December 27, 1999

This is Jeff Okubo. Today we traveled from Laramine, Wyoming to Elko, Nevada. Team aroundtheworld is in Bad Shape. Nick barely moves, Doug is doing his best to stay alive, and yet we keep on chugging away. We are putting off car maintenance, because we are exhausted. At this point we are praying for mercy until we arrive at home in Los Gatos California, please St. Christopher, Please!

Jeff is being a real trooper. Although he is not feeling well either and I went to pick up breakfast for our comrades and oil for the rigs. Both Hercules and Alaska were on a strict diet of synthetic oil and Nick and Doug were on a diet of Orange juice. Jeff wasn't doing very well but realized he had no back up, and there were no ears left to hear any kind of complaining. We just bit our tongues, visualized our beds that just lay a mere three states away, and begrudgingly headed into the Rovers.

The drive took us through the cold high plains of Wyoming. As were driving I looked at the landscape wondering what it was comparable to from the trip. I thought that Wyoming was the most similar to Tibet; the dry inhospitable high plains flanked by tall rugged mountains.

The road was straight and traffic was uneventful, we just pushed on.

Hercules gave us a minor scare, as it was always a gamble to shut off his engine. We just never knew if the starter would kick over or not. Our recourse was to push start him. This task wasn't too bad as long as he wasn't too cold. However, after sitting through a cold night, he was very difficult to push start as we had learned back in Turkey. Every time we had starter problems we pushed started him and hoped things would get too bad before we got home.

Although our original goal was Salt Lake City, the horses smelled the barn. We drove straight through Salt Lake, losing our way once and getting mildly stuck in traffic. Once we were through the town nothing was stopping us. In the dark we cruised by a dark Salt lake and drove through the black barrenness until we were too tired to continue in Elko Nevada.