In my haste and sleep-deprived delirium, I completely forgot to write about one of the most surreal moments of the trip – day 2, leaving Utah for Portland.  Having traveled to Promontory, UT for the Spiral Jetty, we were subsequently turned away because:

1. they wouldn’t lend/tour us in a government vehicle,
2. they wouldn’t give us the names of local farmers who might be willing to tour us for a fee, and
3. they suggested our car might explode should we proceed.

As an aside, Promontory, UT is the spot where at 12:47 PM on May 10, 1869, the trans-continental railroad was completed with a golden spike.  Beyond this amazing achievement, we thought, Promontory is smack-dab at the crossroads of Nowhere and Nothingness, having not spurred on any sort of initiative to grow beyond a museum.  As we began on our journey back (the same route) and fully expecting to see the same amount emptiness as before, we were instead greeted by this:

Being from Parker, CO, I’m not new to cows (or cows are not new to me, that is) – but the fact that we somehow missed an entire herd of cows on our way in was somewhat astonishing, considering they weren’t freaking there – there was nothing freaking there. We saw maybe 3 people this entire leg through Utah, and suddenly we were smack-dab in the middle of a herd of cows with a cowboy wrangling us and the herd.

This was a truly humbling experience.  Here we are, four relatively slick city dwellers, going 2 mph through a herd of cows, pretending that we were just another cow – albeit a really fat, really blue cow filled with 24 year olds.

Having cleared the cows and onward to continue our journey, we discovered that “nothing” isn’t always what it seems.  Shortly before entering Idaho, there’s a space and rocket facility called ATK.

What does ATK do? Well, they make freaking rocket boosters.  See?

Right.

The juxtaposition between being herded around with cows to rocket boosters that fly to the moon and put satellites in orbit was incredibly surreal and made for an amazing experience for a town filled with “nothing”.

We came through Promontory to see the Spiral Jetty and thought we’d failed, having not been able to achieve what we’d set out to do that day.  Instead, we left with one of the coolest and most memorable legs of the trip.

Proof that even when things don’t quite go your way, it’s still worthwhile to keep your eyes open and on the horizon for the next best thing.