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Our trip to Sunset, Utah and Sausalito, California - 2012

• Sunset Trip Opening Page
• Mason City, IA to Sidney, NE
• Sidney to Sunset, UT
• Sunset to Winnemucca, NV
• Winnemucca to Sausalito, CA
• Sausalito area
• Football Sunday at Brian's Place Sausalito, CA
• Sausalito to Elko, NV
• Elko to Sunset, UT
• Ogden to Gothenburg, NE
• Gothenburg to Mason City, IA

Sunset to Gothenburg, NE

We left Sunset at 6:30 AM on a long travel day towards home. We had two goals for this day beyond getting closer to home. The first was to stop at Fort Bridger, Wyoming to get some support data for our family history research and the second was to get pictures of the Platte River near Gothenburg, Nebraska, again for the family history project. We arrived at Fort Bridger at about 7:00 AM to find the historic site closed for the season. We have been here before but at the time did not realize this was a major stopping point for the gold rush travelers. We did take a side road on the east side of Fort Bridger and took a picture to the west showing the terrain and mountains realizing that the 1850 travelers would have looked ahead with much anticipation on the challenges facing them as they continued west.

We had another 9-hours of travel ahead at this point so got down to some serious driving with a few stops to stay alert. The wind became the real story of the day, we had heard on the radio that there would be high winds today and they were not wrong. We had a West-Northwest wind at about 30 to 35 MPH and this made driving a bit of a challenge. There were tumble weeds rolling across the road while the gusts of wind pushed us along. The only positive thing was that with the gusty tailwind we were recording nearly 34 miles per gallon. Then in the middle of the afternoon we saw what appeared like a cloud bank on the eastern horizon, which turned out to be a major dust storm. We pulled off at a rest stop to take a picture of what looked like fog but was actually wind blown dust.

We arrived at Gothenburg late in the afternoon and had a quick evening meal and took this picture of the clouds hanging over the grain elevator. We are positive that these clouds are a result of the dust storm.

And what would a vacation log be without at least one sunset? This one was viewed from the motel parking lot. Unfortunately our other goal of getting a picture of the Platte River is also not working out. The river is very difficult to get to even though it is just a quarter mile from the Interstate. So we may need to abandon that project as well. Tomorrow is our final day on the road home, we have forecasts of more gusty winds but luckily no rain or snow, which has been a real blessing for the drive.

 

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