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Salt Lake City Fish

On a whim we decided to check out the Salt Lake City Aquarium, in Sandy. My GPS too us straight there, even if I did try and out smart it by avoiding a few left hand turns (read: the tricky turns when you drive on wrong side of road, and have to cross 4 lanes of traffic!). We arrived there soon enough, and you'll have to forgive me if I was a bit sceptical. The building looked like a giant blue warehouse surrounded by parking lots, and there was a school bus there too. But for $8 each… why not.

All fears were gone as soon as we entered the aquarium; it is really, really well done. Beats SF hands down in many areas. The exhibits are well thought out, with informative but concise (and quite stylish) info panels. The tanks are more like little windows into other worlds. The electric eel has a zap-o-meter above it, which lights up from green to red as it hunts for food, depending on whether it's search-shocking or stun-shocking.

And the exhibits… wow! The ...

Salt Lake City Animals

First trip in SLC was to the zoo. We were woken bright and early by train horns and traffic that sounded like it was mere metres from us… turns out the KOA campground (or "Kampground" as they would say) had put all the tent sites down the noisiest boundary. Great.

Zoo itself was easily found. While it isn't quite up to the same standard as San Francisco Zoo, it is still a cut ahead of Orana Park and their cats collection is simply amazing. We saw an ocelot, foxes, Black Footed Cat (and kittens),

 

… various reptiles and birds…

… tigers, a bat eared fox, and a wolf!

 

The wolf was really cute, jus...

US Highway 50

Nevada is a big state, and there are, more or less, only two ways to go from one side to the other: Interstate 80, or US Highway 50. We took 50, the so called “loneliest highway in America”. What a drive!

Lake Tahoe to Carson City

Left Tahoe Vista in the morning and drove round the lake, quickly crossing into Nevada (with ensuing flurry of border casinos).

  Lookout point on edge of Lake Tahoe / Cruising down towards Carson City

Soon we were climbing up over the Sierra Nevadas again on our approach to Nevada. More amazing scenery; mountainous, rocky, pine forests. Very different to NZ.

Carson City to Austin

Soon we were passing through Carson City and onto US 50. It took a while to become ‘lonely'’; dual lanes of 4wds isn’t quite what I’d call lonely! But in the shortest gap of time we were on a tiny little highway, straight as far as the eye can see, not...

Goodbye San Fran, hello Nevada

3rd Sept

Goodbye San Francisco. Left the hotel and lugged our luggage up the road to the National car rental office. Waited in the queue for one and a half hours. No exaggeration. No seats to sit on, was in the sun for part of it, was not fun. Finally got to the desk and handed over my reservation number. Clerk tapped away and produced a form for me to sign at 150% the quoted rate, for 2/3rds of the required time. So I dug my heels in and insisted that they honour my online reservation. Ended up asking to see a manager because the guy I was dealing with was so useless. Anyway another 45 minutes later I had my car at the correct rate and we were off.

It’s a nice car, a Hyundai Sonata with all sorts of whizz bang features. All those features don’t make understanding the California road code any simpler though. Example: the first traffic light I came to was a flashing red light. Great. But we set off and before I knew it was hurtling across the Golden Gate Bridg...

San Francisco Zoo

Went to the zoo on the 2nd of Sept. Caught the MUNI L train there which is sort of a bus/train hybrid; imagine a bus, but electric, with steel wheels, in pairs or sets of four, and running in a subway. That’s the MUNI. After travelling through the subway for a while it suddenly surfaced and whizzed along the streets. Quite fun really. Arrived at the zoo which is right by the sea. The houses round here are very different to ours, every house shares a common wall with its neighbour, and each is a different pastel colour.

Arrived at the zoo. It’s very nicely done, so much nicer than Orana Park. The whole zoo has been extensively landscaped with trees everywhere, lots of shaded little paths and lawns, well sign posted, and not too far to walk.

The had penguins, all swimming around their own little pond doing front stoke, back stroke and splashing around. They werevery cute.

...

San Fran, So Far

Part 1: Getting there

Arrived at the airport, greeted Ange, checked in our luggage and made our way through customs. Waited for plane, boarded and sat at the back of a fairly squished cattle-class 737. Cloud set in shortly after Chch so there wasn’t much to see. Arrived in Auckland, took a fairly brisk walk along the blue line to International Terminal and checked in for remainder of flight. Got bomb sniffed, then boarded our plane, a 737. Much fancier and roomier than the 737, bit slower down the run way though. Then we were off on our way!

Slept off and on, ear plugs made a welcome difference to the constant roar. Watched the sun rise, but was on wrong side of plane to see the actual sun.

Clouds at dawn / Sunrise

11 hours, 30 minutes later we touched down in San Francisco! Another hour later we had finished taxing over the tarmac; big airport. What a relief to get off the plan...

Packing

Awww geez Dwayne, it aint never all gonna fit in there! Awww shucks Sharla, have some faith!

So looks like I need a bigger suitcase. One with wheels… wrrrrrrrrr rrrrrr clunk!

Three Weeks to Go!

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There once lived a boy — named Michael Adams oddly enough — who dreamed of a land where the trains roam large, free, and frequently. The scenery is massive, the towns are named Isolation, Dogfart, & Jackpot, and the people all speak with funny voices. Every second station plays good country, Mary Lou’s, Chuck’s, and Ed’s wander the street, and entire animals are served for dinner.

And… in less than 3 weeks I’ll be there!!

Itinerary

The plan is purposely very vague. Places on the hit list are:

San Francisco. Touchdown Clear customs Visit SanFran zoo, aquarium. Alcatraz Hire a car. Holy crap everyone drives on the wrong side of the road! Stock up on car snacks, water, anti-venom, etc. Cross the Sierra Nevadas, camp a few nights in the mountains, find some caches. Nevada Visit Reno. Gamble some, vi...

Light and Fluffy Chocolate Cake

A quick, simple & yummy cake, perfect for soaking up ice cream :-) I would say it’s foolproof, but i once made this without sugar and it definitely wasn’t a cake!! So don’t forget the sugar :-)

Ingredients 1 cup flour 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder 1 cup sugar 2 tablespoons cocoa 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 eggs 125g butter, melted ½ cup milk Instructions

Turn on oven to 180°C, grease pan. Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix until smooth. Pour into tin and place in oven, cook for 45 mins. Let cool for a few minutes, then cut up and serve hot with ice cream. Yummy!

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