On this day, the birthday of Lisa's dog Taffy, we left Utah. By now we were a full day ahead of schedule, having on day four slept at the day five's intended campsite. How this happened, we're not entirely sure. Maybe the 12-hour drives had something to do with it, but we'll never be certain. At any rate, this made the night's goal San Francisco, our final destination!

The Great Salt Desert comprises the last 80 miles or so of western Utah (along with US Army proving grounds). The desert is interesting in that it is aptly named. Completely flat except for the occasional rocky hill, it looks as if someone up in the heavens has poured a tremendous amount of table salt on the ground and smoothed it out with a giant finger. The sand is jarringly white. In the middle of that strange place, we saw something even stranger, rising out of the sand. We couldn't photograph it, but it looked something like this:

We don't know what the statue means or who put it there, but it stands in stark contrast to the surrounding emptiness of the desert. If you know anything about the statue, please fill us in.

In a story by one of Lisa's favorite writers, Orson Scott Card, a character says, "When God got through making scenery, there was a lot of land left over in Nevada, and God said, 'Aw, to hell with it,' and that's where Nevada's been ever since."

We agree. The pretty rocky hills at the Utah-Nevada border had us fooled; that was it for landscape in Nevada. Rest stops are few and far between. Exits lead off onto roads that appear to go nowhere. The most frequent signs are for prisons. The only event of interest during this leg of the journey, other than the car not breaking down, was the passage of the 100,000 mile mark on the car just past the town of Wells. And there was much rejoicing.

California, after driving hours through apparent nothingness, was stunning. As soon as we crossed the border, trees filled in the empty spots on the hills, and the road started winding. Driving through eastern California on I-80, if you like driving zig-zagging, hilly roads at 70 miles an hour, is fun. Joe does, so it was fun for him. Lisa shut her eyes.

We stopped at a "scenic overlook" by what we thought was Lake Tahoe (how naÔve we were!), but what turned out to be Donner Lake. The air was fresh and piney, and the view of the blue above and below were lovely. We were, in fact, on the fateful Donner Pass, where that famed party of explorers took to cannibalism during a hard winter so many years ago. Fortunately, Lisa is a vegetarian and Joe had just eaten a tomato and cheese sandwich, so we both made it through safely.

We drove down out of the wooded mountains and into the dry, grassy hills of western California. By this time it was early evening, but the air was hot, prompting many complaints from Lisa ("I thought you said it wasn't going to be hot here!"). The palm trees were also a shock for our little Michigander ("We're not in the South! Are we? Are we?").

On our way toward the Bay, we passed through Sacramento (where Joe's dad went to high school), an imposter Pittsburg (without the "h", you may note), Berkeley, and Oakland. And then, the Bay Bridge just at dark, and beyond it our final destination, San Francisco! Paul graciously let us park in his lot (i.e., the sidewalk in front of his apartment in the Haight) and stay at his place for the three weeks it took us to get housing of our own.

So we made it. But of course, as "they" say, the real journey has just begun. Housing, income, friends, places to make use of our talents, a good donut shop...

And us? Oh yeah. We're still moving along, too.