Friday morning we saddled up the motorhome and continued our journey west. We had monitored the weather and knew the day would not be pleasant. At first it was cloudy and cool but went downhill from there. The northern parts of Utah and Nevada are high desert and even the areas of flat expanse are over 4000 feet above sea level. As we travel I-80 west of Salt Lake City there were few exits and most of them had signs telling us services were not available. At mile marker 26, while still in Utah, we saw a strange object on the side of the interstate and wondered what it was. A little research this morning revealed it to be "The Tree of Utah", a sculpture created by a Swedish artist. You can read about it at this link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metaphor:_The_Tree_of_Utah
The Tree of Utah as we saw it
After passing the sculpture we had a good view of the Bonneville Salt Flats on the right. At mile marker 4, just before the Nevada state border, is the exit to the Bonneville Speedway. The land here is desolate and unless there is activity at the speedway there would be nothing to see. Considering that and the weather we chose not to stop.
The Bonneville Salt Flats
The exit to the speedway - notice rain on the windshield
It seemed like the weather instantly went from bad to worse as we entered Nevada. We stopped in West Wendover at a Pilot for fuel and were treated to strong winds with a mix of rain and temps in the low forties. We had to bring out the heavy coat just to fuel up. After leaving the Pilot and continuing west the road started to climb and climb and climb. The defroster went to full blast as snow and freezing rain plastered the windshield. The wipers were pushing large quantities of slush as they worked to keep the windshield clear. We did not get a picture of that because we were attentive to our driving. As we reached the summit of the mountain the outside thermometer said it was 38 degrees and that sensor is sheltered under the motorhome. At the top there was a rest area and we pulled over to clear the windshield. The altimeter on our GPS said 6978 feet, 22 feet short of 7000 feet. Battling the wind and steep climbs played havoc on our fuel mileage and 25 miles after fueling our average was only 4.2 MPG. In the photo the fuel mileage average is in the yellow section and the current rolling mileage is in the green. The large numbers in red represent the turbo boost and the maximum on this coach is about 30.
Notice fuel mileage on tablet computer
Inside temp is 64 and outside is 38
Altitude at the rest stop is 6978 feet
After leaving the rest stop and descending on the other side of the mountain the weather began to improve. We could actually see some scenery.
View to our left
View up ahead at 5681 feet
If you have not been out west you may not be aware that many trucks out here are triple trailer units. The following photo is one such truck climbing the hill on the east bound side.
Triple Trailer Truck
We chose to stop for the night in Battle Mountain, Nevada and kick back for the evening. That is where we are as I write this. The campground is a new but modest one. On the plus side it is asphalt and gravel without the unwanted mud and Verizon is 5 bars. We were able to receive some over the air Reno television stations but surely there must be a repeater nearby because Reno is over 200 miles away. This is a small mining town with few merchants but it does have a casino and McDonald's, which I am sure are well used.
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