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....
