Salt Lake City - Park City, Utah

Leaving Reno, we headed east on Hwy 80 to Salt Lake City.  I have never been on this road to SLC and there's not much as you cross the boarder into Utah, but the Bonneville Salt Flats where they test drive fast cars, was visible from the highway so I took a picture as we drove by.  Very cool.

We really enjoyed our stay with Linda and Neil.  We taught them a new domino game, Mexican Train, and we all had a blast playing it together in the evenings.

Don wanted to play golf - surprise - so we went to Mountain Dell golf course.  He played with another couple and I drove our cart.  I looked at the brochure and it described the wildlife we might see while we played.  Among the group was "moose."  I said, "There's no moose in Utah!"  Yeah?  Look at the young buck who we met on the first green!  He followed us to hole two before disappearing into the trees.  Amazing!

The best part of our trip to Salt Lake City was seeing Yvonne, Don's mom.  She's in assisted living and Linda checks up on her daily.  She is comfortable and her ability to remember is limited, however, when she saw Don, she began "talking" and in the second picture you see her reach out and take his hand - beautiful!  She'd just had her hair and nails done and the staff loves her.  We are so grateful.

We ended our three day stay in SLC with a trip up the mountain to Park City.  We had never been before and we loved it!  Signs of the Olympics that were held here several years ago are everywhere.  On this particular day they were hosting a street fair - look at all the people!  We had a great day exploring boutiques, art galleries, and craft tables.  We enjoyed a delightful lunch and warm, warm weather.  This town has it all!   I can see why its such a popular place to come skiing!

Day Three - Gambling in Tahoe and Reno

Okay, we've been home now for several days and I wasn't able to blog - or didn't want to - while on the road.  My intent is to now reconstruct our vacation using pictures, notes and my limited memories - very limited :)

We left Bridgeport, CA on the third day and started our drive to Reno, our next stop for the night. On the way, we detoured to spend some time in my favorite place on earth, Lake Tahoe.  We stopped by one of the raging rivers - due to large snowfalls this year - and just outside Carson City, Don washed our car.  It needed it!
Lake Tahoe was beautiful and the weather was warm - finally.

While in Tahoe we stopped to gamble at Harvey's Casino.  When we walked out several hours later, we had added $100.00 to our vacation stash and paid all of our expenses up until that time! All-in-all a great trip to the casino!

After Tahoe, we drove to Reno, staying a LaQuinta Hotel.  Loved this place because it was clean and they were truly "dog friendly".  No extra charges and a regular room - wow!  Our previous experience with "dog friendly" hotels is we pay a fee and get the crappiest room in the inn!  Thanks LaQuinta!

After we checked in, we went to The Peppermill Casino for a great dinner and more gambling.  Not much success, but we were still ahead when we left.  I love slots and Don enjoys the poker room.

Tomorrow we head east on Hwy 80 to Linda (Don's sister) and Neil's house in Salt Lake City!

Day Two - Still on the 395

We've been on the road for a week and a half (now in Washington) and I'm just now working on day two of our journey up Hwy 395 in CA on this blog.  It's just so hard to load pics and take the time to write, but here goes...


After staying our first night at the Redwood Motel in Bridgeport, CA, we decided to work our way back down where we came from and pick up a few places we missed.
The first place we headed for was Mammoth, a popular ski area here.  Our plan to walk around, eat and shop was thwarted by SNOW - on June 29th!  They were still skiing here and it was cold!
So we did the next best thing - we found a brewery and tasted beer!


Going back toward Bridgeport, we made the bumpy, 13 mile ride to a real ghost town, Brodie.  Brodie was a mining town in the late 1800's that was later abandoned and became a state park in 1967.  It sits in a state of "arrested decay."  In other words, nothing is being done to restore it.  You walk around, looking in the windows at what was literally left behind after everyone left.  At one time 40,000 people lived here and the buildings left are only 1/5th of what was.  
Very interesting, but look at us!  So COLD and SNOWING again!  
Thank goodness for Don's golf rain gear!


Going back to Bridgeport for our second (and last) night, we passed the "Latte Da" coffee shop.  A twist on our last name and what I always wanted to call a coffee shop if I ever owned one. Cute. So are my boys...

Finally, look at the price of gas in Bridgeport!!  $4.99/gal!  We decided to fill up at our next location - Reno!!

Day one is over - finally! Bridgeport, CA

We finally got to our reserved hotel room in Bridgeport, CA. The Redwood Motel.  Not much, but cheap and clean.  It is the end of our first vacation day - seeing the best parts of the 395.  Tomorrow we're going back down the 395 to spend time at Mammoth Mountain and visit a true ghost town near here called Bodie...

Still on Hwy 395 - Still day one - Yosemite, sort of...

We kept traveling north up the 395 and made our way to the "back" entrance of Yosemite National Park. Unfortunately we arrived at 3:30 in the afternoon - waaay to late to enjoy the park.  We'll come another time and devote several days to explore this beautiful area.  The pictures show magnificent waterfalls (lots of snow this year). We have one of the park parking lot showing the snow pack...this is June 28th! Finally, a semi-frozen lake - amazing! Oh, the pictures aren't very good due to overcast weather - or rain - depending on where we were.

Still on Hwy 395 - Still our first day

Still day one, still traveling up CA Hwy 395. After seeing Mt. Whitley, we visited the Mono Lakes region and saw several lakes; June Lake, Grant Lake and Silver Lake.  We visited Mono Lake, a crater lake and geological wonder.  Very interesting!  Back in the car - on our way to Yosemite next...

First Day continuted - Mt. Whitney

After lunch, we stopped at the Visitor's Information Station for Mt. Whitney, the highest peak in the  continental U.S. - 14,505 ft.  The picture is distorted, so look at the center of the picture, the pointed mountains - the high one near the back is Mt. Whitney.