Where in the world is Sas?: March 2012

Hotel Art - Battle Mountain, Nevada

And whew I'm up to date on the blog posts now! The last hour or so coming into Battle Mountain was pretty hairy as the winds were pretty fierce so I was fighting the car the whole way. Pretty happy to be here and have a really great hotel room. And behold a lovely mountain scene for today's hotel art. Brought to you by the Super 8

Salt flats outside of Salt Lake City, Utah

Heading out of Salt Lake City towards Battle Mountain, Nevada I hit the salt flats. Most notably the Bonneville salt flats which is the site of the world land speed record runs. I seem to recall that there's a movie with Anthony Hopkins about it but I'm too lazy to google it so if you really wanna know feel free to look it up yourself :) Of course I had to taste the salt and it's like salt x 1000000. Super dooper salty. And satisfyingly crunchy underfoot too.

Salt storm just before the flats, very windy at this gas station stop

heading into the salt storm

Bonneville Salt Flats

salty goodness

crunchy salty goodness

hello Nevada

bye bye Utah

some amazing looking mountain range on the way to Battle Mountain, Nevada

Map of my travels so far

I thought I'd try and map out the places and states that I've visited so far. I'm glad I've been blogging about the hotel art as I had to refer back to this blog to remember all the places I've been. It's hard to believe that my six months is almost up! I tried to color the places that I've stayed with a red blob and it's up to date with tonight's location (Battle Mountain, Nevada).

So far I've visited 19 states and will probably be 22 by the end of my trip. Once I get to San Francisco in the next couple of days I'll be able to say that I've been coast to coast and put my feet in both oceans. Pretty neat to think about really.

Grand Junction, Colorado and Salt Lake City, Utah

Grand Junction was really just a halfway point stop so I didn't see much of it. There was some more amazing scenery on the way westwards, almost like a lunar landscape. At one of the rest areas there was a hill with a viewing platform and I got some more pics there. I was originally heading towards Vegas and the Grand Canyon but half way to what was supposed to be my next stop (Beaver,CO) I realised that it would probably be better to head to San Francisco first rather than go to Vegas then San Fran and back as I'd be doing a bit of back tracking rather than taking a circle and then heading down the middle of Cali and towards Vegas (see the next post for my trip map so far). So I reprogrammed the trusty GPS and headed for Salt Lake City, Utah. I would post pics of the SLC hotel art but for the first time on my trip there was no art in the hotel room! It wasn't the best hotel but that's what I get for making spur of the moment direction changes without checking out the hotels first. It had a bed and the usual necessities and was only for one night so so be it. I'll bore you instead with some more scenery pics :)

thats the way I came

the lookout hill that I climbed for the view of the next couple of pics

Hotel Art - Grand Junction

Not much to say about Grand Junction. It seems like a nice enough place but pretty boorrrring as it's a bit of a little town in the middle of nowhere. Nice people though :) And some different art, brought to you by the Super 8.

Denver to Grand Junction, Colorado

Driving from Denver to Grand Junction was one of the best drives I've had on this trip. The views were AMAZING. After driving through relatively flat plains for the past couple of months, seeing mountains was a bit of a shock. The mountains still had snow on the peaks here and there but it wasn't that cold. Stopped at Grizzly Creek in the Glenwood canyon to take some pics of the stream and surrounding canyons. Passed by Vail and Aspen and even saw some people skiing.

Skiing people!

Writing my name in the snow, girl style....

this was a rest stop covered in snow

more views from the rest stop

And this is the spot that I got stuck trying to walk on the 5 foot snow bank....

This was at the Grizzly Creek rest stop

Map of the Glenwood canyon

Grizzly Creek

at the Grizzly Creek rest stop

very random pair of shoes by the river. It's stuff like that that makes my brain tick overtime... thinking where's the body or something like that....