JACKPOT DIARY (CONT'D)

Sunday, April 8, 2001

We were a bit shocked to see that it was snowing when we got up. On my morning trip outside for a smoke, I almost froze. We once again had the breakfast provided by the motel and hit the road, heading for Custer State Park. Our intention was to drive the wildlife loop. We followed the road signs but ran into a roadblock. It would have been nice of the State of South Dakota to have put the Road Closed sign at the turn rather than five or six miles down the road! We turned around and tried it from another angle . . . with success! During the drive through the park, we saw tons of buffalo, antelope, wild donkeys, turkeys, deer and even a coyote. We figured it was worth the $10 admission!

Leaving the park, we went to Deadwood, South Dakota, and checked out one of the casino's. A very short time later, we were back on the road. We pulled into Buffalo, Wyoming, about 4:00 in the afternoon. By that time it was up to 60 degrees outside and the sun was nice and bright. Because it was so nice, we decided to go on to Worland, Wyoming, and put the Big Horn mountains behind us. Half way through it started clouding up and we noticed that the outside temperature was dropping fast. We stopped a few times in the beginning of the drive to take pictures on the gorgeous scenery and snow-capped mountains. At one point we took pictures of each other standing by a campground sign with the snowy pine trees behind us and just a few flakes of snow in the air around us. I was wearing a t-shirt and no jacket. At that time the outside temp was down to 17. Shortly after we got going again, we hit some MAJOR snow. There was a snowplow about a half mile in front of us that we could see occasionally through the storm. I was driving in four to six inches of snow behind him!

Looking back, it had to be funny, but at the time I was a wreck. Here I am, from Fargo, North Dakota, and definitely used to snow. What I had problems with were the slopes, I mean, there aren't any hills in Fargo, let alone mountains! Added to that, I normally drive a little, bitty car. I'm now behind the wheel of a HUGE car. I broke my biggest promise to Wendie about that time. I had promised her that I wouldn't smoke in the car or in the motel room. I lit up and basically chain-smoked until we got to Worland. I told Wendie about half way down the backside that I was going to indulge in a steak and a beer that night. Unfortunately, the few places we passed coming into town were closed since it was Sunday. I had to settle for pizza and a diet Mountain Dew!

Monday, April 9, 2001

The car was totally covered with thick frost this morning. Unfortunately, we had parked it the night before where the morning sun didn't hit it. When I went out for my morning smoke, I moved the car into the sunlight. By the time we were loaded and ready to go, I didn't have to do anything but turn on the rear defrosters. How's that for lazy?

Today we are driving mostly south to Rock Springs to connect back onto Interstate. We stopped for photo's at Wind River Canyon and Red Canyon. Red Canyon was incredible. Wendie's pictures show the color so much better than mine do. When driving from Farson, Wyoming, to Rock Springs, we saw three herds of wild horses. They were the main reason we chose this route to travel.

We continued on to Salt Lake City, Utah, before we stopped for the night. When I paid  for gas, I asked the attendant if there was a motel nearby. He was so helpful!  He suggested one, called ahead to make sure they had a room available, drew me a map on how to find it and gave me his business card so I could call in the event I had problems finding the place. We were both kinda tired so we had Chinese food delivered to the room. We were in awe of the scenery around SLC. The giant snow-capped mountains that surrounded the city and the incredibly green lawns and wonderful flowerbeds had us believing that spring was really going to arrive!

Tuesday, April 10, 2001

After packing up today, we drove downtown to Temple Square. We walked through and took a bunch of pictures. After trying to find an open ramp onto Interstate, we were off on the last leg of our trip to Jackpot. We stopped at the Great Salt Lake and took some pictures and later at a rest area on the beach. The rest area left something to be desired, but it was fun to walk down to the lake. The graffiti on the bottom of the lake amazed me. We both had to stick our fingers in the water just to say we had.  It was salty!

Back in the car, we headed for Wendover, Nevada. We stopped at a casino there and made a donation to the cause. On the road again, we continued to Wells, Nevada, where we were to leave Interstate again and head north to Jackpot. We commented on how we would have to drive back to Wells to take pictures of the incredible mountains during our stay in Jackpot, but we never made it back there.

The drive from Wells to Jackpot was all high desert driving. It was so barren that it seemed like that last 80 some miles took forever. Of course, we were hoping to get in there in time to clean up before Dan's first show!

The busboy at Cactus Pete's needs to be commended. He never said a word when he saw how much stuff we had. Embarrassed to be seen with him because of all our stuff, we just put our heads down and followed him through the casino to the elevators and up to our room. The room was very comfortable and attractive. It was no hardship to stay there for six nights. I think the only thing either of us would change about it would be to install a fan in the bathroom. It was quite steamy in there at times!

We unpacked what we needed and got ready for the first show. We headed down to the Gala showroom for dinner with the show afterwards. While the menu was small, the food was incredible. We were seated at a table right up against the stage. Before the 6 nights were over, we had very stiff necks, but only for two of the 12 shows were we anywhere but right up next to the stage. It was worth it!

When the curtain went up, it was like they were right in our laps. After the first song, Dan looked down at us and asked Wendie what she was doing there. Her response was "vacation"! He just couldn't believe she would travel all the way from New York to Jackpot just to see him.

The cocktail show was interesting as well. With the purchase of your ticket, you could either have two drinks or dessert and coffee. The desserts were HUGE. One serving was actually enough for four people with some left over! I was very embarrassed when the curtain went up on the show and I had this huge slab of cheesecake in front of me. It didn't help when I looked up at Duke and found him licking his chops!

Click on scenic photos for enlargements and descriptions

Custer State Park just outside of Rapid City, SD

Is that snow???

The Red Canyon  area in Wyoming.

A wild horse herd a few miles outside of Rock Springs Wyoming

        The Tabernacle at Salt Lake City

The Great Salt Lake just outside of Salt Lake City, Utah

Just outside of  Jackpot, Nevada