We got away about 9:30 this morning and headed north towards Salt Lake City. After talking about it we decided to turn west on I-80 which would take us right by the Bonneville Salt Flats. Cool! Maybe I’d get a chance to wind it up. I’d really like to see what 160 mph feels like. I’d have Thea take a picture of the speedometer to show and tell. The road from Salt Lake to Bonneville is right at 99 miles. 55 of that is as straight as an arrow. It crosses the salt flats at the south and west of the Great Salt Lake. The road is raised about 4 feet above the salt and has maybe a 4 foot wide shoulder. Along the edge people have used rocks to form words and pictures and of course Bobby loves Mary kind of thing. We couldn’t figure out where they got all those rocks! We didn’t see any along the road. There were several places where cars and trucks had run off into the salt and when it’s wet or even damp, they got good and stuck! At the far end, just before you cross into Nevada, you come to the turn that takes you out onto the National Speedway. I was really getting pumped about it! We ran down this narrow road with salt on both sides again and it was apparent that in some places it was firm enough to support a vehicle. All of a sudden the pavement stops and you are out on the salt. We stopped in time and found the sign explaining that the salt was liable to be soft and that the Department of the Interior will prepare the flats for speed trial in early summer once it dries completely. Well shoot! The salt was still real wavy from the winter winds as it dried and had not been smoothed yet. Well shoot! We did drive out onto the salt a ways and took some pictures, but we did not get the chance to get up any speed. It was just too bumpy. Well shoot! It was still really cool to be out on that huge expanse of salt. When they do grade it, it’s a path 80 feet wide and 10 miles long. Wouldn’t that be cool!? Maybe another day. So we continued on into Nevada intending to turn north at Wells and heading north into Idaho from there. Wells is about 70 miles in and right inside the Nevada line you cross over a small mountain range and end up on a high plateau. We spotted a nice antelope buck laying about 50 feet off the road on a small rise, just watching the traffic pass by. I think he might have been counting cars. He looked so casual. The road out of the mountains were long down hill stretches that crossed the valley to the next rise on the far side. (See photo)Just before we came down from the second mountain pass into Wells, we got tagged by the Nevada State Patrol. He got 2 of us at once. Well shoot! He was very amiable and said he understood the urge to cover some ground on such an open and straight road, but there is a speed limit and I was going too fast to ignore. He reduced it some to save us some fundage. He really was quite a friendly fellow. I thanked him and away we went. I set the cruise at 76 to be safe and sailed down the road. We decided to push on to Elko and then head north on Nevada 225 into Idaho instead of turning at Wells. That might have been a mistake. Maybe 10 minutes later my radar detector went off and I saw a Sheriff going the opposite direction and then the radar thing turned off. Next thing I see is that same Sheriff coming up behind us with his lights flashing. It couldn’t be me he’s after, I checked and we were doing 76 in a 75. I pulled over and he did to. What!? He came up slowly with his hand on his side arm. I rolled down the window and asked him the speed limit in the area. He said it was 75, but that I was doing 90! I exclaimed, “No way!” He got a bit excited and told me to watch my attitude. I asked him how he’d react if he was accused of doing 90 when he was really doing 76? To make a long story short, he let me go after trying to say that my speedometer was incorrect and needed to be checked by the dealer. I told him that I had just been sighted for speed and the speed that officer had claimed I was doing was right on. I questioned his unit’s accuracy when he was moving and so was I. He admitted that it might be faulty and that he believed that I believed I was not speeding…..? Huh? Anyway we shook hands and away we went. He was part of a drug task force patrolling I-80. We did see 2 different vehicles pulled over and being searched by at least 6 officers each. We got off the beaten path and 225north was virtually empty! We wound north up past the Wild Horse reservoir and peaked at the dam before we started down the other side. The rocks were very cool. Some looked like the guy on Fantastic Four and there were many huge clumps that we thought looked like piles of Dinosaur poop! It was unique to the area. We hadn’t seen anything like it on this trip and we’ve seen a lot of different rocks, believe me! It was a great road that wound down the valley between the steep rocky cliffs with 25 mph suggested almost the whole way. They were very tight curves for about 10 miles. It was as fun as the road out of Branson in Missouri. I went a bit faster than 25. We finally crossed into Idaho at the Duck Indian Reservation. That side of the mountains was an immense high plain that seemed to go on forever. Soon we realized that the grassy plain had turned into marshland that disappeared into the far distance. Then we dropped off that high plateau and onto another that again seemed to go on and on. It was like coming down a series of 10 mile long flat steps onto the next one to the north. On the far north horizon we could see a mountain range with snow capped peaks. It was the lower end of the Saw Tooth Range where you’ll find the Sun Valley Ski Resort. We drove on for miles and then again dropped off onto another, yet lower plateau. It was cool to break out of a short winding canyon and see the next expanse of grassy plains open up before us. Cool! We finally got into civilization after about 86 miles of Idaho travel. We had not seen another vehicle going north and only 3 or 4 going south in all that distance. We got into Mountain Home and intended to find a room, but didn’t see anything that looked appealing. We found I-84 and pushed on to Boise where we found several choices. The time was 8:00 PM. The time changed in Nevada to Pacific Time and then back to Mountain Time in Idaho. It was a long day and the traffic stop popped my balloon. I’ll get over it….all is well. I just wish my radar detector would have said something! Tomorrow we’re thinking we’ll be back on Washington soil. Woohoo! Only a couple more days and we’ll be home. It will be good to be home.