Ah, Vacation

Here I sit at a place called "Dave Walley's Resort" south of Carson City Nevada, on Sunday morning. My bride of nearly twenty-seven years is still asleep and I've checked the news, the baseball scores, and one other matter on the Internet. I'm looking out the living room window at a very attractive mountain and despite some sinus problems, it's a very good day.

Carson City is a bit more than a thousand miles from Colorado Springs. We decided to drive rather than fly here so we could see more of  the sights and especially stay over at Salt Lake City,  which neither of us had ever seen. We took what has become the usual route from Colo Spgs, as the big green road signs call our town, west to Hartsell Colorado (Don't blink or you'll miss  it.), then north through Fairplay and Alma in the mountains, over Hoosier Pass, down to Breckenridge and Frisco, then boogied west on the interstate to Utah.

We had to brake hard to avoid killing a fox, saw another fox at a distance, and the largest herd of elk either of us had ever spotted. There must have been forty or more beasties grazing at a ranch north of Hartsell. Don't misunderstand, they were wild animals, just taking advantage of the rancher's grass.

After crossing a lot of desert in Utah, scenes of austere sublime beauty, we arrived in Salt Lake just after dark and checked into a hotel about a mile from Temple Square. We wanted to see the very center of the Mormon world, so after a short hiatus, we drove over.

The great Mormon temple is a huge edifice, topped by a golden angel - I guess Moroni - blowing a trumpet. It's all alabaster, looks to  my unschooled eye to be Victorian in style, and is surrounded by very pretty courtyards with statues commemorating scenes from the Book of  Mormon and the history of the LDS devotees. The most attractive of them depicts a family making  its way across the plains with a large handcart which doesn't show much in the way of supplies. The man's pants are ripped at the knee, both the man and the woman look rather gaunt, and a child is cuddled up asleep on the cart. I marvel at the fortitude of the Mormon  pioneers who did walk across the plains all the miles from Missouri to the Salt Lake.

Yesterday morning, after a little misadventure involving directions, we set out west for Nevada. The Great Salt Lake truly deserves its name, we saw miles and miles of slat flats, two salt harvesting plants  and many seagulls. I wonder how seagulls originally got there, the lake is a thousand miles from any ocean. Anyway, we began seeing signs for the little town just over the state line, advertising casinos and strip joints. (Lap dance, $10.) There's a world of difference between Utah and Nevada. I'll bet there are any number of sociology papers about backsliding Mormons sneaking over to Nevada for sin. I mentioned that to Kris, who quickly replied that there are lots of people in Utah who are not Mormon. And she's right of course.

Nevada is greener than Utah, at least eastern Nevada is, but as we drove farther west it looked more and more arid. The foothills are eroded, there are talus piles at the bottoms of them, and very little vegetation. (Aren't you just impressed that I know a geology term, though I think good geologists would say "talus cones.") There are a few small towns along Interstate 80, all of which seem to feature casinos, but the country seems almost uninhabited otherwise. There was an occasional hawk or vulture and a lonely pronghorn or two.

About a hundred miles east of Reno we heard a noise from the back of the car and we began to  sound more like a motorcycle than an automobile. Clearly there was an exhaust problem. By the time we reached Reno we started to hear dragging from the tailpipe. We got off the highway immediately, actually pulled into the parking lot of a furniture store and took a look. The muffler appeared to be hanging by a thread.

We walked into the store, explained that we weren't in the market for a Lazyboy, and asked if there was a muffler repair place in the vicinity. The sales clerks were very nice, checked the Internet and made a few calls, but it was already late afternoon on Saturday, and repair shops were closed. After a good deal of palavering, the clerk directed us to a Walmart where we could get some wire and kind of jury rig the muffler until Monday morning. So there we were in the Walmart parking lot, while I crawled under the car to tie up the muffler. There was very little clearance and not much in the way of places to actually tie the thing off. Finally it was done, and we were able to continue, following the not very helpful directions to Dave Walley's. And that's why I'm sitting here telling you this story. By the time we arrived the wire had stretched or broken, and the muffler was again almost on the ground.

I'd like to say we'll just flop today and get to a muffler shop tomorrow, but unfortunately we're short of groceries, so either we eat at the resort - very expensive -  or risk the muffler finding a grocery store from this rather remote location. I checked the Internet and there is a Meineke shop in Carson City. That's the other matter I mentioned. I'll probably be sitting around there tomorrow morning. Ah, vacation!

By the way, I think Dave Walley was a  pony express rider. At least there's a big pony express motif here.