After waking up relatively early, I was quickly on the road and heading to Salt Lake City. My first planned stop for the day was the site of the Timpanogos Cave National Monument. Already the NPS Pass has been great since it gains me access for free to all the park that charge and entrance fee. I bought the annual pass last year for the California trip, so it has certainly more than paid for itself in savings. Just getting into parks like Yosemite, Yellowstone, or Zion can cost $25 each with other monuments, and parks charging anywhere from $3-10 dollars.
Since I was traveling solo and I got there early enough, I was able to get a tour ticket for one of the early excursions. This is a very popular area, especially since it is so close to a major city, that tickets can be sold out for all a day's tours within a few hours. 
I had to quickly gear up and head up to the caves, over a mile and a half up the mountain, however after a bit of determination, I was able to make it. The hike had a great view of the canyon area for pretty much the whole climb and had plenty of information plaques to give one an excuse to rest for a moment. The cave itself was interestingly enough, though it wasn't really that much different from any other cave I have explore in the past, but it was still interesting enough as it is always neat to see all the different formations.
After leaving the caves I headed to Salt Lake City and stopped by REI in order to get some climbing rope I'd need for canonyeering and fuel for my stove. I also ran by an IKEA store since I tend to hear a lot about them. This place was huge and looked like a super Bed Bath and Beyond store that had triplets. 
The place even had its own daycare facility and sit-down restaurant. I lopped through a couple of times and can see why some people are excited about seeing a couple of the stores open in Florida over the next couple of years. Ikea is like an indoor theme park, where shoppers are encouraged to pick up a map and a yellow shopping bag and follow a winding, one-way path from the upstairs showroom to the downstairs marketplace. After their selections are made, shoppers proceed to the self-serve furniture warehouse to pick up unassembled items and then to the checkout counter. After a stop at a NPS administration office in downtown Salt Lake City to pick up stamps for the Oregon National Historic Trail [NHT], Mormon Pioneer NHT, Pony Express NHT, and the California NHT, I meandered over to take a gander at the Mormon Tabernacle. 
I only briefly checked out the exhibits, however I did enjoy the landscaping and architecture of the grounds. On the way out I did see a strangely named domain for a supposed car dealership. You be the judge. I wanted a chance to go swimming in the lake just to experience the additional buoyancy caused by the extra salinity, however I just didn't have time.
I didn't have too long to hang around as I really wanted to make it to one more site for the day before closing time. My next destination was Golden Spike National Historic Site in Promontory, UT. This was the site where railroads from the west coast and the east cost met to create a complete rail line from one side of the country to another. This may not seem like a huge deal now to most people, but it was then one the same level of the Eagle landing on the moon in the 1960s or a human expedition making it to Mars in our future. It was a pretty long drive from SLC and I just missed the last demonstration of the day as the locomotive on site reenacted part of the 
golden spike ceremony. The ceremony was a big to-do back then with the bigwigs from each railroad company and plenty of festivities around the country once the feat was announced. I was abl eto get to the visitor center in enough time to get my stamp, of course, and take a look at some of the displays and the last bit of one of the films.Fortunately the outside areas were open, so I had plenty of time to walk around and check out the site. After getting a few pictures and reading the plaques outside I decided to head out and try to cover enough distance to get me ever closer to Yellowstone and was able to get pretty far past Idaho Falls. I hit several caches along the way when I had light so I could drop off and pick up various travel bugs right along the roadway that as served as a quick way to stretch legs or break up the monotony of driving.
Once I got within the boundary of one of the national forests I was able to find a side road with a dead eand where I could set up my tent for the evening.With all the driving, I finished the Alice in Wonderland series and started on an old classic that I hadn't red since middle school, "All Creatures Great and Small". The books really do help time go by a little faster.
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