More beautiful countryside, even in Nevada. Nevada is large swaths of empty land with a few towns and cities here and there. Utah is absolutely stunning with red rock formations lining the highway. Western Utah is eerie with the Great Salt Lake and the Bonneville Salt Flats which look like a thin layer of snow is on the ground. Every town we passed in Utah we could see the Mormon church with its distinct steeple. As we got closer to Nevada the highway became dotted with billboards advertising casinos across the state line and "Girls, Girls, Girls". An interesting juxtaposition of the strict Mormon mores with absolutely every "sin" easily available the next state over.
We did a lot of ascending and descending as this part of the drive took us through some of the Rockies. We had to pull over a few times as our engine began to overheat (I am sure that is not the technical term, but it is how I understood it). We started the conversation about needing to buy a new car if we decided to keep trailering. That would mean a car with a more powerful engine that could manage mountain driving pulling a trailer. Which got us talking about our mores...
We bought the Highlander five years ago because we wanted a more comfortable car for road trips and we wanted a car that would seat 7 to accommodate our growing family. We happened to purchase it during a week Kiel was home visiting. Kiel kind of rolled his eyes at us when we brought it home, but when his good friend from high school, Kevin, came over that evening, he was aghast. Kevin had always teased us over the years. We were the family who only owned Priuses because they consumed less fuel. We also owned an electric Fiat at the time and planned to buy a second one to minimize our use of fossil fuels. He teased us about the fact that we made our own sparkling water to reduce the number of bottles we used (even though we were rabid recyclers). He really pegged us for the environmentalist Palo Altans when we served him grilled tofu one night. And now, we had purchased a gas guzzler for our "comfort".
Thomas has put a deposit down on the new all electric Volvo that is supposed to come out late this year. We had planned to sell our Highlander then and have two all electric vehicles. We figured we could rent a gasoline car for the few times a year we might need that. But you cannot tow a trailer with an electric vehicle. First world problems that have us glaring straight into the eyes of our privilege.
We are back in our own time zone now. Today we travel to Truckee. Tomorrow we go home. I hear we are having a heat wave at home. Welcome back to the land of brown hills and dry heat.
Our little nest...
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