From the UK to the UK via CA, NV, UT and OR

Day 11 – Las Vegas / Salt Lake City

Leaving Las Vegas today was a bit of a wrench, I’ve really enjoyed my time here and will definitely return.

Checked out of the hotel and then hopped on the monorail to go see the Auto Collections at the Imperial Palace Casino.
This is a collection of some 300 vehicles, all of which are for sale, they range from one of a kind classics to concourse versions of popular 80s cars.

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Getting on the road, I head toward SLC, stopping first at Zion National Park

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This place is great, a winding road that leads through several tunnels with scenery as above for miles and miles.
They run shuttle busses up to various view points, but with a minimum round trip time of 2hrs I have to pass unfortunately.

Next stop is Bryce Canyon National Park, the journey here is one of Michelin North America’s scenic drives, and they’ve chosen well.

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Bryce itself has a half dozen observation points looking out across the canyon.

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This section of the canyon was created over the course of millions of years by the passage and power of water – the photos really don’t do it justice.

It’s a fairly long drive to SLC from here, and it’s just gone midnight when I pull into the hotel.

Day 12 – Salt Lake City

Mormon capital of the world, I really wasn’t sure what to expect from SLC, I’d read online that a trip around Temple Square would result in endless attempts by Mormon missionaries to “convert” me.

I decided to wake up by taking a tour around the State Capitol.

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The tour here is split into two parts, one showing off the technology used to refurbish and secure the building’s future (earthquake proofing by means of huge rubber and metal plates) – very neat.

The second part takes you through the building, access into everywhere except the governers office is available and the tour is free.

The building used to house all government functions for SLC and over years many of the architectural features had been hidden away (the original elevators had been turned into trash shutes)
The restoration revealed all these things, the building is now in fine shape.

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The senate, house and supreme court chambers are still used, but much like my last trip to DC, no-one’s in session today!

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Time to hit Temple Square now.
This is a 35 acre site right in the middle of downtown that is owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.
It’s centre piece is the 6 spired cathedral; as a holy site, this isn’t open to tours, but if the inside is as impressive as the outside then…….

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The assembly hall is open however and the docents aren’t too bad, they like to slip quotes from “the book of Mormon” into every conversation, but they are so unfailingly polite that it’s hard to get annoyed, just amazed at the power one long dead man (Brigham Young) continues to have over so many people.

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The tour around Brigham Young’s house is the first time that “plural marriage” is mentioned, and the docents here take great pains to ensure that we know that the practice was “officially” ended in 1890

His house is impressively decorated and interesting in that there are separate bedrooms for each of his wives, as well as schoolrooms for his children etc.

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Next stop today is the Kennecott Bingham Canyon Copper Mine.
This copper pit mine used to be a mountain, but 100+ years of mining have completely obliterated the mountain, as well as several of the townships that used to be here, leaving a pit that is ¾ mile deep and 2.5 miles wide, it’s so big that it can be seen from space.

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17% of the copper used in the USA comes from this one mine, along with gold and various other precious minerals, it operates 24/7 365 days a year and employs just short of 1000 people.
The scale of the vehicles is impressive, but the visitors centre is so far above the mine floor that the size is hard to appreciate – each of the yellow dumpers in the photo below holds 320 tons of material.
Their tyres cost $120,000 a set and last 9 months!

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My final stop today is enroute to Idaho – The Bonneville Salt flats have been home to so many speed record attempts over the years that even in the late afternoon rain when the salt is still wet you can almost hear the engines.

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There’s absolutely nothing here at the moment however, so a couple of photos and I’m on my way.

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My trip takes a turn for the worse on the way to Twin Falls though, coming across I-80 the weather deteriorates so much that I’m soon doing 20 mph and I can’t see a thing – roadworks means that there’s no white lines and by the time I reach Wells I’m done in, I’ve no cell service and there’s no one on the CB. I’ll complete the trip to Twin Falls tomorrow morning, with a couple more mountain passes to do and the weather getting worse it’s simply not worth the risk to continue.

I've been documenting the progress of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge project every so often on this site. How'd you get the downstream photo -- where on earth were you standing to get that photo? May I use it? (or were you in a heliocopter?)

Wow!

Mark

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Originally Posted by Mark Sedenquist

I've been documenting the progress of the Hoover Dam bypass bridge project every so often on this site. How'd you get the downstream photo -- where on earth were you standing to get that photo? May I use it? (or were you in a heliocopter?)

Wow!

Mark

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I was in a helicopter, using a long lens and a co-operative pilot!

Feel free to use it, I have loads taken from both the chopper and the ground, I'll send you those once I'm home if you'd like?

It is a fascinating project.

Day 13 – Twin Falls Area

A very long driving day today, the first stop is Shoshone Falls

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These 185ft falls are commonly called the Niagara of the south and today, in full flow, they certainly looked the part.
They are part of the huge irrigation system that gives Idaho its lifeblood of farm land, the water that flows over the falls is the liquid over the 1000ft/sec capacity that the irrigation system dams can use, hence there is a short season for seeing them in flow. By June, they will be pretty much dry.

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2 hours North of here is the Craters of the Moon National Monument.

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This park is actually a long extinct volcano (it last erupted 2000 years ago) and over its thousands of acres are dozens of varieties of volcano, along with tons of lava.

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A scenic drive takes you to several viewpoints and it’s possible to walk up the side of some of the volcanos and actually look into the craters, pretty cool!!

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On the road towards Oregon then. A further 5hrs up the road lies Burns – my home for the night.

Day 14 – Southern Oregon / Northern California

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A long drive through some stunning country on the Oregon central highway this morning, several mountain passes (thankfully with no snow) later I arrived at Crater Lake.

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This place receives 13m (44ft) of snowfall and 66 inches of rain annually!! With no outlet, it simply gathers in the lake, causing the amazingly blue water you see in the photo above.
At 608ft, it’s the deepest lake in North America and is a haven for all kinds of wildlife.

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At this time of the year, the rim drive and many of the park roads are closed due to the amount of snow – in many places the road is under 30ft of snow by the end of the winter – it takes the teams of snowploughs 4 months to clear it all!
The visitors centre at the south end is open however, although parking under snowbanks taller than the car is a little un-nerving.

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The centre itself is still buried under snow up to the third floor windows, and requires entry through a specially constructed tunnel – very nice.

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Heading down the park access road

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I make tracks for Klameth Falls, unfortunately the visitors centre is closed on Sundays, so the map for the town history walk I was going to do is unavailable – bad planning on my part there.

Straight on to Mount Shasta then, it looms on the horizon for more than 20 miles before you finally reach the small city at its base.

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The view from the city is better though

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I’m staying locally tonight as I have some more things to see around the Shasta area, so after grabbing a really nice Italian in Mount Shasta City I head off to the motel in Redding.

Day 15 – Northern California

Back up the road to Shasta Dam this morning.

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This is the second biggest dam in the USA by volume, containing billions of gallons of water, several villages are covered by the water, apparently still mostly intact.

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The dam is 685ft thick at the base, and the concrete used to build it 70 years ago will take another 35 years to completely cure!

The hour long guided tour here is free, and takes you down into the working parts of the dam, through a long concrete corridor that functions as an echo chamber – the guides demonstrate the speed of sound here, when you clap your hands you hear a high pitched noise before the echo of your clap is returned – a bad explanation there, but a very cool thing!

No photographic equipment is allowed on the tour, which considering the freedoms on the Hoover Dam tour the other day is quite amusing.

After the dam tour I travel to Shasta caverns, this is a 2hr tour which combines a boat ride to an island,

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With a bus trip up to the entrance to the caverns.
The caverns themselves are quite a strenuous tour, with loads of steps, but the trip is well worth it, the guides are well informed, and the underground scenery (some of which has been dated at 2000+ years old) is amazing.

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The caverns were discovered by a local tribesman, and his moniker is still visible on the wall.

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He and his two brothers lugged hundreds of tons of concrete through the caverns over the course of ten years to create the publicly viewable caverns, suspicions are that there are many more “rooms” still hidden, but as most of the site is government owned, further exploration is forbidden!

Oh, and you also get to see a bear!

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On the road now, to drive across to Crescent City, CA for the night, so that I’m amongst the redwoods early tomorrow.
The road here (CA299) is 145 miles of heaven – straight to the top of my list of the best roads I’ve ever driven – tight, twisty and technical I averaged 9mpg over it!! Great fun.

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averaged 9mpg over it!!

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Sounds as though the 'Z' got put through it's paces then ! ;-)

Great pics and text.

That's my favorite type of road, too. Sounds like you had a hoot in that Z.

Lovely photos and great info.

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Originally Posted by Southwest Dave

Sounds as though the 'Z' got put through it's paces then ! ;-)

Great pics and text.

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Yep!!

Managed to do the same again today on the first part of route 1 from Leggett to Fort Bragg - completely empty road - brakes are now squealing and I think I boiled the PAS fluid... oops

It's a great car, just a shame it's not a manual.

And I didn't turn the traction control off..... honestly!