The Amazing Adventures of a Zoobroker and a Sentiographer
Nearly every time we filled up our gas tank (and had a choice), we chose Sinclair. The friendly dinosaur was so endearing. Today, we passed a Sinclair refinery while traveling east on Route 80. Thank you, Sinclair. We like your gas, and your dinosaur.
OK, we really have no sponsor, but we like them anyway. As much as you can like a gas company.
We stopped just over the Wyoming border to get some supplies for a little finale...
Don't worry, it will be artistic (snicker) and not destructive.
Sure, I was lazy last night. I shot from the balcony of my hotel. But, I think I made the right choice. SLC isn't very photogenic up close, so I backed it off. One pano of downtown and a few shots of isolated moments in the night.
Zoo found another winner today. After discovering we had 35 miles of construction between us and Salt Lake City, he chose a road north that connected with the arm of the salt flats we wanted to hit. Below are images from just before we left paved road, to an unmapped (by Google) dirt road, Nevada to Utah to Nevada to Utah and then back onto the highway again and into the city limits of Salt Lake City.
Another fine find, Zoo. Excellent roads. Tons of photos after the break:
Zoo almost stepped on a Horny Toad! (LOL..)
And he scampered away...
In Utah, beliefs can make mountains float like clouds...
Last night when I was out shooting, I spotted a little donut shop. Luckily, I remembered it this morning, groggy and lusting for coffee.
Verdict: Good coffee, and the cinnamon bun is out of this world, and an apple turnover is yet uneaten, but here are some photos (after the break):
And for those Harley-lovin friends of mine, this is the side wall outside of the Silver Dollar Club:
Zoo and I ate a family-style dinner at the Basque restaurant BilToKi. It was amazing. Very farm-style food. Started with a tomato/onion/cabbage soup, some awesome bread, then a trio of sides: Beans, Steamed (soft) veggies and some pasta with red sauce. Then came the meat (sorry for the quality - it's a phone):
A perfect, giant-sized pair of filet mignon, and high-heat seared-to-perfection pork chops. And fries on the side. Needless to say, neither of us cleaned out plates. Holy bloat. So, we headed back to the hotel to ride out the food coma and blog.
Apparently, Elko has the highest concentration of Basque in America. Thank you! Dinner was outstanding.
Wednesday night in Elko is neither dead nor hopping. At the suggestion of the gal behind the counter at our hotel, we headed over to G's for some drinks. What was that noise as we approached? Karaoke. You know it! We had a few brews, sang some songs and enjoyed getting to know the locals better. Friendly people, but kinda stuck... Stuck in circumstances, stuck in beliefs that they will never escape.
Take the glitz and glam on Las Vegas, mix in a rodeo, the Basque, some mexicans and Native Americans (lots of mix blood around here) and you get a really interesting cross-section of cowboy gambling drinking farmer young stuck in the town feeling. Kind of desperate, but resigned. It's charming if you like gritty (and I do), but as I mentioned in my night shots post, it had a slight edge of danger because a few people had a chip on their shoulder for out of towners.
We popped out heads into three brothels, just to see what it was like. Zoo Broker will be going to Amsterdam shortly.
Now we head off to... (to be posted)
After dinner and carousing this evening, I headed out for some night shooting. I must say that this is the first place I felt somewhat uncomfortable showing gear alone at night, but nothing happened, or even threatened to happen. Must have been the hard shoulders on the slackers at the bar or the crazy guy we played pool against who was getting all drunk rowdy. Anyhoo, Elko is awash in neon from the casinos, bars and brothels. Makes nice light for Spammer to capture with pixels.
When Zoo and I headed out on our 1st road trip from LA to Denver, we made on little side trip in Arizona. We cut north of the mountains to get to Sedona and ended up in Jerome - high up on the rim of the mountains surrounding the area. It started with a cattle gate and ended during dusk. It was a moving experience and I exclaimed THAT was the best road I had ever been on. Scratch that. (It was and still is amazing...) Today, we took a side road that cut through Humboldt National Forest. It starts in southern Idaho and ends 40'ish miles north of Elko, NV. It changed my life, and we guess that no more than 10,000 people have ever seen what we saw today.
Gobs of photos after the jump. First we drove past the Salmon River Reservoir:
and on into the Bruneau Desert flats
And then into a jaw-dropping canyon. And I mean CANYON.
Zoo took a moment to throw a stone...
And then, since I was driving this leg, into the base of the canyon. We drove along at 20 mph, wondering how far it really was to Jarbidge, because we were nearing a half tank of gas... Nothing like a little uncertainty to make you enjoy things more ;)
So we stopped and shot up into the canyon walls a few times. Zoo said, "Fuck Arches! [National Park) And fuck the tourists! This is awesome." I soooo agree.
After stopping for lunch and gas (what a relief) in Jarbidge (see post) Zoo took the wheel and we drove higher and higher...
When I dreamed of road tripping this time of year, I saw in my mind's eye the aspen and birches turning yellow... and I got it. Stunning.
And the landscape changed for the third time. Now the mountains were carpeted with scattered trees.
And then the landscape changed yet again, now getting into desert-like conditions with jutting rocks on mountainsides here and there...
And then Hunboldt ended.
The desert became even more desert-like. The mountains squashed down into hills.
We were on private land, and cattle ranches surrounded us... but not much cattle.
And then 5 1/2 hours later, we hit pavement again. Did I mention that it was 95% dirt roads? Yeah, that's a road trip!
Dirty Hyundai. Love ya!
