"No Service Next 94 mi"

,,, that was what we were confronted with on our drive from Elko to Ogden/UT, 320 miles of deserted "Nowhere Land". Left the Interstate and drove state highways around the Great Salt Lake (pic below) and there was not a whole lot but landscape, the salt lake in the distance and no service for 94 mi. (that's what the sign said). No town, no rest area, no gas station,,, but, when we drove on I-70, between Green River and Salina almost two weeks ago, it was even more: 110 miles (177 km) - the longest distance anywhere in the Interstate Highway System with no motorist services.

The last four days, from Wednesday to Saturday were fantastic. We had such a good time at the National Cowboy Gathering in Elko, that it's hard to describe. With the exception of Wed., where we took part at an interesting ranch tour (part of the event program, too), we spent every day from 9 am to late evening in the Elko Convention/
Conference Center and in the Western Folklife Center (the organizer of the event), where most of the different presentations/concerts/lectures/workshops/films/readings took place, always several simultaneously. Fortunately, distances between venues were short and everything was very well organized - thanks to many, many volunteers (never conceivable in Germany). We were the only journalists (I even think, the only visitors) from overseas and pretty fast got in contact with the local and visiting ranchers and cowboys. Learned a lot.

Please, bear with me, I have to sort through and label the hundreds of pics from the event, before I can set up a post about the Cowboy Gathering.

On our drive today, we stopped in Promontory, Utah, the historic place where on May 10, 1869 the Union and Central Pacific Railroads joined their rails and forged the destiny of a nation. The visitor center at Golden Spike National Historic Site tells the stories of the people and and the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad. There are even two replicas of the original locomotives which met at Promontory Summit to celebrate the completion.