Day 8: Idaho & Utah

This morning was a tough to get up. I must have been pretty tired from Yellowstone the day before. Nevertheless, we had to get up and keeping morning. Today, we went south to Moab, Utah. I was pretty excited primarily because it meant we would be getting out of this terrible weather pattern that has been plaguing the northern plains ever since this road trip started. It gets really annoying when there are scattered showers and sun on and off all day for the past 7 days. Unfortunately, today was no different… maybe tomorrow.

Despite the weather, we continued on with our exploration. I talked my dad into letting me take the morning drive shift even though I was exhausted. I knew that with me at the wheel, I could stop wherever I wanted. That meant the Idaho Potato Museum!

This will probably be the last time I will ever be in this random state so I had to do the most of it. I took some pictures with a giant tater statue in front of the museum and then went inside and learned about the history, process, and tools involved in potato production. Did you know that one in seven dollars generated in Idaho come from potato farming? Yea, interesting ain’t it? After that it was lunch time so we went to Walmart and got some food. We then ate it in the parking lot in glorious redneck fashion.

Back on the road, we caught another thunderstorm in southern Idaho but it cleared up when we crossed into Utah. However, that didn’t last for long and we got another shower down in the Salt Lake City area. It’s not the prettiest city in the world due to the urban sprawl but it’s surrounded by distant mountains which makes it at least decent. The weather cleared just enough for me to get some quick glances at the Great Salt Lake. That was pretty cool.

Leaving Salt Lake City, we changed course to southeast toward Moab. The green landscape around the city began gradually changing to more yellow with dirt patches. When we got about 2 hours from Moab, was much drier with beautiful towering sandstone walls. Before heading into Moab for the night, we stopped by Canyonlands National Park as the sun was getting ready to set. The shadows and colors created by the sun on the canyon walls were a real treat. Oh and remember how I have been complaining about the weather? Well we got caught in a thunderstorm in this relatively dry place. It came out of nowhere and we had to make a dash for the car when we started to hear thunder. Five minutes later we got hail falling. The good news though was that we were on the edge of the storm and it quickly passed to the northeast giving us an amazing view of its huge, towering clouds and wisps of rain below. On our drive out of the park, it also produced a bright rainbow over some of the sandstone monuments. It was a great ending for the day and we made it to Moab shortly after for some shut eye.

Next up: Arches NP and Arizona!