Utah Salt Flats with odd thing rising up out of them
Park City, Utah
Late Wyoming into Early Utah- Note the transition
Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada: Ecstasy and Exhaustion
Day 8 of my pilgrimmage saw me waking up in Rock Springs,Wyoming (at another Motel 6!) to torrential rain and temperatures in the fifties. Didn’t make it on the road till 10:20 am, and had slow going through Wyoming in the rain. Almost immediately when I crossed into Utah, about 90 miles later, the rain cleared and a blue sky came out- and the landscape burst into lush, open, mountains.
It seems to me that each state has a DISTINCTLY different feel than the one before, especially the further west I go. Its as if someone drew a line EXACTLY where the terrain makes a dramatic shift, and said “here. Here’s a new state.”
This was less true closer to the East coast, but starting with Iowa:
Iowa: bright, green, rolling hills flecked with pastures, farmhouses, and cows. A bit flatter further west.
Nebraska: dry, flat green to almost brown landscape, bales of hay, and wind blowing one way.
Wyoming: A distinct shift from green to BROWN , with almost- perpetually cloudy skies. We are now seriously in the west, folks.
Utah: two parts: Part One: Lush, green mountains, with big blue skies. Part Two: The vast salt flats, feeling like…the moon.
Nevada: Back to brownish green, but this time mountains that are brownish green. This literally happens one mile out of Utah.
Its totally mind blowing how the scenery changes so dramatically at each state line.
When I got to Nevada and Pacific time, it struck me: I’m almost there. I could be in San Fran tomorrow, if I wanted to, but I’m going to take an extra day to breathe and integrate.
Stopping in Park City, Utah, for lunch, I connected with my friend Elizabeth, who I met while living in Maui about 5 years ago. She’s in San Fran. So are several other friends of mine, who moved there after I met them in Boston or Hawaii. This is truly no accident.
The past year of my life has been difficult, and its about to get way easier, and to explode into bliss. I logically know it, but more importantly, I feel it. Talking with Elizabeth today – and taking this drive step by step- I feel all the beautiful things that are about to happen.
This is about destiny and divine perfection. When I was ten years old, my teacher gave us an assignment to write an essay about where we would be at age 35, and I wrote that I was a psychotherapist living north of San Francisco, in the redwoods, (with my husband, who I have yet to meet, and two dogs, also yet to meet. ) I also KNEW that I’d drive cross country to get there, and that that drive would happen when I was 30 or 31. Here I am, 31, driving cross country to San fran to go to graduate school for psychotherapy.
When I got to Nevada- all of this began to integrate. I’m so close that I can FEEL California. I drove through the first part of Nevada with my shirt partway up, belly to the wind, and shaking/laughing/crying with joy.
Day 8: Statistics
Miles driven : approx 340 very long feeling miles (wind, rain, mountains, salt flats,lack of sleep)
Soundtrack: Wah!, Enigma, Dead Can Dance, obscure gothy-stuff
Biggest Surprise: Several. One: a car in the salt flats. Two; A street in Utah/Nevada where it changes state in the middle of the street, and casinos pop up on the Nevada side only – but it’s the same town: Wendover. Three: the transition from Wyoming to Utah, and again from Utah to Nevada.
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