Wendover, Bonneville Speedway

23 Aug 2014

Finally the weather cleared, into a perfect day at last!  Time for the first real flight of this tour!

Flying from Wendover airfield, right on the Utah/Nevada border.  Interesting town, cause Utah is quite a straight-laced state, while Nevada is wide open.  So there are several large Casinos and all that goes with them, just across on the Nevada side.  The border is that line that goes into the distance, and the big white buildings are the casinos, just on the Nevada side...

Wendover airfield was a large heavy bomber training base during WW2, and was where the B-29s were prepared and trained for the atomic bomb drop on Hiroshima.  Now it's just a 'leftover' airfield, but ideal for me.   There's a museum and tourist attraction there now, so I had an audience of tourists as I unloaded and unfolded my ultralight and then got in and flew away....  I could hear them commenting, "You couldn't get me up in one of those...", and I just thought, "Good, you just stay on the ground and leave the fun to me..."

Flew out to the famous Bonneville Speedway on the nearby salt flats, where extreme speed attempts are run.

The track stretching away to the horizon, base camp preparing vehicles to run.

  Flying low along the track, 

but didn't land because they were preparing it for speed runs.

......................................................................................................

Then flew west to find one of the concrete arrows that were laid down in the 1920s to guide the first cross-country mail planes.  At one time there was such an arrow, painted yellow, and with a light beacon, every 10 miles on all the major routes coast to coast.  That's many hundreds of them, a big undertaking.  Only a few left now, and this is the first one I found.  This one is strange in that it marks a sharp right angle turn....  I have more of them marked on my map, cause I find them really interesting.
http://visitnorthplatte.com/giant-concrete-arrows-that-point-your-way-across-america/

Imagine trying to find the next arrow in this big, rugged country.....

......................................................................................................

The interstate I-80 to Salt Lake City crossing the salt flat.