Cheyenne

The guys in Cheyenne treated me really well. So, of course, I forgot to get a picture with them. Here's the oncoming shift the next morning instead...

Salt Lake City and into Wyoming

I'm a few days behind, again, so a quick recap of my last few stops:

In Salt Lake City, I bunked at Engine 1, where backsteppers Mike and Amy were enjoying one of their last shifts on the unit, as they were being transferred to a slower house to make room for paramedics. Or was it Hazmat techs? I can't remember now...

Anyway, they took me for a tour of the city and showed me the one redeeming factor of their future house: the view.

 According to Capt. George, the ski resorts still have 16 feet of snow, and are going to stay open until July 24th. That's right, July.

I guess that should've been a warning about the upcoming weather. When I left in the morning, it was freezing cold. In fact, I shivered the entire way to Cheyenne. It sucked.

Photos from Wyoming and Nebraska upcoming, I'm on my way to Iowa City now...

Scenes on the Road to Salt Lake City

Mad Max!

Actually, his name is Leland, and when I passed him on I-80, I did a double take. With some creative hand signals, I was able to get this road warrior to pull over so I could snap some shots of his monster machine, which started life as a Toyota pickup. Leland is on a cross country tour of his own, visiting campsites and taking in all the beauty of the land.

Reno

With a glorious ride through the mountains behind me, I pulled in to the Biggest Little City in the World on Tuesday evening, ready to stretch my legs. I got to Station 3 at about the same time as the crew, who had been training in Carson City all day. My trend of brushes with fame continued, as I met fireman/novelist Shawn Grady, author of Through the Fire, Tomorrow We Die, and the upcoming Falls Like Lightning, a suspense thriller about smokejumpers in the Sierra Nevadas.

Reno's fire department, it turns out, has been decimated by the City Council, and they regularly "brown out" a third of the city's companies. Only one of Reno's four ladder trucks was in service during my visit. What a shame.

The crew of Engine 3 was awesome, though, and I got to talk shop with a few of the guys. Thanks for the hospitality, fellas!

My New Ride

I'm trading the Harley in. The Schwinn gets better gas mileage.

We Have a New Champion

The first 300 miles of Tuesday's ride were flat, hot and boring, not to mention smelly from Central California's agricultural establishments. The only bright spots were a great chicken sandwich from an unasuming roadside grill and a billboard I couldn't resist for Gnarly Head Wines in Lodi. Turns out shipping wine to Maryland is a felony, so I couldn't send a bottle back to Stacy. But, I did strike up a conversation with a patron that led to an impromptu on the spot donation!

However gruelling they were, it's as though the first 300 miles were the price of admission for the last quarter of the day, and it was well woth it. The road up to Donner Pass is nothing short of amazing, and when the tall pines part to reveal the snow caps of the Sierra Nevada mountains for the first time, it is astounding. One might even say, "super impressive". The road winds up the mountain through the most spectacular scenery I've experience throughout this trip. Unfortunately, there are very few places to (safely) stop to photograph the scenery, so I didn't come close to capturing all of the majesty. But Wikipedia did:

So did Google Street View

Here are some of my own (less spectacular) photos -

Regrowth after what I'm assuming was last year's wildfire (if you look closely, there are char marks at the bases of the trunks) -

There were lots of these little cabins right of the highway. This one is on the South Yuba River -