Day 15 – Salt Lake City –> Lake Tahoe

Day 15 (7/13). (Elliot) We got up this morning and we got ready for the long drive ahead – about nine hours to Lake Tahoe. The landscape across Utah and Nevada was mostly flat, with mountains in the distance. Sometimes the road was extremely straight and it looked like it went on forever. It was so hot and flat that we saw mirages on the road and sand – it looked like the mountains were floating.

The coolest part of the drive was beating a hard level in Geometry Dash. Okay, really, the coolest part was these amazing salt flats [in northern Utah]. The salt flats were super white and flat and went on and on, about seven miles to the mountains in the distance. We stopped and walked out on them – some of us ran way far out on the flats, but we didn’t seem to get any closer to the mountains! The salt flats were so bright they hurt our eyes. The salt also stuck to our feet and shoes. Some of us walked and ran barefoot on the salt. Close by was the place where the record for the land speed was set – over 600 miles per hour! [The Bonneville Speedway.]

To pass time on the drive, we played screen time, read, slept, ate, looked at the landscape, and watched a movie. When we got close to Lake Tahoe, we had to drive through the mountains. We finally saw the lake from up in the mountains. My Dad told us that it is 1,600 feet at the deepest part!

From our hotel we walked a short distance to a nice beach on Lake Tahoe. The lake was super shallow at the beach, and we could walk way out and it was only up to our waist. Lake Tahoe’s water was fresh and we sank easily – compared to the Great Salt Lake we swam in yesterday, that was salty and made us float. The water was fairly warm. It was weird seeing snow in the mountains above us as we swam in the lake! It was so beautiful, so we stayed for several hours and ate our dinner on the beach as the sun went down. We played in the sand and then also went swimming after sunset since the water felt warm compared to the cool air. The sky had a cool orange glow for a long time. As it got dark, we could see Mars close to the moon. And now, off to bed in our hotel.

(As always, the best way to view the photos is to click on the first one and scroll through the slide show).