Climate change...

Is when you drive six hours from Vegas to Salt Lake... It was actually chilly out tonight, which was nice. The city is surrounded by mountains still capped in snow, although it's rapidly thinning I think. It's quite a pretty place...

First thing is first though... Last night, the Bellagio lobby.. Cool

                                              

 

We rose early, possibly as some kind of punishment for my lateish night last night... After checking out of the hotel we first set out to swap a bulk pack of singlets bought by my travel companion, having found they did not fit... And then discovered Sears doesn't open until 10am... What kind of store is that???

Giving that up we hit the freeway and pushed north on the I-15 which cuts a clear track all the way from Vegas to Salt Lake City (SLC)... It's a nice drive though more wilderness and desert and rock, then skipping across a corner of Arizona through an awesome canyon road, and then on into the wide plains and increasingly green expanses of Utah. 

        

The fun part was that much of the freeway up there has an 80mph speed limit, meaning a comfortable cruise at about 140kph.. We stopped for lunch and gas on the outskirts of Cedar City, where we tried Arby's for the first time, which was interesting... I had a Reuben which is a weird sandwich made with swirled brown and white bread and I think was beef with horseradish and cheese... Arby's point of difference is they do burgers and sandwiches with various sliced meats instead of burger paddies. We also learned some people up this way struggle with a NZ accent. Others on the other hand love it... The two girls at the gas station were immediately fascinated, to the point one was leaning right out across the counter so far she was actually lying on it, up on her elbows, staring at us intently while we talked, and they kept asking me questions to keep me speaking.

From there I took over the drive for the second half, we were both a little dozy which was not ideal... We got to Salt Lake and then I had another fundamental navigation failure which seems to be happening with uncharacteristic regularity in the last few days. We got to the hotel near the airport in the end, a nice new place, and then just as we started to relax for a minute we realised three Hardin fact crossed into a new time zone, and it was actually 1700 not 1600, so we got changed quick smart and headed the half hour out to the incredible Miller Motorsport Park. 

The Miller facility is the dream if the late Larry Miler, a self made millionaire entrepreneur and car no Motorsport lover who decided to build a US$140m world class Motorsport facility in a completely impractical place, because he could... He also, as we figured out, has quite some car collection... We 

Got there and went into the museum where the people for the track course had a welcome reception and dinner... I walked in not expecting. Great deal, then I saw a car.. Then I saw another car... Then I saw more.... Then I kind of no longer heard anything anyone else said after that... Then I decided this guy must just be a collecter of interesting replicas, so I started reading the descriptions of the cars... Replicas they were not... I am not really sure how to put it all into words, but the car people reading will understand when they see the photos below.... Let's just say it was one step short of a religious experience... allow me to show you why (some of you are going to cease being my friend in 5... 4... 3... 2... 

              

                                          

I could keep going... I kept the staff waiting round after dinner while I took photos... I had the entire place to myself in the end, just going round and round and round taking photo after photo... For the uninitiated, what you see above is a sample of an incredible collection of near-priceless Ford road and race cars... They are not painted in the livery of famous race cars you may have seen on TV and in photos, they ARE the actual race cars you saw... Including the actual Le Mans winning Cobra Daytona... The actual first production Cobra... One of two actual factory Cobra Dragon Snakes... Not to mention, the only complete set of GT40's in the world... All seven... Every model and type... Including prototypes and the actual racers... To put this further into perspective, one of the CHEAPER cars pictured above it worth around a million dollars... some of the dearer ones?? Ten million... Twenty million... I can't even begin to tell you how amazing it was. And then there we're shelves and shelves of genuine parts... Spare factory engines on stands... Stacks of wheels... Unbelievable. I am still spinning about it. And tomorrow we drive race cars!! So I better get going, although sleep seems unlikely.