9 March 2016 Wendover Utah/West Wendover Nevada CsbNews USA correspondent GS Jade Barrett
“Out where the world is in the making,
Where fewer hearts in despair are aching,
That’s where the West begins”
From Out Where the West Begins by Arthur Chapman
Written in 1917, Chapman had not yet played bridge, avoiding the trauma of being passed in a cuebid.
Your weary travelers were greeted at the end of the day by a great example of 1950’s Americana, Wendover Will. Wendover Will was included in the Guinness Book of Records as the “World’s Largest Mechanical Cowboy”
The second day of our journey to Reno, home of the Spring 2016 North American Bridge Championships covered some 1130K, or just over 700 miles. We drove through a light, but blinding snow, 50K headwinds, bright sun and dreary skies – all during one hour of the day.
The terrain of Western Utah reminds one of a table top, so level that it is home to the Bonneville Salt Flats, the place where land speed records are challenged and set. The Great Salt Lake resides there as well, an immense body of water so dense that the only way to drown is to try very hard. Sort of like playing a cold contract so poorly that there is no way you can make it – but you still do. 
We passed large herds of cattle and sheep, gentle rolling plains and fiercely structured cliffs, wide deserts and narrow passages through mountain passes. Our travels today were full of the noticeable differences in elevation along our route – from 2175m in Wyoming to 1275m surface of the Great Salt Lake in Utah, before we began the climb back up to our intended destination. The temperatures feel dramatically different, as well. 5C feels warmer in Utah than it does in South Dakota due to the humidity differential. The sun warms, but the breeze chills as I take breaks to walk Keira the Dog.
My thoughts never drift far from bridge as I take these road trips, often thinking of the metaphors that exist in the game and in life. Every hand is a potential journey into the unknown, though many end up as re-experiences of previous happinesses.
And sometimes not.
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