Finally day 6 of our road trip!

Day 6 – Saturday, August 29

(This was now over a week ago, I'll try to remember) Saturday morning we headed a couple of miles back to the salt flats. It was worth it! We took the exit by the Bonneville Racetrack but stopped just into the salt part rather than drive to the racetrack. Apparently this racetrack is one of the fastest in the world and it's just out on the salt. The spot where we stopped was not pure white but rather looked like dirty snow. There was a piled up spot that the kids climbed on just like a snowpile. We walked out to a cleaner spot and tasted some salt crystals. Cool educational moment!

On the road again...within a few miles we were in Nevada. If I remember right, Nevada was pretty boring. There were a lot of brown, rolling hills covered with mostly dead shrubgrass. Gas was about 40 cents higher per gallon in Nevada then it was during the whole rest of the trip so we watched our tank go down hoping to find cheaper gas. Big mistake! We finally entered California just north of Reno by a gas station with a big Hallejulah Junction sign by it. We really needed gas and it was another 30 cents higher in CA. Duh, isn't everything more expensive in CA? Instead of taking I-80 down to Sacremento we cut across the mountains on CA-70. It was beautiful! Most of the way was winding through mountains following a river. The whole area is a National forest so is was loaded with evergreen trees. The green was a welcome relief after the brown of Nevada.

After a while we came out of the woods into the brown, dead fields of eastern Chico. It looked so barren, I was nervous to live in this type of place. We made it to the highway and then the tears hit. I realized how far away we were from everything that is comfortable and familiar to us and for how long. We saw the Welcome to Chico sign and eventually I got a grip again. We found our hotel in downtown Chico and enjoyed our last night of “freedom” for 5 months. Yikes!