Utah Salt Flats

This week we went on the long awaited trip to the Utah Salt Flats. Bill and a few other friends have had this trip planned for about 2 years now and it finally happened. I'm sorry to say that it was a let down of sorts. Not the entire week but a few days and specific events.

First off the drive down was good we changed time zones a few different times surprisingly. It went back and forth between states that we went through. We got there at 11:30 to the KOA at West Wendover, NV. Walking up to the door of the office we noticed that there was a black widow spider, yes a black widow, on the door. Greg instantly brought up his flip flop and killed it. Not a good start at staying at a campsite. We had our instructions taped to the door of where our campsite was and the code to get into the bathroom. (Never had that before. I felt kind of cool having a code to the bathroom.) So there we are trudging slowly along to the campsite. It is down the road and right there. We are next to a wooden fence and there is a section formed by railroad ties to say where you have to put your tents. We all looked at it hoping that all 3 tents were going to fit in the space. It was very small. Before we put up our tents (since we found 1 black widow) I took a lantern and ran it across the back fence to see if there were any other creatures there that needed to be killed. Yep, there was. We found another Black Widow spider. Greg again took off his flip flop and killed it. It was most disconcerting to find 2 black widows not knowing that they were going to be there waiting for us. There were also big bats that were flying about. Quickly we put up our tents, Bill and my tent had to go in sideways in order for all 3 to fit in the site. Soon we were off to sleep alarms ready for 6:30 am.

6:30 rolls around and we get up slowly (Bill and I a little late) and hop into the truck and hope that we can find a Starbucks from the city of Wendover. I forgot to mention. On the way there to Wendover as we were driving there was a nice glow of lights in the distance. A little later we found out it was our little town of Wendover. There were about 6 big casinos neon lights everywhere welcoming us to Wendover. The best casino name is The Red Garter. Hehe. You know thats where they have interesting people. Anyway, back to the story. We finally get into the truck and try to find a Starbucks. We know that there is one in town. It was actually in the Golden Nugget, a casino!! We get inside and there is a long line with only 1 guy working and taking orders and making the drinks. Ugh. We get our coffees and off we go to the salt flats about 10 miles down the road. It is so much different then I expected. I've seen it in the movies and never thought it was really that white but it is very, very white. Sunglasses required. We find out that the Salt is really wet and we can't race on it so they were just teching the cars and then we had to come back tomorrow for the race. So the guy comes over and techs the car and it was about noon finishing up we decided to head to Salt Lake City to do some shopping. Shopped we did. It was fabulous.

The next day we got up again at 6:30 and off we went to Starbucks again. Again the same guy was working doing all the orders. We got to the salt and got to drive to the pit area. Drivers meeting was at 9 and then pushed back to 10. So Rj and I took a walk looking at all the cars and people there. Which I'm sorry but Hollywood has lied to us!!! There were absolutely no good looking guys or the track hoes anywhere. They were all old people and there wives. So sad. Bill and Greg go get in line which is about 2.5 miles away from the pits and leave Rj and Mat and I at the pits to read and do whatever. By 3pm no one had raced yet and the people that were in charge said to go back to the pits and they would let them know when to come back. Apparently they were having printing issues. Apparently they couldn't get the names and numbers to print on the piece of paper. Personally I think that they should have just taken a pen and paper and written it down. At 3:30 they got the call to go back to the staging area so off they went and waited in line some more. They finally started to let people race and said they were keeping the salt flats open until 7 to let people do there calibration runs. At 7 Greg was up to the front of the line ready to go and they closed the salt down!!!! So Bill and Greg waited in line for 10 hours and they got to do nothing!!!! How horrendous is that. When we got back to camp I again took the lantern and went along the fence to see if there were anymore spiders. Yep I found 3 Black Widow Spiders. I got to kill them this time so it was Greg 2 and Nyssa 3. While we were sitting around there was a cockroach that came out of hiding. That was the final straw for me. I slept in the cab of the truck. I could handle Black Widows and Bats but not Cockroaches!!

Next day, Friday!!! The last day at the salt flats that we had. We had to get Bill and Greg through the line to get in at least 2 or 3 runs in. Almost impossible. Since they cut off Greg at the very front of the line they let him go first so one down. He waited in line again for 2 hours because the timing place was so exceptionally slow they couldn't or wouldn't send more cars through faster. They apparently haven't heard the words walkie-talkies before. It took 5 - 10 minutes for each car to get through from start to finish!! So long in between cars. So much waiting around time. Finally Greg got up to the line and did his second pass. He hit the speed limiter at around 120mph!!! We didn't know that it was on there. He was supposed to go 130mph. Argh!! They brought the car back to the pits and were able to disconnect the speed limiter. Bill got it teched again and was off back to the line. Bill finally got up to the line at around 3:30 and was able to do his first pass. He got 133mph and then it stalled out and as he crossed the line it read him as going 127mph. Ugh. He was out of gas. So he went and got 2 gallons of race gasoline which I'm so sad that it cost $10/gallon. It was frightening to think about. Bill got back to the front of the line at around 5:30ish and off he went hoping that was the only problem about why the car stalled out. Apparently it was not. He got up to 140mph and it died again making him cross the line at 117mph. Double Arghhhh!! We decided to leave then and go out to a cheap buffet and play the penny slots.

Well we went to the first casino to find out how much the buffet was $25!!!!! That is atrocious. So we moved on and on everything was $25 dollars. We finally ended up at the Golden Nugget and went to there steakhouse and had the best meal of that day!! We took our $1 and played the penny slots for about an hourish. It was the best night that we had had all week long.

Saturday was the day that we were coming home. It went well until our trailer blew a tire. Luckily we were close to Hermiston so we found a Les Schwab and had the tires replaced on the one side and off we went down the road to home! We finally got in at 10:30. It was nice to be home.

I think that thing that bothered me most was the fact that we didn't have any nights out besides the two. Otherwise it was come home from the salt, quickly shove down dinner, and then immediately sleep. The other thing that bothered me was the fact that the organization was atrocious! It was the poorest put together event I have ever been to in my life!!! I won't be going back there for another few years. I need some space between the two events to get me to go back there. Anyway, I think that I'm done ranting now.