May 21, 2025

Rock Springs, Wyoming > Wendover, Utah

A bit more ambitious drive today, just over 460 miles. The day started, as it usually does, with a stop at Starbucks for a breakfast sandwich. No cappuccino at Starbucks, they still don’t know how to make them, but a coffee for Mary and a Royal English Breakfast tea for me. Back on the road by 09:00.

The terrain changes early from rolling hills to mountains and gorges. The first hundred plus miles were through the rolling and gradually climbing hills of Wyoming. Which will eventually become the Rocket Mountains. This morning we also crossed the continental divide twice! Yes Virginia there are two continental divides on Interstate 80, and lose where.

Here, on Interstate 80, in southwest Wyoming, the Continental Divide occurs twice. Traveling east to west the first time Interstate 80 crosses the divide is Milepost 206 (at en elevation 7,000 feet above sea level) the second time is at Milepost 158 (at an elevation of 6,930 feet above sea level). What is the Continental Divide?

The Continental Divide is a hydrological divide. On the eastern side of the divide the waters flow towards the Atlantic Ocean. On the western side they flow to the Pacific Ocean. But … What about the 50 miles between the two divisions? This area is known as the Great Divide Basin, where the drainage goes inward and simply evaporates; the water doesn’t go anywhere! It is a large “lake bottom”, sans the water, which contains nothing of any real interest.

After the Great Divide Basin we start are decent into Salt Lake City. There are a number of interested geological features to talk about and discuss on the way into Salt Lake City. As we pass near the past Olympic sites and continue to descend into the Los Angeles like maze of freeway connections and overpasses. The GPS in the BMW has some trouble determining the route, due to not being updated for the new and possibly ever changing overpasses and connections, but we simply follow the signs for Interstate 80. Near the connection of Interstates 80 and 15 however we chose to follow the GPS and ended up on Highway 201 to the southwest of the city.

Highway 201 appeared to be a short cut out of the city while still traversing some of it. We eventually connect again with Interstate 80 to the west of the city. The route now looks more familiar as we drive along the Great Salt Lake and what if left of it. Lots of salt, in fact at one point there is a mountain of salt glistening to the north of the Interstate. IT seems like more Salt than can be consumed by the world in a year. However, we suspect that it isn’t really.

From Lake Point to Wendover is still 100 miles ahead. It takes a little more than an hour driving over the salt flats, which are an interesting but bring geological feature. We finally pull into the Best Western Plus in Wendover Utah, not more than a mile from the Utah and Nevada border just down the street. We chose this hotel because, for some unknown reason, the hotels on the Nevada side of the boarder were more expensive.

We have arrived about 13:00 which they said was too early to check-in because they hadn’t cleaned the rooms yet. We decided to head over to the Nevada side and have some lunch and maybe gamble a little. However, having lost my wallet, and thus my ATM cards, the supply of cash available for frivolous expenditures, like gambling is limited.

The Peppermill is one of the big three casinos here, knowing its reputation for reasonably good food and gambling, without being overly expensive, we stop there for lunch. Mary had the prime rib and a baked potato, while I chose the French dip sandwich. Mary won this meal. The French dip was ok, but the meat was way over cooked.

After lunch we did gamble a little. Most of the machines were $1 machines and finding a $0.25 machine was somewhat difficult. We couldn’t find our favorite slot machine – the “Wheel of Fortune”, but we did find some $0.25 machines. They quickly took our $20 from us. They are highly efficient at that. We are not fans of the fancy bright machines that let you play $0.01, but 150 or so at a time. It is just too difficult to figure out if you won, or why. They just aren’t as fun as the old three wheelers. Bright and colorful, just not fun.

After losing our fortune on the slot machines we drove back down the street to the hotel. It had just gone 14:00, maybe 14:20, when we arrived back. We were allowed to check into the room. The room is nice and clean, nothing special. We got our things organized and prepared for the morning departure.

We had decided to forgo stopped at the Atlantis in Reno. We thought about it, and Pietro’s grandfather’s funeral on Saturday. It just seemed too involved with the Memorial Day weekend traffic to try and drive from Reno to Healdsburg on Saturday. It is a good 5-hour drive, assuming there is no holiday traffic back up. The service is at 11, so we would have to leave before 6. There probably wouldn’t be any traffic heading down interstate 80 to Sacramento, however from that point on one doesn’t know.

It had just gone about 18:00 when we decided to return to the Peppermill to have dinner. We decided to look for a bank with an ATM so Mary could use her Bank of America ATM Card. The Bank of America website didn’t show any branches or ATMs anywhere in Wendover. We drove down Wendover Blvd. Into West Wendover, Nevada. Here we found a small shopping center and a supermarket with a branch of the Bank of Nevada and a Bank of Nevada ATM. We got $300 from the ATM and headed back to the Peppermill.

We avoided the money-grubbing slots and headed directly to the restaurant. Mary got a shrimp cocktail for dinner, and I got a chef's salad. Both were very good. The salad was too large for me to finish off, but I did a good job on it. We both got a piña colata. It was very good but came with whipped cream on top. That was kind-of strange.

After dinner we looked for a slot machine to play but the $0.25 machines were all taken, and we weren’t in the mood to play at the $1 machines. For those unfamiliar with slot machines, the price, $0.25 and $1.00, refers to the minimum bet. Often you bet between 1 and 5 coins. So, the bet is really $1.25 or even $5.00. The pay outs don’t change on how much you bet. The major extreme jackpot might but not the regular pay outs.  So a $0.25 bet may payout 5 coins, $1.25, but a $1 bet also pays out 5 coins or $5. There is no advantage of betting more than $0.25.

There are some people who is argue that you can’t win the major maximum prize if you only bet the minimum amount. They are correct! However, it is extremely rare to even get close to the major maximum prize. There is another group the believes the more you bet the better the odds of winning. Theoretically that should be impossible when you are using a machine at the $0.25 or $1.00 level, especially if it is a machine which allows you to vary the amount of the bet. See the machines aren’t supposed to be adjustable for different payouts. They are supposed to be subject to random chance; which is always in the houses’ favor.

In theory, if you are playing a $5, $10 or $25 machine, the payout should be better. Well, yes the payout amounts are larger but so is the amount you are putting in. The machine is going to want $100 - $500 and hour for play. It will be set to achieve that goal.

We left the casino and headed back to the hotel. Played a game of cards in the breakfast room. Then went off to bed. Tomorrow, we want to be on the road at 06:30. Theoretically it will be a 10- or 11-hour drive to Sonoma. However, 20 miles past West Wendover the time changes in our favor and 06:30 becomes 05:30. It will be daylight all the way to Sonoma.

Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico e Maria