Thursday (post below should have been titled Wednesday) - Casinos, rain and salt

Woke up for our free continental breakfast at the motel which was predictably rubbish and after jack had 'fixed' his puncture we headed out to downtown Wendover around 11am to find some food to eat. As the road to our next stop was 120+ miles and pretty much desolate we decided to do it in two chunks by cycling out late Thursday night onto the salt flats, finding somewhere to camp away from the road and then completing the remaining miles early the following morning to avoid the heat in the flats.

To do this we needed some serious food so went to an all you eat buffet at Peppermills Casino, we wern't disappointed. There was so much food to choose from and they catered for every possible taste and cuisine so we filled our boots. The massive amount of food we consumed and the dark lights of the casino even caused Jack to fall asleep pretty much in his dinner which prompted our grumpy waitress to remind us that we were not allowed to sleep in the restaurant area. The casino was a bit much with mirrors, neon lights and old people everywhere...all in all a pretty depressing place! Finding the exit also proved to be a problem as the lights and mirrors turned the building into some sort of maze but finally we escaped back into the sunlight.

Tom then wondered over the road to an information centre to figure out the best way to tackle the salt flats while Ben and Jack went to have a sleep in the park. Ten minutes later the heavens opened and Wendover was hit with one hell of a storm leaving. Amongst all of the rain Jack made a new friend who just happened to be in the park with a load of booze hoping to have a bbq, sadly this didn't happen. The lady in the info centre was incredibly helpful and warned us about a second possible storm and gave us loads of information about the best place to set-up camp on the flats (apparently 30 miles out at a dis-used telephone switching station).

So we waited for the rain to stop and after a quick supply stop we left for the salt flats. Now they didn't look as cool as we had all imagined because of the rain but it was still weird just being able to see miles upon miles of neverending nothing. After a few miles we thought we'd spotted the switching station but upon closer inspection it was actually an airforce radar building on restricted land, needless to say we left that area pretty sharply. After a few more miles we found the building we were looking for and set-up camp. The wind out there can reach up to 40mph and it was pretty windy so to help us put up the tent we used Tom as a type of paperweight to hold it down while Jack and Ben pinned it to the ground. After setting up camp we messed around on the flats for a bit and found a message from 1995 and also left our own (keep an eye out for the photo Ulrika gents) message for future people to see.

After waiting for the sun to go down over the mountains we all climbed into the tent for another sweaty nice sleep. And if you're wondering yes the tent is beginning to smell, a lot.