September 2012: Nevada and Utah

In September, we made a road trip that took us first to the San Francisco Bay Area, where we saw both our daughter Lindy, who has worked for the past four years at a Marriott Renaissance hotel in Walnut Creek, and our son Ricky, who was visiting California from Boston for a friend's wedding. Although we try see both of them as much as we can, the occasions when all four of us can get together at once are a special treat.

From the Bay Area we headed to Yosemite National Park and then across Nevada to Park City, Utah, where we spent a week at a timeshare condo. We returned along a route that took us to Salt Lake City, and then from north to south through eastern Nevada, into Las Vegas, and home to Santa Maria.

During our three-night stay in Walnut Creek, Lindy arranged for us to have a very nice room, as she always does when we stay at her hotel. In this case it came with a great view of Mount Diablo. It's not a very high mountain – just over 3,800 feet – but because much of the terrain around it is very close to sea level, it is visible from many points throughout northern California.

(Click on any photo to enlarge. All photos © 2012 Tom Murray)

When we left Walnut Creek, we drove to Yosemite and stopped at one of the most popular turnouts, with a view of both El Capitan and Half Dome. Although countless photos have been taken from this vantage point, it's one we never get tired of.

Our destination for that night was the Wawona Hotel at the south end of the park. We stayed in the main building, constructed in the 1870s. Our room didn't have a private bath, but we've been coming here for more than 20 years and we didn't mind the slight inconvenience. As we like to tell people, the Wawona is the closest thing to a historic New England hotel that we've found in California.

It was warm in Yosemite so we didn't exert ourselves too much the next day although we did take a ride on theYosemite Mountain Sugar Pine Railroad. Its route follows that of a historic logging railroad, and whether you like trains or not, it's a very nice way to spend an hour or so deep in the forest.

After the train ride, we picnicked next to the south fork of the Merced River, but because last winter was so dry, there was very little snow melt left to feed the rivers of the Sierra Nevada. We've seen the Merced when it was roaring, but on this visit it didn't amount to much more than a trickle.

Leaving Wawona, we drove into Yosemite Valley only long enough to connect to the Tioga Road, a seasonal highway that crosses the north side of the national park and takes you to U.S. 395 at Lee Vining. From there we would drive south to Bishop, California, and then start our eastward journey across Nevada.

As we drove south on 395, we saw signs giving the mileage to Tom's Place, California. We stopped there long enough for Marcia to take a photo of Tom in front of the store/restaurant/gathering place that is the hub of this small community. One irony is that Tom's father (also Tom) was born in 1917, which was apparently the year that Tom's Place was founded.

At Bishop, we turned east onto U.S. Highway 6. Although it once stretched west all the way to Long Beach, today Bishop is the west end of this transcontinental highway. The east end of Highway 6 is at Provincetown, Massachusetts, a place that has deep meaning for our family because Marcia's cousin Brenda and her husband Marty owned a home there, where we spent many happy summer days. Tom took a picture of Marcia under the sign announcing the mileage from Bishop to Provincetown.

For the 22 years we've lived in California, most of our experience with Nevada has been in the Reno/Lake Tahoe area, and on visits to Las Vegas. Crossing the state from west to east was a revelation. We had imagined a desert terrain, flat and unwelcoming, but instead there was one mountain range after another. While some of the ridges had little or no vegetation on them, there was still enough color in the rocks to make for a very scenic landscape.

In some places, there were layers of mountains, with each degree of distance making for a slightly grayer color.

After spending the night in at a motel along U.S. 6, we arrived the next afternoon at Great Basin National Park and drove up a long, winding road to Wheeler Peak. As we approached 10,000 feet of elevation, we were rewarded with aspen in various fall shades of yellow and orange.

Our lodging for the night was the Border Inn, so called because it straddles the state line between Utah and Nevada. We slept in sin-free Utah, but if we wanted to gamble we would have had to walk only a few feet to the west, where we would be back in fun-loving Nevada.

We set out the next morning for Park City, Utah. We pulled into Nephi, Utah, for lunch, and came across a restaurant that looked like a good prospect. Upon walking in the door, we were surprised to find that the owners had gone to great lengths to create a model railroad network that wove through the building's four dining areas. (There was no evidence that Tom had pre-arranged this, since he seemed clueless about where we ought to eat in Nephi.) The food was fine, and soon we were back on the road, up Highway 189 through scenic Provo Canyon and into Park City in late afternoon.

Park City is known as a ski resort and as the home of the annual Sundance Film Festival, held in January. In the warmer months, it is a tourist destination thanks to its scenic setting and to numerous shops that line Main Street. In some cases, older buildings have been preserved and are being put to new uses. In other cases, new buildings have been designed to look old.

While the authenticity of many of the commercial building facades is questionable, once you're out of the commercial area it's easy to identify the homes that date back to the city's earliest years. Most of them are well-maintained and it's clear that this is a profitable place to be in the real estate business. The houses that were for sale close to downtown carried price tags that were close to a million dollars, or in some cases a good deal more than that.

A block from where we were staying, we found the High West Distillery, which occupies this 1907 building (a former livery stable and garage) and an adjacent 1914 house, with the copper still occupying a glass-enclosed passageway between the two buildings. High West began operations in 2007 and claims the distinction of being Utah's first legal distillery since 1870. We sampled some of their whiskeys and found them quite tasty.

Tom took one day out of our week in Park City to investigate the Heber Valley Railroad. The fall colors on the foothills below Mt. Timpanogos made for a scenic background as the train wound its way past Deer Creek Reservoir and into Provo Canyon.

On another day, we drove over Guardsman Pass, south of Park City, which had a couple of scary dropoffs, but beautiful views of the mountains, valleys, and peak fall foliage.

Our destination for that day was Robert Redford's Sundance Resort, on a side road off Provo Canyon, where we had lunch and spent a pleasant hour or so walking around the grounds. For such a well-known property, it seemed quite unpretentious, and the employees we met were all friendly and welcoming.

On our last day in Park City we had lunch at a hotel that was quite different in style from Sundance. The St. Regis Deer Valley can only be reached by a funicular from the parking lot. Having the valet park our little Honda Fit seemed a bit unnecessary, but that's how the St. Regis does things, so we went along with it. The hotel's restaurant was elegant, even on a slow day in the off season, and we had a great lunch with wonderful views.

On our way out of Park City we stopped at Olympic Park, where many of the ski events were held during the 2002 Winter Olympics. Today, this venue is used as a practice area by many athletes, and throughout the year various competitive events are held there. We didn't spend long there, and our timing wasn't right to do the Comet bobsled ride ("In less than a mile, you'll rip through 15 turns, reach speed of about 80 mph, and experience up to 5 G's of force.") We'll have to make time for the Comet the next time we're in Park City.

But we did enjoy the exhibit inside the visitor center showing scenes from the 2002 competition.

We spent that night in Salt Lake City, a couple of blocks from the Mormon Temple.

We had learned that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir rehearses on Thursday nights, and that the rehearsals are open to the public at no charge. We were impressed not only with the quality of the music but with the insistence of the choir's director on perfection, or as close as the mere mortals who make up the choir could come to that standard.

From Salt Lake City we ventured on to Ely, Nevada. Along the way, we passed Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats. Interstate 80 was as straight as it could be from the western edge of the lake to the Nevada state line, since there was no topography whatever to get in the way of the road's builders. Boring.

Tom had one more railroad stop on his agenda for this trip, the Nevada Northern Railway at Ely. This railroad operates with a large volunteer staff, and functions more as a living museum than as a tourist attraction. Tom was able to walk around the railroad's shop, sans hard hat or other safety measures other than a warning from one shop worker to watch out for the puddles of oil on the floor. Late in the day, he followed the afternoon train out of Ely, and after a mostly cloudy day the sun came out just at the right time.

From Ely, we headed south toward Las Vegas on U.S. Highway 93, where the scenery was mostly high desert, with some rocky areas and low vegetation (we were told that the ubiquitous yellow shrub was rabbit bush).

At Cathedral Gorge State Park, we stopped for a break and enjoyed the view, which struck us as having some similarities to Bryce National Park, with various spires and other formations rising out of the ground.

Closer to Las Vegas, we came to an area where, on one side of the road, the rocks had a variety of swirl patterns...

... while on the other side, there were definite signs of uplift. Having grown up in the east, where the landscape is almost totally covered with vegetation, we still marvel at these western landscapes where you can almost see the geological forces in motion.

We stopped in Henderson, Nevada, just outside Las Vegas, for a night at the home of sister-in-law Marilyn and her husband Michael. After enjoying an evening with them and getting a big breakfast, we were on our way down Interstate 15 and across the desert through Mojave toward Tehachapi and, finally, Santa Maria.

The tally for this trip was 2,818 miles covered. We saw places both familiar and new, some of which we hope to get back to someday. Our Honda Fit was its usual thrifty self, averaging 41 miles per gallon. All in all, a good trip!

Text and images ©2012 Tom and Marcia Murray 

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