Long driving day: 674 miles! We got through the whole Santa Cruz-San-Jose-Sacramento mess very nicely by leaving at 6:30 am–heavy traffic but no slowdown–and then, once we were on the I-80, really had no trouble moving along. It was a lot of driving for Mark, of course, but we kept ourselves entertained, partly by me reading to him, and made it, with a lunch break outside Reno, right to the border between Utah and Nevada, in the last gambling town before the Mormon cutoff. It only has 4,000 people (1,000 more on the Utah side), but surprisingly, it has 6 rather large casino-motels, and when we inquired about rates, it was only around $ 40, taxes included! So we decided to stay overnight and had a lovely buffet dinner at the casino, too, and we even tested their outdoor pool. The Bonneville salt flats are right East of us and look rather spectacular even from here.