Salt Lake City and the road trip

First our apology to Bob Stevenson for not connecting with him while we were here. Time was unfortunately short.

What an unexpected joy the last couple days have been. Salt Lake City was expected to be an easy overnight trip with a two hour visit to Temple square and off heading east on our way back to Elkhart.

On Saturday we traveled through the salt flats outside of Salt Lake City. This is an area that is amazingly flat and white for as far as you can see. Obviously, an environment that was under water at some point but today it is just 40 miles of really unique landscape.

We landed in Salt lake City KOA, a nice park just outside the city and 10 min’s after we landed we were off to Temple square to do what tourist do. We were in awe of the structures and culture we encountered but as much with the hospitality and excitement of the members of the Mormon Church. We were very fortunate to be touring on the annual woman’s conference day (10’s of thousands of women) so the folks who normally give tours were at the conference. We were pleased when we discovered that our tour guides were three elders and all past Presidents of the church. They were admittedly rusty in giving tours but the information they had was absolutely amazing. It took us 2.5 hours to tour the beehive house (Brigham Young’s residence) which normally takes 20 mins but we got an education on the temple and culture that was no doubt rare. We were convinced after our 5 hours in Temple square that we would be fools to not stay to witness a live show by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir the following morning. What a great five hours!

We were up at 6:30, ohhh Missy loved that, dressed in our finest duds and off to the 9:30 live broadcast. It is completely indescribable to watch this show, in the Tabernacle no less, they only preform here in the off season. Glenn Beck was in the audience as were thousands of others we all enjoyed amazing music.

We got back in our camper duds and off to Wy. We entered the red rocks just out of the city and then an amazing and new site...... bright green rocks and mountains with green strips? We had not a clue what caused this color but suspected it was minerals. Missy met some folks in Wy that claim Scientist have said it is basically, ancient whale poop when this area was an ocean. I like the explanation and will dig to see if it is true but for now it sound reasonable.

Heading east

Reno and road trip in the Sierra range

Reno, actually Boomtown was saturated with bikers at what they claimed to be the third largest bike rally in the country. After hearing the numbers of bikes at Sturgis and the 105th we are skeptical if it was even approaching those levels. We saw some Hell’s Angels and a huge group of Henchmen, easily tens of thousands of bikes clearly having a blast.

We decided to spend the afternoon gambling, have a nice dinner at the resort and then go back to the casino for a fairly early evening as we planned to head east the following morning. The plan worked perfect except the early evening part. Great streaks on the craps table for both of us and some really odd luck at three card poker extended our evening past midnight.

Dinner was great, Missy rolling 6 points in craps with a table full of happy drunk bikers who affectingly referred to her as “come on honey one more number”. Who could ask for a nicer evening, what a blast.

The road trip through the Sierra range was very nice high desert mountains with sage brush in bloom. Enjoyable drive.

Off to Salt Lake City

Napa valley Sterling Vineyard

Napa valley was our chance to experience two things we really wanted to see, Sterling Vineyards and Napa style. We were unable to get to the latter but Sterling was great.

It started with a gondola ride to the top of the mountain where the vineyard was. We rode up with a charming older couple, the wife was scared to death of the ride but assure us it was worth it. We opted for the special reserve tasting, it was as expected the best wine thus far.

Ok here it goes, sigh… the 2002 cab, special reserve had notes of thyme and cherry while very smooth on the palette it was second (for Missy) to the 2005 Rutherford Cab with special flavors of blackberry an maple.

Six wines later we took the back way home, bad idea but really pretty. We are in awe of the quantity of roads in America that are crazy steep, windy and narrow.

Off to Reno.

San fran, Alcatraz, Golden Gate Bridge

We took a trip to a new salon today with plans to also take a boat to Alcatraz, see the Golden Gate Bridge and see some of San Francisco. We really like the open feel of this city and will no doubt return at some point. After lunch at a local tri tip legend we boarded a boat to Alcatraz. We debated taking the night time tour and maybe next time we will, this time the sun served us well.

Our visit to the “rock was guided by former guards and inmates and was the most real, unchanged, unmanaged sight we have seen thus far. The conditions at the Rock were clearly based on survival and control both of which were challenged several times by the country’s most famous and dangerous criminals. The escape featured in the movie was, as portrayed unreal in its complexity. Who knows if these men made it but to make it to the roof was incredible. We had the opportunity to go into the “hole” in the D block, the pictures might give an indication of the size and darkness but in less than 2 min’s, with the door open, was some of the most anxious moments we can remember. It is a rock as described, 1. 5 miles from the city, it is intense and utterly shocking to stand in.

The Golden Gate Bridge was also awesome. We have both seen suspension bridges and they are amazing, this one clearly takes the cake. We hope the pictures from the boat ride to Alcatraz, from the rock and on our trip over it give you an indication of its splendor. Reading about its construction is up to you, it is no doubt an impressive story, someone will have to tell us before we research it, why the Golden Gate bridge is red?

The city was simply comfortable, airy and warm, hope you like the pics.

Love you all,

Sanoma Valley Wine

Wine country...Missy...free time...seems like a recipe for trouble. Here we go...........

We entered this trip by making our first big mistake and ended up pulling the fifth wheel through some non RV roads at 10 MPH around 9o degree curves through the woods, around the mountains and down the coast in fog. We got off that trail as soon as possible, endured some scolding from my mother and are better planners for the experience.

I have to tell you all it was a total new experience for both of us and less fru-fru than I thought it would be, just classy. We visited three major wineries, Kendall Jackson, Blackstone and Chateau St Jean. At Kendall Jackson we spent a couple hours doing a private wine and food pairing and while it was exquisite it was also very educational about the art of wine and food.

Blackstone was short sweet and fun but the crown jewel was Chateau St Jean where we chose to do their private reserve tasting.... Just amazing to gain an understanding of the top tier wines and how the complex flavors interact with food.

If you love wine this area is awesome, I hope to be able to convince Missy to leave at some point.

San Fran next

Pacific coast hwy and Redwoods

We write is entry from just north of San Francisco, the heart of wine country. Could be trouble we will let you all know in the next post.

The drive down the OR coast and northern CA. coast line has been spectacular at times and very intimidating at others. The cliffs are amazing as are the views. On this portion of the trip we spotted several more whales, one was flat enormous. We also stopped at the sea lion caves, the largest natural sea cave in the world and while the lions we not home we did spot one on the rocks. We were both more excited to leave the caves then to enter them.

Finally, we spent the day in the Ave of the Giants Redwood forest. Those are some big, tall, old trees. The oldest we saw was estimated to be between 950 and 1,000 years old, 363 ft tall with a 53.2 ft circumference.

More in a few days