One hour west of SLC our odometer began to creep toward 20k, putting our trip mileage at over 3200 miles thus far. To make it special, we decided to take the fit up to 100mph for its landmark mileage achievement. It took a lot of yelling and maneuvering and picture taking, but we hit it. 20,000 miles, 100 mph, and a picture taken at the same time.
After that bit of speed, we were ready to tackle the American Mecca for speed demons, the Salt Flats of Bonneville. We'll wait a while you read the Wikipedia article and watch the movie "The World's Fastest Indian."
Ok.
There is a single two-lane asphalt road that extends about four miles into the center of the Salt Flats. At its end is a sign that warns you of the dangers of driving on the flats, and which direction the speed week drivers go. After careful research and consideration, and after testing the ground with foot traffic, and watching another driver go first, we were quite confident that the Fit would be able to handle the drive. We pulled off carefully, and first sped off about a mile into the white nothingness.
We stopped to get a sense of just how big this place was. Never, have I felt so far away from everything. The car looked like a tiny orange speck within the white expanse, and us even tinier.
After a photo session, we jumped back into the car to see what it could do. We did a couple 0 to 60 speed tests, and both hit 19.2 seconds on the dot (remember this is a front wheel drive compact car that is fully loaded with Mike's crap), and then made an attempt to break 100 mph again but on the salt flats. We both hit about 96mph, as the salt doesn't have as much traction as asphalt. But after this bit of fun, we decided to call it quits and get back on the road.
This is where the trouble started
In a vast white emptiness it is hard to maintain any sense of distance or direction. Thats our story and we're sticking to it. The portion of the Salt flats north and south of the access road are a bit muddy, and the salt crust is less than half an inch thick. The portion that is usually driven on is much more solid, as it has a salt crust several inches thick. On our way back to the access road we shot a bit too far North, began to loose speed, and then came to a stop about a mile northeast of the access road. We got out, and saw that we had sunk into the flats a couple inches. A few tries, and ikea bag, and a broken cat door prototype later it became several inches deep, and it became clear we would not be getting out on our own.
Jon called the local towing gentleman, who let us know that his "Mud Cat" was in Salt Lake City, and we would have to wait an hour and a half for him to come get us. We practiced some Zen exercizes, called family and friends, took care of some business, but still were not able to fill the time before getting immensely bored.
Finally, after about 2 1/2 hours, our hero in a yellow truck showed up. He almost got his truck stuck in the mud near us, then when he got the Mud Cat onto the ground, its engine froze a couple of times, giving the two of us a couple of "oh shit" moments, before it started up, and began lumbering our way.
He hooked us to the Mud Cat, pulled us out backwards to his truck, charged us our first born child- worth it- and we drove off finally onto firm ground (read:Asphalt). In our defense, when we left, there was already another car stuck in the mud not 100s yard from the road as we were leaving. (We alerted our tow truck about the other car- cuz we're good people.)
Then we drove to Nevada (like 4 miles away) found a car wash, and got most of the mud and corrosive salt off of the car's undercarriage.
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