Day 20: Salt Lake City to Elko, Nevada

We always have good the good intention of arising early and getting on with our plans for the day: It just so rarely happens. We abolutely loved the Hotel Monaco in Salt Lake City; very well run, personable yet efficient. (Although the dinner at Monaco in Denver trumped the Salt Lake City Monaco by far.) So, we lingered a bit before going on to our scheduled plan for the day: a trip toThe Family History Library at Salt Lake City to track down John's elusive great grand father. Now, I am not so sure why a John Kennedy from somewhere in Ireland who fled during the potato blight would be so very, very difficult to find, can you? Even in the world's largest genealogy library.

We spent about 3 hours longer than we had planned in the Family History Library. We were both impressed with how helpful all of the missionaries and assistants were-and not a word about converting us. That was probaly a wise decision. We appreciated eveyone's help tremendously and wished we had been able to schedule two days instead of one in their impressive and well-run facility.

We headed out of Salt Lake City around 4:30 and were releaved to remember that we would be regaining an hour by travelling into Pacific Time once we hit Nevada. However, we had not yet had lunch, even though we had treated ourselves to a "Hotel Breakfast," and so we followed a sign that promised "all services" only to find the food offered was 7-11 ish, so we ate part of a road-side hot dog to "hold us up" for the remaining miles into Elko. There were the usual "Road Construction Ahead" delays and many, many 18 wheelers to slow our progress. However, we still managed to make it to Elko from Salt Lake City in just under three hours.

A quick check into our second stay at the Comfort Inn and then on to the Nevada Dinner House for some local Basque fare. Interestingly, they had a pinot noir on their wine list that we had last night in Salt Lake City; at half the price...<g> With that in our glasses we settled into another great dinner which included soup, salad, shoestring fries, green beans, spaghetti and, of course, an entre. I had the lamb shank and Max had the fried shrimp (a longtime favorite) and then some spumanti and vanilla ice cream for dessert.

It's a long day tomorrow to make it to Auburn and home. And, we're not ready for this to end!!!

So, until the next installment, good night!

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