Day 3 ...

(728 miles; Grass Valley, Calif. to Wahsatch, Utah)

WAHSATCH, Utah -- Now that's a solid day of driving right there. Anything more than 700 miles in one day should get you a Cub Scout Badge. If you're not familiar with Wahsatch, it's a little town in northeastern Utah, right at the point where that corner is bitten out of the state. I had planned to go south through Utah and then east to Denver, but I missed an exit in Salt Lake City and figured WHY NOT WYOMING!?!

In fact, that should be the 2008 state motto Wyoming for 2008. Use it. Go ahead. My gift to you. (Any chance that counts as my paid-it-forward duties from the toll booth incident in California? Didn't think so.) I wasn't even that tired at the end of the drive, just excited to pass almost completely through Nevada and Utah in one day.

Before we get to that, though, Day 3 started with a short drive from Grass Valley to Truckee, Calif., where I was going to drop in on Andy Finch, the Olympic Snowboarder from Fresno. He lives in Truckee with his wife. That's right, I said "wife." He and girlfriend Amber Shelhamer got married, apparently. The message on his home answering machine is now one of those dorky couple messages where the guy and the gal both talk and at the end they referred to themselves as "The Finches."

I called Andy's dad to confirm and sure enough, they got married last August, nearly a year ago on some island down in the Caribbean. Thirty or so people went to the ceremony on a beautiful beach and then they all went surfing. So where were The Finches on Wednesday? Amber was in New York. Andy went to Chile to surf. Yeah. Chile. The country. Sometimes he surfs in Indonesia, where the company that sponsors him has a sweet set up.

(Note to self: Stop checking in on Andy Finch. It's depressing.)

I'd never been to Truckee so I poked around, went in the visitor's center and bought some stuff that came to $28. The woman working the register went into this big speech about how when she was a girl you could feed a family of five for a week on $28. Didn't seem like she was that old, but I didn't question it. It was a nice reminder that I was buying overpriced touristy crap. She was entertaining, though, and had this weird curly-Q of hair on her forehead so I took her picture. We started talking lakes and she said Lake Tahoe is the third largest freshwater lake in the world. Then, she said no, maybe it's the third deepest lake in the world. I didn't really care, it was just nice to see someone else who gets in arguments with themselves.

Later I noticed on the map that south of Lake Tahoe there is a body of water called "Mono Lake" and wondered how many times someone has said, "Goin down to Mono Lake. Gonna see if I can catch somethin'." Maybe I'm the only one.

Here's my thoughts on Nevada: If we ever get into a sticky situation with some foreign country, you know, one we can't blast our way out of, we should just give them Nevada. All of it except Reno and Vegas. If the rest sold at auction nobody would show up.

The one thing it has going for it is purple mountains. The ones from the National Anthem, I assume. Majesty included. They probably aren't really purple, it's just the sun reflecting on them, but it still made for nice scenery. The other highlights of Nevada were a little river next to I-80 (is it just me or are little rivers almost always prettier than big ones?) and the biggest stack of railroad ties I've ever seen. Also, a gas station on the east side of the state where three grown men were drinking Bud Light and trying to win stuffed animals out of one of those metal/tong/grabber games. That was the same gas station where they were advertising four postcards for $1, which ended up costing me because they were only 20 cents apiece. I'm a sucker for sales!!

Maybe I'm being too hard on Nevada. There were a lot of fantastic views. Like this one.

In fact, Utah was much more disappointing, mostly because the speed limit was 65 instead of 75 and it was dark for most of the drive. So much for seeing Utah. Maybe on the way back.

Scariest Driving Moment of the Day: At one point, a few miles past Truckee, I decided to exit the interstate and take this little winding road up the side of a hill to get a better view and take photos. Well there were two, one-lane tunnels to pass through, and on the way back down the hill, a car popped out of one of the tunnels just as I was entering and I had to slam on the brakes. I'd have taken her picture, but I was too busy cleaning up a 48-ounce soda from my crotch. I was actually laughing, but she was still very apologetic, especially since she hadn't even wanted to go up the hill, had just taken a wrong turn and was just turning around.

Memorable Radio Songs of the Day: "Renegade," by Styx; "Feelin' Alright," by Joe Cocker, my personal favorite version of that song; "Pride," by U2; and a very underappreciated love song: "Something That We Do," by Clint Black. (Just something cool about that guy's voice.)

Tomorrow, I'll try to post more pictures. They keep crashing my computer. At least we are rid of Utah and will be doing 75 miles an hour again. Hopefully, with a dry crotch.