Road Trip

A couple weeks ago I realized I was going to have a few days off during Spring Break. After some debate, I decided I should make a solo road trip eastward. Over the past couple days, I've ironed out the kinks in the trip. I made some reservations at hotels. I mapped out the route.

The first day I'm going to leave Rohnert Park Monday morning between 7 and 8 am. I'm going to cut through Sonoma and head for I-80. I plan on following that just past Sacramento where I'll make my first detour to Rancho Seco. Rancho Seco is an old nuclear power plant that they shut down in 1989. Following that detour, I'm going to hop back onto I-80 and head for the Black Rock Desert. I want to get a few pictures out there of Gerlach and other man-made structures. From there I'll head to Elko, where I'll stay the night. It'll be one hell of a long day for a total of 716 miles, give or take.

Day two will start with me leaving Elko by 8am and continuing to follow I-80 into Utah. I'll stop at the Great Salt Flats. I'd like to get some pictures of the salt mines, and of I-80, actually. I'm planning on spending a decent chunk of my day around that area. When it gets a little later in the day I'll head to Salt Lake City. Day two I will only cover about 230 miles.

Day three is where my plans start to break down a bit. I'm going to leave Salt Lake City with the intention of making it a decent way into Wyoming. If I actually make it might be a different story. Wednesday night I'd like to be back to about Reno. From Salt Lake City it's only about 85 miles to Wyoming. If I stop there, it's 600 miles back to Reno. My other option is to stay in Elko Wednesday night, and just book it back to Rohnert Park Thursday morning so I can be at work by 2:30. It's 523 miles from Elko to Rohnert Park (a sufficient pain in the ass, but doable).

In the mean time, my schedule is still in pencil. The only "definites" are my reservations in Elko Monday night, and Salt Lake City Tuesday night. I could cut out Rancho Seco and Black Rock Desert to cut out a huge chunk of mileage for Monday. We'll see.

I've started a list of "things to not forget" (with the assistance of Karli!). I'm going to be trucking along three large format cameras (my 8x10, 5x7, and 4x5). My car is going to be packed! I put Karli in charge of my music selection for the journey. I know it sounds like a trivial task, but it is quite the contrary. It will undoubtedly decide the entire mood of the trip! And as my evening goes on, the list of "things to not forget" keeps getting longer. I should finish it tomorrow.

I think I should call it a night.