5. Bonneville Speedway
Not too many things get me excited to get out of my bed before sunup. But taking pictures of nice sunrise is one of them. That’s why I took this route. I’ve been here many times before. I’ve read about this place growing up. There is so much history here and most people who come here have no idea. I was up before 5 today and on my way by 0530. “Speedway” is one way to describe it but nothing points to the fact that the world fastest land vehicles broke many records here. It is just perfectly flat piece of land with no obstacles within 20 miles. And it is all located on Bonneville Salt Flats west of Salt Lake City
I arrived there way before sunrise and just chilled for awhile. There is nobody around except for a few early risers. You could close your eyes and almost hear the engines of the fire breathing monsters driving by at almost the speed od sound. Not today, though. I set up my bike and waited for the sunrise. Then a car drove by and parked it few hundred meters from me, right in line where the sun will be coming up. Perfectly ruining my pictures.🙄 Then I zoomed with my telephoto lens and started to laugh. What I saw was a ballerina obviously creating some sort of video. External lights and all, dressed in tutu dancing like nobody’s watching 😂 I HAD to take a picture of her …
I spent almost 2 hours there snapping pictures and I even flew my drone. And just realizing I forgot to download the drone pics. Mañana … It was getting hot, 30˚C at 8 a.m. so it is time to hit the road. I knew that east of Salt Lake City it will get much cooler so something to look forward to.
The salt flats are huge. They are huge when you fly over them, I’ve it done many, many times at 40,000’. But they are even larger on the ground. It is almost 200km from West to East. Completely flat and utterly boring. And always windy. So, I am driving eastbound, everybody is passing me while I am doing 120km/h. And in the distance I could see the brake lights of cars ahead of me slowing down. When I got there, everybody was stopped. Line up as far as I could see. I didn’t feel like camping so I drove on the shoulder slowly forward. For 8 km!!! And in front of this massive line up was a semi trailer on its side and blocking both eastbound lanes. His load was all over the road. There was no way anybody can go around as there was a soft salt crust on the side and a steep embankment. When I got there one of the marshals start waving at me. I thought he wants to give me a hard time but he was pointing down the embankment and around the wrecked truck. It was very sketchy but I wasn’t waiting around for a tow truck to clear the mess. Another problem was that this was right in the middle of the salt flats, so there was no town within 80km. I will be awhile to clean this mess. I asked about the driver and he was standing there talking to the paramedics. Good. Oh well, off I go. There is nobody ahead of me and nobody can get through behind me. I have entire interstate to myself. Niiiiiice 👍.
Driving through Salt Lake City’s freeways is easy but always an adventure. You have 6-7 lanes in one direction and everybody is doing 140km/h! Scary! It takes a lot of concentration. As soon as I left the freeway driving like F1 race driver for more the an hour, I stopped to get a java to calm down 🤣 It was then only about 100km from my destination and heading for the hills. And cooler temps. And it went down all the way to 22˚C! Almost freezing.🤣 No more drama and I arrived in Price, UT at lunch time. I had a hotel reserved and they let me check in early. Nice. There is nothing in this small town so I am planning the next days. I should be in Albuquerque in 2 days. But I have a sneaky suspicion that I will get wet tomorrow. Oh well, better then being baked.
OK, that’s it for today, pics are already uploaded. 🤙