Beginning of western and southwest road trip May 5

May 5 2021 Wednesday Day 1 To Reno

We began our drive at 11:00 am after I had gone to the doctor and returned from Best Buy to pick up my computer following a devirusing cleaning. After a gas fill-up we set out going west on I-80 with a full tank and a full battery.

It is a long and largely boring drive across northern Utah and Nevada. As we approached the Nevada border in the Great Salt Lake Dessert we stopped at Metaphor: the Tree of Utah, a/k/a the Tree of Life. This is an 87 ft high sculpture that was created by a Swedish sculptor in 1986. It is made mostly of concrete and has a squarish trunk with six globes as leaves. There are several broken globes on the ground and the structure is surrounded by a fence. 

Very close to the Nevada border we stopped at a rest area that is adjacent to the Bonneville Salt Flats. This the largest of many salt flats in western Utah which were created by the ancient Lake Bonneville. Since the beginning of the 20th century this has been the site of many races and land speed records, as well as many movies. The race course is 10 miles long and due to the curvature of the earth one cannot see one end from the other. The first land speed record was set in 1935, at just over 300 miles per hour. The last entry on the plaque indicted that in 1970 the record had been pushed to over 600 miles per hour. 

The flats stretched almost as far as the eye could see. First we ate lunch at the picnic table. Adjacent to the rest area there was shallow clear standing water (probably snow melt from the distant mountains some of which were still snow capped) for a few hundred yards, but after wading through that we walked out on to the dry salt flats. The water was very salty and the flats were very crusty. There were a few dozen people walking on the flats, many with dogs. We conversed with two English girls. There was a vendor selling jewelry in the parking area. We were interested in purchasing something after our walk on the flats, but he was packing up saying that he could not stop to sell since he had to pick up his kids from daycare. 

About half way there we stopped for gas in Battle Mountain, NV. This is now a town of less than 3000 people. It was a stop on the Emigrant Trail and was named after amid 19th century battle between settlers and Indians. It developed in the 19th century as a mining town, primarily copper, but also some gold. Then the railroad followed. However the town's fortunes declined throughout the 20th century and in 2001 a Washington Post columnist declared the town the armpit of America. Battle Mountain embraced that and for several years it held an annual armpit festival, sponsored in part by Old Spice. We walked around the town a bit. There were two hotels, a few restaurants and casinos and a freight trail came through.

 We made a hotel reservation while driving, arrived in Reno about 8:00 and checked into the Silver Legacy Hotel and Casino in downtown Reno. Nice place that is very large. The hotel's parking garage had a free electric charging station. The weather was very mild in the evening, but many of the restaurants closed at 9, so we ate at Original Mel's in the Sands Regency Hotel.  Interesting sculptors on the evening walk over there.