes a bit more noise so it’s noticeable. The trip between Lyman and Evanston was particularly crazy. We must have gone through three steep 6% climbs followed by the same descent on the back side. Compounding all of this was the fact that we were basically on empty 25 miles from the next gas station (Bri just loves this part). Evidently the mountain driving took its toll on our gas mileage and my calculations were off. We *just* barely made it in to Evanston for gas, and I mean barely - I put exactly 35 gallons in the tank, which is how much it’s supposed to hold in the first place. Yikes.

From Evanston it was a steep descent into Utah and the Echo resevoir. Then a short climb up to Park City, where I stopped at Summit Honda to pick up the bike I had pre ordered. Rebecca and the excellent staff had my bike all set up and ready to go. I took it around the block, and came back with a HUGE grin on my face. This is going to be the perfect way to see California. We loaded the motorcycle into the pre-arranged hole in the back of the truck, and it fit perfectly I must say. The guys helping me kind of went “wow, that’s a tight fit”, but it worked. Bri and I moved approximately 500lb of boxes from the truck to the car on the trailer, with the hope that the net effect on the truck rear axle would be nil. It seemed to work, as the truck drove fine after.

The rig may have driven fine, but 540 more pounds did not do anything for the power. We immediately climbed Parley’s Summit, which was CRAZY STEEP. I had the truck floored, and we managed about 35 mph at one point. I could practically see the fuel needle going down. We made it up, but the fun part about mountain passes is that the climb up is just half the excitement. The trip down the other side with an over-loaded rig was equally “entertaining”. Fortunately the truck had a tow package installed, and the transmission was smart enough to know it needed to engine brake. That coupled with the massive amount of rolling friction kept our brakes from melting into a pile of goo along the canyon.

From there, it was pretty smooth sailing. We booked it through Salt Lake City, and then crossed the great salt flats to the west. That is some crazy terrain - completely flat, but so disorienting because there is nothing but flat salt forever, then some mountains in the distance. The mountains never seem to get closer - if you asked me how far away they were when we were just outside of Salt Lake City, I would have said 15 miles. 113 miles later, we made it to Wendover, just inside those mountains you can see in the distance. Another very cool part about the salt flats was passing by the Bonneville speedway. Heading out there for speed week is still on my list of über cool things to do.

I think tomorrow we’re going to try to just roll on in to Mountain View. Booking it those first couple of days to make it in to Park City on time put us pretty far ahead. It should only be a 12 hour day, and we’ll be at our new home. Who knows, maybe we can even see some fireworks out there.