This is going to be a very long day after a rather short night. It begins at 02:45 in the morning with my “Eye of the tiger”-alarm that I use on special occasion like this, i.e. when stakes and cost of failure are high.

I got a taxi around an hour later to pick up Marius, my co-traveler for this trip. We flew from Berlin Tegel to Amsterdam to Salt Lake City. It was one of these half-conscious day flights with no real sleep. We didn’t realise that seat selection with Delta Airlines happens before the check-in window. So we got some random seats and I had the questionable pleasure to sit between two other tall fellows. The right one was a tough elbow fight opponent:

At least I could catch up with Deadpool 2 and the last Starwars Movie. Also the other seat neighbour was from Montana and gave me some valuable advice on some of the National Parks we have on our list.

We arrived at Salt Lake City around 13:00 local time being awake for 18 hours already. After passing border controls, we picked up our car. That was one of the critical points in our planning, because we needed a specific Van model that allows one to stow all the back seats in the floor such that the whole back of the car becomes one flat surface. There was no way to get a guarantee from the rental company, but they made a note in the system. Luckily, we actually got the Dodge Grand Caravan we wanted. It wasn’t the extra fancy configuration I drove in Canada two years ago – the one with the 110 V power-socket, but that’s no real issue. Most of our electronics are USB-powered anyway.

Next stop was a Wall Mart to gear up and get supplies. We got an air mattress and an electric pump to make the van our home for the next two weeks, as well as kitchen supplies and lots of food.

I got an AT&T prepaid contract for my phone. SIM card plus contract came for 60 $ plus taxes providing me with 8 GiB of 4G traffic. Marius brought a British SIM from Three that he got via E-Bay before the trip – 1 GiB for 15 €.

We fitted the air mattress into the car at the Wall Mart parking lot, so we could exchange it in case it would not fit. With its 160 cm by 200 cm, it was a little wide, but it did fit well enough. They also had a 140×190 cm mattress which probably would have fit a bit better, but that would have been too short.

We started driving again around 18:00. We didn’t have a specific goal and were just trying to make some more kilometres towards Grand Teton National Park. Around 21:00 we arrived at Bear Lake and tried to find camp site. A surprisingly tough challenge. It seemed to be off season and already a bit late for a check-in. One site was rather expensive with 45 $, as all we were looking for was a place for the car and a shower. Another one was already closed, and a third one was kind of open but unattended and had no showers. So we kept driving north, already thinking about giving up and just camping in the wild at some place quiet.

Satellite Radio Channel 42 “The Joint”, playing chilled Reggae 24/7, became our instant favourite.

Luckily, we found a nice RV park: Bear Lake North. The owner was still around and we got an enthusiastic greeting by their cat. They had good facilities and were reasonably priced with 22 $ plus taxes.

So we finished our Van setup and got ready to sleep. The sky was clear and it was getting noticeably cold. There was an incredible amount of visible stars as compared to Berlin. It was 23:45 and we have been awake for 28 hours and 45 minutes when we set a generous alarm for 09:00 in the morning.