One of my very best friends called me early in the morning and invited me to go on a ride. Before I even knew where they intended to go I said yes. Over the last twenty years I have ridden and camped with them in all of the western States. If I had not hurt my shoulder this spring I would have gone with them to California over the Memorial Day weekend. Last year I rode with them to California to a rally in Quincy in mid September. They told me what time they wanted to leave and I said I would be up at their house in Ogden about twenty minutes before that time. I mounted the GPS, radar detector and tank bag on the bike, checked the air pressure and stopped for gas.
We left Ogden on a major secondary road and stayed on secondary roads through North Ogden, rode through to Brigham City past all the fruit stands, and proceeded to ride through the beautiful trees of the main street of Brigham City. The green canopy of trees reminded me of my favorite Voltaire story. At his famous estate, he was eager one day to plant some trees. It was an ambitious project and at Voltaire's age, it was doubtful he would even begin to see the results of the endeavor. He spoke to the gardener, who countered that it would be fifty years before you would see what they were planning on doing. Voltaire answered “Then we have no time to waste.”
We proceeded North through Wellsville, Honeyville, and Garland and then turned East to Smithfield. Even though Cache valley has grown tremendously, and there are houses in little pockets all over the place, and traffic jams at certain times of the day, Cache Valley still has an agricultural feel to it. We rode past many fields of corn, its supposed to be a bumper crop nationwide this year, and I could smell the freshly cut silage nearby. When I ran cows, I actually purchased corn on the stump and had it ground up for silage from a neighbor. Even in the middle of winter, you could put you hand in several inches into the pile and it would still be hot, and when you exposed a new face, of silage steam would come off it. Its a giant fermentation process and the cows in one sense of the word are inebriated much of the time while consuming silage. We hit the Idaho border and entered Franklin, there did not seem to be a lot of cars at the main service station in Franklin that sells so many lottery tickets to desperate people from Utah. On the North side of Preston, we gassed up.
Our destination for the first part of the ride, was Bear Lake and Garden City for lunch. We turned off of highway 34 and took highway 36 past Mink Creek, Emigration pass and to meet up with highway 89, one of my favorite roads in Utah and other states. Just before the Mink Creek turnoff, we ran into something that makes my least favorite list. Number one on the list is Medley's. Number two is Pilot Cars, and yes we had a pilot car. I have never been able to figure out, what a pilot car, is supposed to accomplish. How the contractors liability is less using a pilot car, isn't really apparent to me. Anyway, we didn't have to wait very long and the pilot car only lasted for about five to seven miles. We then proceeded up and over Emigration pass and soon met up with highway 89.
The early trapper's spent a lot of time around Bear Lake, they even had one or two of their famous rendezvous, a French word, in this area. It is still, in the west, and impressive body of water. We stopped for shakes and something to eat. We all had what amounted to a trifecta of berries, shake.
We left Garden City toward Laketown on highway 30, going up the hill to Sage Junction we had a couple of trucks pulling double asphalt trailer's and much of the hill we had to stay put, there is a double yellow line going up most of the hill. Finally after the top, we were able to pass the cars in front of us and soon found ourselves at Sage junction and the right had turn to head south toward Randolph and Woodruff, were we would turn off for Monticristo and the ride into Ogden Valley. This is a truly beautiful road and one I try to ride in both directions a couple of times each summer. It is closed more than six months of every year because of snow. Anytime you are on a road that has gates at both ends, the top and the bottom, you can rest assured that they get a whale of a lot of snow. There was very little traffic on this day. We had to slow down for a couple of steers at the side of the road, but I am happy to say that no animals were injured this day and there were no forest rats, (deer) lurking near the road. We kept seeing signs about utility work and to be aware, but except for one area near the top where there were flagmen in each direction, nothing was evident.
As we headed down Monti, I tried to imagine what it must have been like for the early trapper's and settler's in this area. By the time my ancestors came to the Salt Lake Valley, Miles Goodyear and Peter Skeene Ogden had been in the area for many years. Ogden Valley was originally known as Ogden;s Hole, just like there was Jackson's Hole and Pierre's hole etc. Ogden Valley, despite the new subdivisions sprouting up, is still one of the spectacular vista's of the inter- mountain area. We stopped off to gas up in Huntsville and when I got home I figured out that between Preston and Huntsville I had averaged over 58 miles per gallon. After saying our goodbye's we turned off to take trapper's loop over to I-84 and at the mouth of Weber Canyon I waived goodbye and headed south on 89 towards the Legacy Highway and home. The mileage for today's outing was 321 miles. The longest I had been on my bike so far this year
