Saturday, August 25: Jackston to Salt Lake City
How much stuff do we have in this car?
For some unknown reason, both Amy and I slept really poorly last night. In my case, I fell asleep easily, but I woke up about an hour or two later and had great difficulty falling back asleep. Amy just couldn’t get to sleep.
Eventually we did fall sleep. The next morning we went to a neat bakery for breakfast. I think it was called the Bunnery (as in “Get Your Buns In Here”). When we showed up, we were the second group waiting for a table, so it wasn’t too long. By the time we had ordered our breakfast, the line was about 20-30 feet long, all the way to the street! I guess we got there at the right time.
Afterwards, we packed up our stuff and headed south. Along the way, we were listening to a book on tape that really helped pass the time. I’ll have to remember to get more of these for my next long trip.
At one point, we passed near some sort of wildlife preserve, and we stopped to look at some pelicans and some sandhill cranes. We passed into Idaho, eventually hooked up with I-15 and followed that down to SLC. That was a strange route for the GPS to take us on, as it looks like it would have been faster to just follow US 89 down to I80, but in any event, we eventually got to SLC.
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We checked into the same hotel we stayed in at the beginning, a Hampton Inn. I filled one luggage cart with all of our big stuff (e.g. suitcases, duffle bags, backpacks). It was such a huge load that I felt embarrassed to be hauling so much through the hotel lobby. Then I went back and got a second cart full. This was the cooler and smaller stuff. There is still another round of small stuff that needs to go up. At that point, we’ll see for one of the first times on the trip how trashed the inside of the car is.
Our goal is to eventually (as in hopefully tomorrow) get *everything* from the car up to the room. Then we need to package or dispose of everything, so that on Tuesday we just have five checked bags and three carry-ons.
We went out for dinner around 5:30. We walked a few blocks and caught the free train two stops to near Temple Square. We planned to eat at the Cheesecake Factory, but when we got there, there was a line of about 20 people just to put your name on the list. We checked out this other place, but it was busy with private functions. So since we were nearby, we got a tour of the Beehive House, where Brigham Young lived.
We then went off to search for the Olive Garden where we ate last time. Along the way, I stopped off at a Kinko’s and bought a cardboard box in which we plan to ship some stuff home.
A couple of times we saw this weird contraption going down the street. It had seats for 12-16 people, facing towards the mid-line, each with a set of bicycle pedals. Everyone pedaled to propel it. It was very strange. It was called the “The Pedal Hopper”, “the party you pedal”.
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The Olive Garden was also crowded. We had to wait for about 30-40 minutes for a table there. While we were waiting, we saw a pair of smaller group-pedal things go by. These were tricycles which each held maybe 8-12 people.
When we left after dinner, it was easier to walk to the hotel than to take the train back. We found that a gusty wind had come up. The cardboard box was collapsed, so that it was just a big rectangle. That is, it was just like a sail. It also featured a seam/fold down the middle, which really wanted to buckle in the wind.
I found that the easiest way to carry it was to hold it flat in front of me, going from side to side, with the seam being blown in towards my stomach. I looked like (and felt like) I was carrying an old-time billboard. In fact, at one point as we were passing some apartment buildings, some people called down from a third floor balcony and asked what the sign said. We had to laugh and explain that it was just a blank cardboard box.
Then we got to the hotel, I wrote the above, and now it is time for bed.