Tuesday, May 26th

Faye
One look at the photo will tell you which state we’ve been crossing today. We left Salt Lake City this morning and spent most of the day driving 80mph across Nevada, on I-80. I’m impressed with Kelly’s car – it didn’t complain at all! Before then the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah were very impressive – incredibly white and flat. As we were approaching the Utah/Nevada state line Kelly predicted we would see our first casino about 10 feet after crossing the line. I figured the town was too small to have anything other than a few slot machines, but Kelly was right – except it seemed less than 10 feet. We decided to stop for lunch in Elko at a casino with a restaurant and wireless internet, so we could Skype Bridget from our table. The connection wasn’t very good, but it was a good opportunity, since by the time we’re settled in a hotel at the end of each day it’s the middle of the night in Ireland.

We’re ready to make some totally unscientific generalizations based on the license plate watching we’ve done since somewhere in South Dakota. Considering only the eastern half of the country, we’d say that people in Michigan, Illinois and Ohio are very likely to take long driving trips across the country, with those in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa close behind. Indianans don’t travel much. Kentuckians travel less than those from Tennessee and Missouri. From the east, people in Virginia and Maryland travel a lot, with North and South Carolinians close behind. Those from Delaware and West Virginia don’t travel much at all. Neither do New Englanders, which I pretty much knew from 30 years of living in New England. Over several days we’ve only seen one MA and one CT license plate and none from RI or VT. NH and ME do a little better. We were quite excited to see our first NH plate in Wall, SD. Anyone know who owns a “Snafu” plate? New Yorkers and people from PA travel a good amount, but those from New Jersey do not. Yes, we realize that state populations vary tremendously; that’s part of the word “unscientific”. People from the rest of the southern states don’t travel much, especially those from Louisiana, since, again, we haven’t seen a single plate. Texans, however are everywhere – and their state is big enough to be thrown into our “eastern” list.

Kelly
I've had not the best relationship with Nevada in the past (as some may remember), and I'd have to say today didn't sway my opinion too much. There were a few very beautiful areas, but the towns are generally pretty dumpy and geared entirely towards parting people from their money. Also, Mom and I spent what seemed like an hour trying to find a specific restaurant in Sparks, only to later, after several failures, end at an all-you-can eat buffet at a rather sleazy place. To top it off, the buffet was more expensive than they advertised. So... I'm pretty much done with Sparks. Tomorrow is Lake Tahoe and then into California!