I started with a little too much ambition and reserved a room in Lehi UT after the front desk woman said they book the place all summer (note to self, do these trips in September after school starts). Today illustrates the down-side of planning ahead. Lehi on paper was 300 miles and change away, easy-peasy.
The morning was nice bright sunshine, temperature started in the low 60's and highest I saw was 82 at the end of the day. Lots of colorful crops thanks to whoever paid for all those dams and reservoirs I saw today. Amazing that a simple dam can transform worthless, uninhabitable land into crops, commerce, towns, parks and recreation. I stopped for coffee in Alpine, the junction to the road that goes over the hill to Jackson WY and thought, what the heck, a little diversion so I climbed the pass and when I got to Hoback, the traffic going to Jackson was already backed up.
So heck with that, right turn and back down Rt 191 which turned out to be real nice rolling hills, creeks, kayaks and not much traffic. Again lots of National Park campgounds being used heavily and access points to the creek so the tubers and kayak folks could get in and play. The reservoirs also have public access points so the boaters and fishermen were all out. These folks really use the parks!!
I kept getting teased with snowy mountains when a canyon cleared the view and more were soon to come.
An hour or two later the rolling stopped and the irrigation ran out and then I was in wide open country with snow-peaked mountains all around.
I stopped in Daniel for gas (1/2 tank and fill up, my new rule out here), and an old cowboy in a pickup truck with a huge bandaid on his face saw the plate and we chatted quite a bit, or rather he asked questions and I gave answers. I thought about continuing down R 191, but it would be too far so south on Rt 189.
The next section to Evanston was pretty desolate, but enough traffic so I didn't feel spooked thinking about spending the night out there. Now this is where Google messed me up. It took me down an old 2 lane, kinda rough road for 20 minutes, followed by an oiled gravel road in the middle of a herd of cattle (who reacted bu jumping all over the place like Jeff and i saw a couple weeks ago), but then the road got to be more cowpies than gravel and then it kinda ended in some kind of gas company pumping station or something. So a half hour down and (get that calculator out), a half hour back out to where this goose chase started, so an hour lost.
The only other road was the interstate so I parked the X300 at 65 mph (speed limit 80!) and stuck it out until Echo, where it sent me along the abandoned old road, which turned out to be the Lincoln Highway, the first coast to coast road!! I gotta check it because I saw some skinnier road with signs that said "Old Lincoln Highway" so it's been moved quite a bit.
Now it is getting late and I am getting tired, but the late day sun does it's magic with shadows and deeper color. As I descended into Orem the traffic got busy with all those trucks pulling trailers boats, jetskiis, etc, which was not much fun. My brain said Orem was where the motel was but no, it was another 30 minutes away. The 10 miles before the motel, Google maps stopped talking to me so I overshot and had to restart it. Finally got in and crashed.
Too long a day today...
Odometer tonight = 26,001
No comments:
Post a Comment