During our dinner last night here in Salt Lake City, we saw Utah Senator Bob Bennett, receive a special citation for the work his father did years ago in the senate in helping create the interstate system. Here’s current Sen. Bob Bennett with the plaque.

I made a little stop off the highway with Albert Renteria, President of Operation Interdependence yesterday in Elko, NV.

Hello from Salt Lake City. Yesterday was a long travel day and tomorrow will be too. This morning I had to get organized and find an internet access spot that works. I’m on my 4th location which is a Sheraton hotel and it’s working!

When we got to Reno, NV today our first stop was the National Automobile Museum. We were welcomed by state Senator Bill Raggio.

One of the primary sponsors of the cross country interstate celebration is Firestone. They are well represented by the great grandson of Harvey Firestone, Andrew. Andrew made remarks this morning at our kickoff ceremony.

Kicking things off this morning for the AASHTO cross country convoy was our U. S. Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta.

The California Highway Patrol was a big part of our day. The main man was Lt. Avery Brown who’s helping coordinate everything and they have a lot of assets involved in tomorrow’s kickoff. He says that about 75 CHP personnel will be involved and that doesn’t count San Francisco police.

We have a lot of participants in this AASHTO Interstate Convoy and I’ll be featuring them as I have time during the trip. One of them that we learned about this morning is Albert Renteria, founder and president of Operation Interdependence.

In 1919 Lt. Col Eisenhower (later to become President of the USA) made a cross country trip with primarily military participants. It showed the need for a good system of roads in this country which became the interstate system. Our commemorative journey in the reverse direction w