Oct 13, 2009 -- Twin Falls, ID to Rawlins, WY

As we mentioned in yesterday's post, we wanted to go explore a bridge and "Geological Site" near the town of Twin Falls that we drove over in the dark last night.  We checked out of the motel and drove the 3 miles to the bridge.  It was very impressive -- long and high.  It was made even more impressive by the deep canyon of the Snake River in contrast to the flat plains in the area.  The bridge itself seemed an engineering marvel:

The Snake River valley was huge.  Note the relative size of the town buildings at the top of the left bank of the canyon:

The ground of this area was covered with lava beds and rocks.  Ruth even collected a sampling of lava rocks.

We continued eastward through high hills, 4,000-5,000 feet. Occasionally the hills collected into a sort of mountain range.  This one bore proof that it had snowed recently:

We thought it interesting that the rather strong wind was blowing "tumbleweeds" across the highway.  Here are the remains of one that rolled in front of us:

As we blew by, Ruth captured Utah's welcome sign.  In spite of the flat terrain, we were high.  The little green sign in the picture says, "ELEV 4513:"

As we neared the Salt Lake City area, the Wasatch Range of mountains began to loom closer and higher:

Since we were driving right by the Great Salt Lake, we had to stop and get a picture.  This was taken in a little park on the shore of the lake:

A little further south and the mountains again sported snow:

At Ogden, UT, the highway turned eastward through a gap in the mountain range.  The terrain seemed to change from igneous to sedimentary rock:

Shortly, we entered Wyoming:

And more windmills.  It always seemed windy in this part of the country:

We drove past large cliffs and buttes -- the geology revealing the area had been under water way long ago:

We were back in the high plains now.  We couldn't understand what made the traffic denser.  Maybe it was just the 30-mile range of view:

We were following I-80 again and went back over the unimpressive Continental Divide and on in to the town of Rawlins, WY, about half way across the state.  We stopped at a motel and learned we were sharing it with a large team of geological surveyors looking for oil fields.  One of their vehicles was set up to travel the railroad tracks.  We had to get a picture:

There was a lot of sand all over the parking lots and streets.  We learned a strong storm had passed through a few days ago, dumping the season's first snow.  We were glad we missed it!

Tomorrow, the weather would turn sour for us....