Unscenic Drive

The trip from Salt Lake City, Utah to Reno, Nevada is among the least scenic stretches of road I encountered on this journey. Having just spent a few weeks surrounded by the relentless splendour of Colorado and Southern Utah, this outbreak of ugliness and tedium was all the more difficult to endure.

The road skirts around the white, crusty edges of the Great Salt Lake, which was interesting for about 30 seconds. Then the endless expanse of salt residue started to get a little tedious. I amused myself by fantasising about giving the Cream Puff a workout on the flat salt plain, but fear of runaway corrosion took all the fun out of the daydream. I have never seen as many cars made entirely out of rust as in the states where frozen roads are salted in winter. I couldn't knowingly inflict such a fate on the Cream Puff.

For several hundred miles I travelled along a highway called "Dust Hazard," or at least that's what the signs said. At some point I entered Nevada. Either nobody bothered to erect a sign at the border or my brain was too numb to notice.

The one pleasant break in an otherwise thoroughly unpleasant afternoon was my stop at a perfectly charming Internet cafe for a snack and a smoothie. It was a family owned type of establishment and I was the only customer for the entire forty minutes or so that I was there. Nevertheless the atmosphere was good. The owners are obviously obsessed with Italian motorcycles because there are Ducati and Moto Guzzi posters all over the walls. I sat on a comfortable lounge chair, nibbling on a giant cookie, drinking my smoothie and desperately searching the Internet for a place to stay and something interesting to do when I reached the end of this drive. I share credit for all the fun I had in Reno with that little Internet cafe somewhere in Nevada.