Where Was I?

Pretty typical fine food dining stop

This isn't exactly the route the bus took, even if Greyhound published this as the map. In fact this would be much more sensible, because from Sacramento the route goes south to San Francisco and then back north to where I was going. But generally, this is pretty much how it went. 

Salt Lake City was an introduction to its homeless, the many, many homeless, wandering the streets at about 2 in the morning. There were so many that at first, I thought some event must have just ended, leaving behind the scatterings of slow moving folk who just didn't want the night to end. Instead, I'm sure for those who, for whatever reason, live with no home roof, the night, at times,must seem to never end.

But it's a beautiful morning and it was, for the most part, a beautiful trip. I totally know I'd never have driven the Turtle those hundreds of miles with very few gas stations or camping spots or even pull over spots. Plus, I got to really look around, one of the few drawbacks of driving solo. 

First sunrise of the trip.

Let the overladen with sights seen post begin. Caveat: these photos are taken from a bus. Through windows and sometimes through people. After a bit of trying to edit out the things I wasn't taking a photo of (people, reflections, etc.) I thought, what the hell am I doing? It was a bus trip! This is what went on. Let it be that. So...I am.

By the time I got the camera where I wanted it, this very cool barn
had jumped behind an ugly metal building

This just looked so tranquil. I hope it is.

Rockies up ahead!

Somewhere near the bus station in Colorado

Prettiest building around this part of Denver. Hope they save it.

Now in Wyoming!

 I'm pretty sure I haven't spent much time, if any time, in Wyoming. What an amazing surprise it was in terms of geography. It was interesting how the young guys traveling with me considered it very desolate country, whereas I was totally enthralled. And then they go into it as well. 'Look! Get a shot of that!' I was grinning a lot.

The hanging thing is a mobile the mother hung up for her three month old baby.
I think it entertained us lots more than the crying baby. 

This started the 'Why wasn't I a geologist!' phase. Again

I was muttering, was that what I thought it was when  little boy a couple of seats
in front of me laughed and said to his Mom, Oh Mom! That's fake!
Thanks, kid.

This place was tucked up differently than it looks.
 It was much more on the river than it looka!

There were a LOT of snow capped mountains

There would be miles of nothing and then a homestead

Or something like this

 Then it started getting really interesting. 

Nature has been busy carving this for a long time

Whaaaa? Who carved these??

Closer looks, still seem man carved

The one near the middle looked like a lady to me, side view

The only road up I saw for about a hundred miles or more

Everything would be all 'smooth' hills and then bloop!
There would be some rocky outcropping...convoluted rocky outcroppings.

Someone left the cake out in the rain...

Half mountain on the rocks, please

In the drab landscape this looked like a circus train

Where did THOSE mountains come from?
In fact, where the hell are we?

After a lot of discussion and pulling up a map (none of our cell phones worked but one kid had a map from earlier) of our route, we decided we were looking at Utah. Or Colorado. Or...someplace with snowy mountains. 

We decided this was some sort of station watching everyone and listening too. 

Nature's corner

Striated history

I muttered 'I must be hallucinating from lack of sleep'.
The guy next to me said, no, that's real.
My son had told me to keep my eyes open for sculptures out there and there they were!
Crazy.

Every once in a while the structures above (not the sculptures) would just be there. I wondered out loud what they were for and the woman in front of me told me they were oil wells, without the derricks. I'd not seen that before. Is it a Wyoming thing? I don't know. 

I took this because of the round protrusion. 

The truck is for perspective, but it doesn't really work. The truck was about three miles away from us. 

Looking near or far, Wyoming was consistent in its inconsistency. I liked it very much. 

Really blurry but this farm...!

I finally figured out these were snow fences, not some crazy art project

Yes, trains are cool

We really only skimmed the southern edge of Wyoming, according to the map. I don't think I'd drive that way again but to explore some more of that state? I'd think hard before saying no.

Sunset, as we get ready to come into Salt Lake City.

Down down down we descended, about 2000 feet taking miles and miles.
This is pretty much exactly how I felt when we got to the city lights

At some point I did sleep, waking to find we were obviously in Nevada. I thought at first we were some big city. We weren't.

Casino on the edge of a tiny place we stopped for ten minutes

At the end of the ten minutes, here came the Sun

How green and snow too!

Every little town has its casinos.

This was at a gas station / convenience store. About six of us were standing around talking about it. I thought since I live on Culebra I just had not seen these but no.
NO one had ever seen them and some were from big cities.
There were three more of these stations. Very cool.

I wanted to ask to stop so I could lick the salt

This stretch of highway had a few miles of names and initials done in rocks along the side of the road. The bus driver wouldn't stop for that either. 

Lake Tahoe ahead! I never saw Lake Tahoe!

The elevated view was really beautiful. I'll go back here. 

Snow practically outside the window

Just a funky place along the way. If that was the whole town, this is how big it is.

No, we are not in Utah anymore. I'm pretty sure these are rice paddies.
But I could be so wrong! 

Hey Mace!! You have a street named for you!

We didn't get to go to the carnival.

And I'm stopping here. WAY too many photos, but I get obsessed. Now I'm in California, on baby watch. There are still a few catch up photos but if you are as tired of this as I am right now, we can all wait until another day.

Have a well-timed whiz-bang of a Wednesday. Do something without whining.