Chasing the Sunset

We made it through tornado country without a hitch.  Everyone told me to be on the lookout last week.  They scared me so bad in the second grade I still know what to do.  Before we got out of Wyoming we were hopping back into the bus after getting gas when we heard a siren.  The guy pulling out of the gas station in front of us didn't seem to pay any mind. Still, I was flashing back to second grade, trying to figure out which building around us might have a basement.  Sherm asked the girl at the gas station what that was.  She replied, "The noon."  Well, at least they test it!

I was a little bummed to miss going through the mountains, but going between them was as beautiful a view as I could have asked for.  When we got to Utah, the mountains were right next to us as we passed between different ranges.  Trees started to pop up more and there more more farms mixed in.  After all the rain from the crazy weather systems the past few days, the crops were starting to sprout.  It took me a moment to realize they were farms, not just grassland. 

Then the mountains became more rocky.  It was amazing to see the layers of rock going diagonal to the horizon.  The bolder was not compressed where it lay today, but was made some where else and dropped off a glacier how ever many years ago. As we drove the mountains became more spread out.  Some smaller and more isolated have turned into beautiful rock formations after all the centuries of mother nature's abuse. 

Idaho proved to be just as much of a drastic change of scenery as Utah was.  The farms got small again, just popping up along the river bed.  Ranches got smaller and more suburbs started to pop up.  Between the green river beds the landscape stretched out, dry, to the mountains.

We had been driving for a long time and had yet to reach a new time zone. Part of that is because we had to go south for a while to avoid the mountain; but also part of it is because if you look on a map the line between Pacific Time and Mountain Time does a crazy zig-zag through the mountains.  At 9 PM the sun was still high in the sky.  The sun didn't set (into the very far off distance) until 10:15.

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