Day 28 - From Whence We Came

Today would be our last day of driving, taking us back to Las Vegas, where the whole road trip started.

Before setting off we noticed that the restaurant next to the hotel had been voted 'Best Breakfast in Ogden' 4 years running. Slightly suspicious that there was little in the way competition we decided to check it out anyway, it wasn't like we could see anywhere else to it. Before we even reached the front door though we could see that the queue extended out into the car-park. Thinking of the drive ahead (plus it was already 25°C and rising) we decided to abort the plan and get some food on the way instead. Best breakfast or not, we'll never know.

We drove straight on through Salt Lake City, the guidebooks didn't have much to say about it and the skyline looked decidely dull. At the time we didn't realise how close we'd passed to the actual salt lake or we might have stopped to have a look (3 times as salty as the sea apparently).

All the way down throuh Utah the scenery is much the same, on your right (travelling south) are mountains, on the left are plains and low hills, and on both sides there's little vegetation. The temperature slowly increased the further south we got, although once it got into the mid-nineties fahrenheit (that's about 35°C) and midday passed it seemed to level out.

We stopped briefly at the entrance to Zion national park with ideas of taking the 10 mile scenic drive into the park but like all American national parks they only do a 5-day pass, the price of which seemed a little step for a half hour excursion (it was too hot to stay out of the car for long so we couldn't have hung round much longer than that).

It turned out that we'd get to see some pretty spectacular scenery anyway just driving along Interstate 15. A few miles south of Zion the road passes through St George, right on the Utah border and then plunges headlong into the Virgin River Gorge. The transition is almost instant, one minute you're driving across a plain, the next you feel like you're on another planet. The gorge is so steep and narrow that much of the road is up on stilts, simply because it couldn't sit flat on the bottom.

In interesting effect of the mountains is that they seem to form a weather barrier between Nevada on one side and Utah on the other (only about 10 miles or so of the road is in Arizona). While the temperature in Utah had been consistently warm, when we hit the gorge it turned hot, and then scorching. In the space of 15 minutes we went from 35°C to 45°C... Every now and then Amy would open the window to take a photo (otherwise they always came out with a big reflection of the dashboard or us in) but we couldn't keep the window open for more than a few seconds before the car filled with dry hot air and we had to close it again. Thank god for air-conditioning.

Just past the mountains, as the road begins to stretch out across the desert, is a town called Mesquite, which is a crazy looking place. There are huge mansions perched up on the top of rocky ridges, several large casinos and even golf courses (which would explain why the Virgin river looks so dry). Most bizarre of all, we even saw a roundabout - the first one we'd seen in the USA.

From there it was a short drive across another barren patch of desert, along another dead straight road. The radio had improved though, out with the bible readings of Utah and in with the 24-hour party tunes of Nevada. Before long we were getting into the Vegas spirit - and then there it was, the distinctive Las Vegas skyline...