Salt Lake City

Well, after 3,500 miles, the Wanderbus broke down. We're currently on an extended stay in Portland, Oregon, while we wait for it to be fixed. We'll tell you more about that in a bit. First, a story about cold weather.

We left Moab on a hot, sunny day. Our next stop would be Salt Lake City, Utah. I have always been curious about what the city looked like since I hear its praise from tons of people back East, many of whom are avid/fanatical skiers.

The ride through the mountains proved to be ever colder. The temperature in the first 100 miles dropped by more than 15 degrees. After winding up the mountain roads to about 6,000 feet we encountered snow flakes and a mild storm. I was driving, still in my shorts and t-shirt. The heat was still disconnected from the summer's RV conversion, and frankly, I never expected to get snow on our trip. At least I was praying for it not to snow. I personally like snow, but our oil pump does not like pumping oil the consistency of lard. Was this going to be the end of our trip north? Thankfully we had just enough fuel to arrive within the city limits of Salt Lake City, and just in time. Snow started dumping from the sky and we bundled up to keep warm. First things first, we need a heater. I got back in the driver's seat and we drove to Lowe's to purchase a Mr. Buddy Heater. $170 later we were warm again and parked for the night in a Walmart just south of the city.

Amanda had the great idea to find some hot springs in the area. We did some research online to find the closest spot. It was only a few miles north and offered us the opportunity to drive through part of the city. Being Sunday, it was more like a ghost town. One thing I was surprised to learn is that the epicenter of the city the the Mormon Temple. All roads start from that point, meaning the numbered roads go up from there. I still don't claim to understand the street system in Salt Lake. Even the GPS had a hard time finding its way. Fortunately we made it out again.

The hot spring was in a small park to the north and looked more like a hot sewer drain. It was surrounded by razors and toothpaste tubes. A lady bathing her feet tried to entice us to take a dip. More like taking a dip in used bath water, I'll pass. Since we were still in the area we decided to go to the "cool" area of town. We drove back through the ghost town but saw nothing much except a Mexican restaurant. Much to my surprise, their waste oil was still liquid. This was our chance to fill up the tank. We were both relieved, since we knew that Boise, Idaho, our next major stop, was just outside of the winter storm and would be a much easier place to find "liquid gold".

Later, we drove north to Antelope Island, an island state park right in the middle of Great Salt Lake. Antelope Island is the home to free range bison. The smell of the lake reminded us both of the ocean air. Since the sun had already set, we waited to explore until the morning.

The island by daylight was barren, void of most anything except some hares and bison. We climbed a nearby hill and were able to see a full 360 panorama of the area. It was completely surrounded by snow capped mountains and uninviting sparkling blue water. Any previous thoughts we had of kayaking were wiped away. We were not prepared for freezing temperatures, especially not in the desert.

Time to head to warmer climates.