Summer Trip 2023 Day 6

21 June 2023

Happy Summer Solstice! I’m celebrating it in Salt Lake City UT (I hope the Mormons don’t mind).

Today was 439 miles, just 4 shy of yesterday’s total. Compare the photo from my Cheyenne WY hotel room last evening – clear skies – to the same view from shortly before I left this morning:

When I went down to breakfast at 6:30am, it looked just like it did the evening before. Within a half hour, this was my view. It continued like this for a ways out of town where I saw a wind farm with blades disappearing into the clouds (sorry for the blur, but that turbine really does have 3 blades!):

But Cheyenne is in a bit of a valley and by the time I was 15 miles west and 1,000 feet higher, the skies were clear and sunny once more!

I-80 across Wyoming doesn’t go through mountains in the same way that I-70 across Colorado does, but there are some great views nonetheless and the scenery is beautiful in its way.

The upper right photo – the one with mountains and clouds across the horizon, in case things get jumbled later – is the view I had off to my left for at least half of today’s drive. Shortly after I entered Utah, I stopped at a rest area and captured a couple of the rock formations there as well as the scrub brush. By the way, this was just about the only time all day I saw real trees! For the previous hours, there were none and precious few birds, either, although I did see a Raven perched on a fencepost at one point.

Salt Lake City actually has a lot of mountains surrounding it. Today’s brewpub had this view across the street:

And this is just one part of the view from my hotel room tonight (dirty window included):

Tomorrow will be the second longest driving day of this trip across some of the most desolate countryside … and there are almost no rest areas on this part of I-80. Fortunately, the weather currently is 25-30º cooler than when I took this same route two years ago!