Ok, enough time spent in California, there was a lot more of the country to see, so it was time to start heading back east again!  Immediately after leaving the Jelly Belly factory, I headed up into the Sierra Nevada mountains toward Donner Pass, where many pioneers came through the mountains on their way to California.  There was a statue at the pass to commemorate all the pioneers who suffered the hardships of crossing the mountains and helped open up the west.

Donner Pass is named after a very unfortunate group of pioneers, however — a group of families who found themselves stranded in the mountains late in the season when the snow sealed the pass.  Unable to go either forward or back, they were forced to spend the winter there, with limited supplies and shelter.  I’d advise you to look up the details if you’re interested, but in essence, many of them died, and some were forced to resort to cannibalism to survive.  Relief and rescue parties were sent to them, often to face the same hardships themselves.  I found the story of the Reed family particularly moving.

Interestingly, all of the single men belonging to the party died, and all of the women survived.

Even on good roads, in the summer, in a modern vehicle well stocked with jelly beans, it was a very long and slow climb up into the pass, which is still a rather wild and forbidding place outside of the towns.  I camped for the night in Donner Pass, and hardly slept at all — I was freezing cold!  The next morning I bought a quilt to put over my blanket.  Imagining what the Donner Party went through in that same location, I certainly felt a bit soft!

There’s not a lot in northern Nevada to capture my interest, so my plan was to run straight across it to Salt Lake City, Utah.  Accordingly, I got an early start the next day.  This was the scenery all day.

Occasionally I passed through a small town, and there were truck stops at regular intervals, but I only stopped when I needed fuel, and then the scenery went back to this.

The only point of interest in the whole drive was when I crossed the Bonneville Salt Flats.  You may recognize the name because it’s where land speed trials are often held at the ‘Bonneville Speedway.’  The whole area smelled very much like the ocean.

I was certainly a weird scene, and I understand that it’s permissible to drive on the salt flats, but I saw a number of tire tracks on the surface that ended rather deeply and abruptly, so didn’t think it was worth a try with Baby Blue.

After ten hours in the cockpit, dogfighting with Harleys and tanker trucks, at an average ground speed of 80 – 85 mph (130 – 140 kph), and with little to look at, I was glad to finally touch down in Salt Lake City.  I found a lovely little cabin for the same price as a tent site, and spent about 10 more hours fast asleep inside recovering!