This week's blog was supposed to fill in the blanks on the conceptual ride I wrote about several months ago. The ride through the Great Basin to Tonopah and Lee Vining and then after Yosemite to see my sister Kathy in Fresno. I attempted, and that is the operative word, this ride this past Sunday and needless to say, the events of the day were not what I expected when I left the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. This week I was also going to discuss Eugene O'Neill, the American Playwright I know best, I have almost all of his plays in written form and two of them on DVD's and another one somewhere, on an old VHS tape.
But so much for the best of plans and intentions and as the day broke down, in every sense of the word, including terrific rain and lightning and at the end of the day hail, I remembered a line from one of Henry Jame's early novels, the American, where the doomed but beautiful woman; actually a fairly common literary convention, especially to Jame's, says to Christopher Newsome, the rich and lonely protagonist of the Tale, “And All The Mice Are In Chains.”
Apparently, when I last replaced Spark plugs in my bike, I either cross threaded one of them, or it was not tightened enough. As I was wending my way on my beloved Highway 6, about sixty miles from Tonopah, the spark plug unwound itself and shot out the side of the right hand cylinder. This bike has a compression ratio of 12.5 to 1 and even with Ear Plugs and music going, the noise was severe. The Engine died and I pulled in the clutch and looked for a place to get off the road. As I got off the bike about 15 feet away was what I first thought to be a dog, but it turned out it was a coyote and it was very surprised by me being there and took off rather rudely. On my old R1100RS I always carried a couple of spark plugs with me, but on this bike I hadn't really even thought of doing that. From now on, I am always going to have at least one spare spark plug with me. I restarted the engine and began to ride with one fully functioning cylinder and the other one with little compression but with one spark still working. Each of the two cylinders on this bike, have two spark plugs. The bike had very little torque at low RP M's and I really couldn't ride in any gear above about 4th. But, I was at least heading toward Tonopah. This BMW has a count down display for gas, rather than a gauge. From now on I will always believe what it says, for indeed I did run out of gas when it told me I would. By this time the slight drizzle of rain was replaced by thunder, lightning and just before I ran out of gas the second time, hail.
Normally my bike gets somewhere in the upper forties to sometimes well over 50 miles per gallon. But in the configuration I was riding in I wasn't even getting half that. I ran out of gas. The first person who stopped was on a BMW Bike and was heading home to Ely. He didn't have any spare gas and neither one of us could raise a signal on our cell phones. After he left two young guys with a trailer full of ATV'S stopped and they had plenty of extra gas, They gave me about two gallons of gas and offered me more and also would not take any money for the gas, they said it was their good deed for the day. I should have taken them up on the additional gas, for I ran out about 3 miles from Tonopah, as the computer told me I would and this time 3 guys on KTM's stopped and from their off road riding they had extra gas, This got me into Tonopah.
I have stayed in Tonopah on several times, and once when I was with someone, stayed in the Clown Motel. I hate Clown's big time and I dreaded the first time I took Caitlin to the circus. It turns out that she thought clown were weird and one of the first things I asked her about Dan, her future husband, after she became involved with him, was what he thought about Clown's. I also stayed years ago in the Old Mitzpah Hotel, which is now closed and for sale. It was 1975 and I was on my way from Las Vegas, where my then girlfriend was from and we were in her Opel GT, it did not have enough head room for me, and in addition she had her pet raccoon in a cage and it never liked me at all. We were on our way to the UC Davis campus to look at the Vet tech program for her. But I digress and should get back to my most recent stay in the great town of Tonopah.
I stayed at a Motel my good friend's stayed at in May on their way to the 49er rally in Mariposa. They mentioned their was a Mexican restaurant across the street and I hadn't eaten since Oat meal early Sunday morning. So I had dinner there as well. I was hopeful that once I got a new spark plug I would be back on the road. I had decided that even though I was closer to Fresno than SLC, I would return to SLC on the bike and then leave again for Fresno, in my diesel TDI. I couldn't go to NAPA until after 8:00 AM PDT the next morning. I tried to get a good night's sleep.
Suffice it to say, the threads of the cylinder head are shot and I ended up having to rent a U haul Truck. In all the year's I have been riding this is the first time I have been stranded out of State with a bike and only the second time, not counting my accident, that I haven't returned home on my bike.
I am going to take some time to figure out the best way to fix the thread problems on the bike. I suspect I am done riding for this season. I will leave my discourse on O'Neill for another time. But just for a moment think about what it would have been like to know that it was because of your birth that your mother became a morphine addict, that if another child hadn't died, you might not have been born and add to that Irish Catholic Guilt and you have the seeds of in my opinion the Greatest American Playwright. His father was the great actor James O'Neill and he appeared as the Count of Monticristo over 6 thousand times.
The Great Basin
Wheeler Peak
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Monday, September 27, 2010
"Fear no More The Heat of The Sun"
The first weekend ride of Autumn, I had some choices this last weekend, I could have gone to Zions National Park with the BMW club of Utah, we haven't had a camp out in Zions since about 1991 or 1992. I have been a member of the Beehive Beemers since about 1988 and have been President, Vice-President, and editor of the Stinger, the monthly newsletter,;twice,for about four years total, and was the rally master for the Red Rock Rendezvous the first three years we put on the rally. O r I could have gone to Hagerman Idaho for the yearly camp out with the Idaho BMW club,. It used to be held the first weekend in October, but they moved it back a week a few years ago. Years ago it was held at a run down mineral bath resort called Sliger's and one year Caitlin when she was about 6 or 7 went with me. That Saturday evening they had a drawing for both free camping for the weekend and a membership in the Idaho club for the next year, they asked Caitlin to do the drawing and just as she started to draw the winning number, I blurted out, “if you don't draw my name, you will have to walk home.” I was the most surprised when she did in fact draw my name, and I offered to have her draw again, but everyone agreed there was no way she could have drawn my name, other than chance.
In the years when I was riding fifteen to twenty thousand miles a year, I would routinely end up spending about twenty to twenty five nights a year in a tent, and although I probably will never get up to that level again, I am sure next year I will start doing a little more camping. Weather permitting I want to ride to Death Valley in February and of course to Mariposa at the end of May. Valerie has all ready voiced her desire to go to New Mexico next fall for the Sipapu rally. I also have a trip planned for the ' Going to the Sun Highway' in Montana.
Valerie and Larry called me about a ride for Sunday morning and I was at their house just before 9:00 AM. I let Valerie pick where we were going to ride and she decided she wanted to ride to Chris's restaurant near Huntsville via the Trapper's Loop road. Today's ride will be on the short side, hardly more than 100 miles round trip, but Trapper's is a beautiful road, you could blink and you could be in the Alps somewhere. During the Olympics I remember seeing the view of the back of Mount Ogden on TV several times, and it was so startling to see this same view and it was almost a little disconcerting, it seemed to be magnified as if on steroids, so to speak.
The wind is always blowing down the Canyon, as you hit the mouth of Weber Canyon from Highway 89, its about the usual velocity and as I make the turn onto the on ramp of I-84 the Joni Mitchell song “Urge To Go” comes on my IPOD shuffle, “When the sun turns traitor cold and shivering trees are standing in a naked row, I get the urge for going, but I never seem to go.” Its a very good end of summer, slightly reflective song and even though we are experiencing above normal temperatures, it seems so fitting. There is a sheriff posted at the bottom of Trapper's Loop and I make sure I am going exactly 55, as I go past him. Once he is out of view, I wick it up and just as I step off my bike at Chris's Valerie pulls into the parking lot. Larry was a couple of seconds behind me.
Chris's has always had mediocre service, once years ago, on a ride to Woodruff and back, that Val and I took with a family friend from Park City, I had posted something on the Beehive Beemer message exchange that we were planning a ride and if anyone wanted to come with us, we would be at the mouth of Trapper's Loop at 9:00 AM. It was surprising when about 8 other people showed up. This was about Valerie's first year on her first BMW and when we returned to Chris's for lunch, one of the party asked her how she had pretty much kept up with me, she answered, that she just kept riding to remain about five to six seconds behind me and didn't even look at how fast she was going. Anyway, at this particular lunch, Chris's actually lost the order for our friend from Park City and after he finally got served, to add insult to injury, on the return ride on Trapper's he got pulled over for speeding. He was a pilot at that point in time and this presented some problems with the FAA. It was quite a long time till he rode with us again. Today's meal was uneventful and the service was okay.
I let Larry lead on the way back and as I tuck in behind Valerie, leaving a good margin so that while I can ride at the speed I want, I will not pass her, I watch her ride up Trapper's to the turn off for Snow Basin, she takes every turn at almost the perfect line and she seems to be riding a little quicker today that she tends to on longer rides. Its not cold but even the warm air, seems to have a crispness to it. I'm thinking Jonathan Apples. Larry is so far ahead of us, that I decide that I will ride with Val back to her house. Until Val and Larry married a few years ago, I would always ride back to Val's house with her, to make sure she got home okay, etc. Since she and Larry have been married, sometimes I just turn off at x point and then call later to go over the ride etc. We always share visual and textural perceptions from the ride.
As we turn off of Trapper's Loop and head toward Mt. Green and the I-84 on ramp, I see a little boy on a bicycle, dressed in his church clothes, riding from the church back to his house, behind him are his father and little sister walking, and it reminds me slightly of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, he is pedaling very fast, but not really going very fast. I also can picture my Grandson Winston, riding a bike in a few years. As I hit the on ramp, Tom Rush comes on my IPOD singing his version of the same Joni Mitchell song, I have always preferred his version of “Urge To Go,” it is at a much slower tempo, last about 45 seconds more and maybe because I think of Tom Rush as being a slightly haunted human being, it is much more about loss, missed opportunities, regret and aging. I am sure this relates to my brooding northern temperament and my ancestors from Denmark.
Autumn is my favorite time of year, but it tends to make me reflective and slightly nostalgic. I tend to these proclivities anyway, and this time of year seems to make my feelings that more pronounced. I read recently that memory maybe the greatest form of lust there is. I will have to spend some time thinking about that. This past week I re-read Thomas Wolfe's “Look Homeward Angel, A Story of the Buried Life,” Its my Mother's copy with her initial and handwriting Louise Snow August 1936, probably a couple of months before she met my father. She was eighteen years old, I have a picture of her at about this same time period and it has always made me think, how did this young girl become the person I knew and loved so very much and continue to miss on almost a daily basis. Louise long before she became a mother or wife. I first read this book the first winter after Bob died, almost 36 years ago, and I remember as I read of Gant, bursting into tears, Bob had so many Gantian qualities, but maybe all Father's are larger than life, maybe that's the template. Some critic has said of Thomas Wolfe, that he was either “ Talent without Genius, or Genius without talent.” While there is a slightly dated quality to him, and to me a pronounced racists quality to his writing, the use of the N word is prolific, he does have some memorable phrases. I don't think in my whole life I have thought as much about food as he does in almost every chapter. According to the biography I read of him, his mother was not nearly as bad as his fictional mother Eliza.
Today's title comes from the Shakespeare's Play Cymbeline. It is one of the few plays of Shakespeare I don't think I have read. I plan to read it this week. I have my Grandfather's copy of the Falstaff Edition of The Works. I have rather enjoyed seeing Val's notes in some of the plays. Grandfather Val died several years before I was born, and if there was a way to go back and meet some ancestors, he would be first on my list.
In the years when I was riding fifteen to twenty thousand miles a year, I would routinely end up spending about twenty to twenty five nights a year in a tent, and although I probably will never get up to that level again, I am sure next year I will start doing a little more camping. Weather permitting I want to ride to Death Valley in February and of course to Mariposa at the end of May. Valerie has all ready voiced her desire to go to New Mexico next fall for the Sipapu rally. I also have a trip planned for the ' Going to the Sun Highway' in Montana.
Valerie and Larry called me about a ride for Sunday morning and I was at their house just before 9:00 AM. I let Valerie pick where we were going to ride and she decided she wanted to ride to Chris's restaurant near Huntsville via the Trapper's Loop road. Today's ride will be on the short side, hardly more than 100 miles round trip, but Trapper's is a beautiful road, you could blink and you could be in the Alps somewhere. During the Olympics I remember seeing the view of the back of Mount Ogden on TV several times, and it was so startling to see this same view and it was almost a little disconcerting, it seemed to be magnified as if on steroids, so to speak.
The wind is always blowing down the Canyon, as you hit the mouth of Weber Canyon from Highway 89, its about the usual velocity and as I make the turn onto the on ramp of I-84 the Joni Mitchell song “Urge To Go” comes on my IPOD shuffle, “When the sun turns traitor cold and shivering trees are standing in a naked row, I get the urge for going, but I never seem to go.” Its a very good end of summer, slightly reflective song and even though we are experiencing above normal temperatures, it seems so fitting. There is a sheriff posted at the bottom of Trapper's Loop and I make sure I am going exactly 55, as I go past him. Once he is out of view, I wick it up and just as I step off my bike at Chris's Valerie pulls into the parking lot. Larry was a couple of seconds behind me.
Chris's has always had mediocre service, once years ago, on a ride to Woodruff and back, that Val and I took with a family friend from Park City, I had posted something on the Beehive Beemer message exchange that we were planning a ride and if anyone wanted to come with us, we would be at the mouth of Trapper's Loop at 9:00 AM. It was surprising when about 8 other people showed up. This was about Valerie's first year on her first BMW and when we returned to Chris's for lunch, one of the party asked her how she had pretty much kept up with me, she answered, that she just kept riding to remain about five to six seconds behind me and didn't even look at how fast she was going. Anyway, at this particular lunch, Chris's actually lost the order for our friend from Park City and after he finally got served, to add insult to injury, on the return ride on Trapper's he got pulled over for speeding. He was a pilot at that point in time and this presented some problems with the FAA. It was quite a long time till he rode with us again. Today's meal was uneventful and the service was okay.
I let Larry lead on the way back and as I tuck in behind Valerie, leaving a good margin so that while I can ride at the speed I want, I will not pass her, I watch her ride up Trapper's to the turn off for Snow Basin, she takes every turn at almost the perfect line and she seems to be riding a little quicker today that she tends to on longer rides. Its not cold but even the warm air, seems to have a crispness to it. I'm thinking Jonathan Apples. Larry is so far ahead of us, that I decide that I will ride with Val back to her house. Until Val and Larry married a few years ago, I would always ride back to Val's house with her, to make sure she got home okay, etc. Since she and Larry have been married, sometimes I just turn off at x point and then call later to go over the ride etc. We always share visual and textural perceptions from the ride.
As we turn off of Trapper's Loop and head toward Mt. Green and the I-84 on ramp, I see a little boy on a bicycle, dressed in his church clothes, riding from the church back to his house, behind him are his father and little sister walking, and it reminds me slightly of the wicked witch in the Wizard of Oz, he is pedaling very fast, but not really going very fast. I also can picture my Grandson Winston, riding a bike in a few years. As I hit the on ramp, Tom Rush comes on my IPOD singing his version of the same Joni Mitchell song, I have always preferred his version of “Urge To Go,” it is at a much slower tempo, last about 45 seconds more and maybe because I think of Tom Rush as being a slightly haunted human being, it is much more about loss, missed opportunities, regret and aging. I am sure this relates to my brooding northern temperament and my ancestors from Denmark.
Autumn is my favorite time of year, but it tends to make me reflective and slightly nostalgic. I tend to these proclivities anyway, and this time of year seems to make my feelings that more pronounced. I read recently that memory maybe the greatest form of lust there is. I will have to spend some time thinking about that. This past week I re-read Thomas Wolfe's “Look Homeward Angel, A Story of the Buried Life,” Its my Mother's copy with her initial and handwriting Louise Snow August 1936, probably a couple of months before she met my father. She was eighteen years old, I have a picture of her at about this same time period and it has always made me think, how did this young girl become the person I knew and loved so very much and continue to miss on almost a daily basis. Louise long before she became a mother or wife. I first read this book the first winter after Bob died, almost 36 years ago, and I remember as I read of Gant, bursting into tears, Bob had so many Gantian qualities, but maybe all Father's are larger than life, maybe that's the template. Some critic has said of Thomas Wolfe, that he was either “ Talent without Genius, or Genius without talent.” While there is a slightly dated quality to him, and to me a pronounced racists quality to his writing, the use of the N word is prolific, he does have some memorable phrases. I don't think in my whole life I have thought as much about food as he does in almost every chapter. According to the biography I read of him, his mother was not nearly as bad as his fictional mother Eliza.
Today's title comes from the Shakespeare's Play Cymbeline. It is one of the few plays of Shakespeare I don't think I have read. I plan to read it this week. I have my Grandfather's copy of the Falstaff Edition of The Works. I have rather enjoyed seeing Val's notes in some of the plays. Grandfather Val died several years before I was born, and if there was a way to go back and meet some ancestors, he would be first on my list.
Monday, September 20, 2010
"I GOT THE CAMPFIRE BLUES UNDER NEATH THE SKY OF OLD WYOMING"
It has been a few years since I have ridden the Mirror Lake highway from Kamas to Evanston, Wyoming and with the return of hot weather, I wanted to ride someplace that would be as cool as possible. I even removed the lining from my coat and re-opened all the vents. I also took some water with me. As I ride up Parley's Canyon I am reminded that riding in heavy traffic on a motorcycle is a little like playing a giant game of chess. I plan my moves and passing and pick and choose empty pockets of traffic and in no time at all, I am again on the highway 40 exit from I-80 and heading toward the turn off for Kamas.
I decide at Kamas that I have enough fuel to get to Evanston and start up the canyon from Kamas. I am heading on highway150 through the area of the highest elevation in Utah and of course I will see King's peak, the highest point in Utah at 13, 528 off to the not so distant right. Fall is very noticeable, leaves turning and an abruptness to the cooler air. Most of the campgrounds I pass on this road have all ready closed for the season. The traffic is light in both directions and I try to ride not over 10 to 15 miles an hour of the posted limit. The lower part of this canyon is open grazing and there are still some cows that haven't been moved in anticipation of winter.
My sister Cynthia use to do some camping with her children in this area, and I am reminded by the name of several campgrounds she enjoyed., Soapstone and Christmas Meadows. I decide at Mirror Lake, not to turn off, on this road, if you stop you are supposed to pay a fee and also there is a part of me who has believed to one level or another that when you visit some places, you help destroy the very reason you wanted to go there in the first place. But the lake is very clear and I have memories from previous stops with others to suffice for today. Looking down at the GPS I see that I am over ten thousand feet above the level of the sea and as I behold the glacial spread of the Unita's, the only East-West Mountain chain in the Continental United States. I think about the process of glaciation and that leads me to suddenly thinking that Terminal Moraine, would make an interesting name for a female character in a short story. Now, all I need to do, is to come up with a plot line to fit the character's name. She would of course, besides being beautiful and smelling of both homemade bread and sage, be part French and I would try and find some fancy spelling of her first name, to make it sound more alluring. But the road beckons and as I get down to a lower Altitude and get closer to the Wyoming boarder, I am reminded of other things, and Termi-nal, ceases to occupy any part of my thinking.
The big flat valley in Wyoming between just beyond the boarder and just before you get to Evanston, is called Hillard, and although I can't tell you where Hillard proper starts or stops, I did in the mid 1970's spend many weekends in this area, moving cattle from the back of a horse. My family started running cows on some land north of the airport, as either a lark, or a fun weekend hobby, but like a lot of things my father did, it soon grew and took on a life of its own. The two main adages I remember from my days in the cattle industry were as follows: It doesn't take fancy barns and white fences to put fat on cattle, it only takes grass and water, and my favorite. The way to earn a small fortune in cattle is to start out with a large one! We decided in the fall of 1973 that we would increase the number of mother cows we were running during the next year. That also would mark the first summer that we would sub-lease some summer ranged near Croydon ,up Weber Canyon towards Lost Creek, from a neighbor. I remember that Bob, my father and that is what I called him my whole life, made me do up a business plan on this increase of cows and the leasing of summer range and I learned a lot in doing it. The first year I under estimated the weight gain of the calves and under estimated the overall expense of checking on the cows, and on the number of calves that we lost during the grazing period. We bought cows through the Producer's Livestock auction in North Salt Lake and had even joined the Coop. Bob knew one of the head people at Producer's , Van Moss, who had even passed out in a bathtub at one of my parent's parties in the 1950's. Van's son Russ was just a couple of years older than me, and was also one of the Auctioneer's at the Monday and Wednesday Auction. The term used to describe what an auctioneer does is Crying. He cries the auction. Van and Russ had some yearling heifers for sale and I went up to Hillard to look at them. We ended up buying about sixty five or seventy five of them with the stipulation that we wouldn't take possession of them until late October or early November of 1974. I don't remember Bob looking at them before I bought them, and I had agreed that I would help take care of them during the upcoming summer, the land up there is mostly irrigated meadows, courtesy of the Bear River and I went up many times that summer with Russ, and using a borrowed horse, I didn't at that time have a decent horse trailer, helped move the cattle, got a good feeling of the land up there and stayed several nights at a big ranch there owned by a man named Dick McGraw. The next year, because of a divorce, that place would be for sale, but things had changed by then. Bob and I also spent the summer looking to buy a ranch somewhere. I also ended up late in September in driving to beyond Dallas Texas to pick up a 20 foot Goose necked trailer to help in hauling cattle and calves. The ride to and from Athens Texas is a tale in and of its self. My good friend Robert Weyher went with me and boy was it a long trip back. I ended up bringing back all of the parts to make a 16 foot goose neck trailer for Ken Garff and coming back over Eisenhower pass on Interstate 70 my mileage dropped to about six miles per gallon. Thank goodness I had a main and two saddle tanks on the truck and gas was relatively cheap!
When we took delivery of the cows, it was time to brand, and to check for pregnancy, etc. In those days some of the best cattle equipment was made by a company called Powder River, this was way before I even knew where the Powder River was located and they had a manufacturing facility in Provo. We ended up getting a parcel of their movable and interlocking 16foot panels, a cattle chute, a squeeze chute, complete with preg gate, and of course a calf table. We had both electric branding irons and a propane burner to heat up a metal wand to help de-horn calves, this was after giving them shots, castrating them if necessary and branding them as well. I have been kicked by both calves and cows so many times. We had a registered brand NT for Northpoint Towers and I even wore a Stetson hat, and listened to Charlie Daniels. I paid for the balance of the cows upon delivery and they were to start calving in mid February. Bob and I had a trip planned in January to look at ranch land in Costa Rica. One of my nieces and one of my nephews; brother and sister, and children of my deceased sister Cynthia, have both purchased property in Costa Rica. Bob loved both Costa Rica and Guatemala and I was looking forward to the trip, although I had mixed feelings about potentially living part of the year out of the US. We continued to look around Utah, Idaho and Wyoming at ranch land and I have always wondered where I might be today if we had purchased a ranch somewhere in the West. In early December of 1974, Bob dropped dead one evening.
The calving of these new mothers was bittersweet. I ended up having to aid a fairly large amount of these births by pulling the calf, and I would come out of the barn where I was calving them at two in the morning, the snow coming down, with my hands and arms still drenched in amniotic fluid, and suddenly remember that I could help a calf being born, but my CPR on my father had not worked. The next fall I spent several weekends traveling with Russ Moss in Nevada and Wyoming on cattle buying trips These were trips to established clients of Producer's to weigh and sort the cattle. I learned a great deal and met some very interesting hard core ranch people. I even got a chance to load cattle into rail road cars and by this time I was a veteran at loading semis with cows. Later in the fall of 1975 I attended a week long seminar at the famous Graham School for Cattlemen in Garnett Kansas. During that hands on week, I learned how to test a cow for pregnancy , which involves putting on a giant glove, and putting your hand up a part of a cow where the sun wasn't meant to shine, and then you push down on top of the uterus. If there is a calf there, it will bounce up against your hand. I also learned a great deal about herd management and artificial insemination. I also in 1976 attended the annual Livestock Show in Denver Colorado. Russ still is a cattle buyer for a large company and lives near Greeley Colorado.
We continued to run cattle until about 1984 and at the same time I was doing some real estate things, but would start out every morning and end up every evening feeding and checking on cows. It was a good balance to more cerebral undertakings and gave me a good balance in life.
I was pleased to see that the Hillard area is still very much farm and ranch country and there did not appear to be many new houses, and where there were, it was a case of probably building a bigger house, or a second house for another generation. There are a lot of gas wells around this area, and that has certainly helped in the stability of ownership. At Evanston I gassed up and then headed toward the boarder and the ride through Echo Canyon via I-80, this section of the road is called the Eisenhower Highway. In 1919 Ike was part of a military convoy that drove across the United States from coast to coast. It tested the feasibility and problems of doing this and it took 61 days to go from Washington D.C. To San Francisco. In 2009 a John Ryan rode a Big Honda from Pruhdoe Bay Alaska to Key West Florida, 5, 641 miles, in 86 hours and 31 minutes. The prior record was held by Salt Laker Gary Eagan at 96 hours and 1 minute. This is straight through with in reality, no sleep, and you would me a complete zombie by the time you were done. In 1945 on his first visits to Germany, Ike was impressed by the Autobahns and during his Presidency the Interstate Highway Act was passed. Ike was very proud of this legislation. Part of its financing was Pentagon related, to help get it passed, and that is why there is a small amount of Interstate Highway in Hawaii. I seem to remember that one of the last sections of the original Interstate to be finished was a section of I-70 between Green River and Salina, Utah.
I don't know why Echo Canyon has never been one of my favorite rides, certainly there are red rock canyons and one gets a sense of what it must have been like for the pioneers but it has always lacked something to me. Its always windy and since I have tended to ride it in summer, hot. At Echo I head towards I-84 and when I had stopped for fuel in Evanston I had clicked my way point for home and was pleased to see that it had me turning off at Henefer, which even without a GPS I had decided to take, and coming into the valley via East Canyon and Big Mountain. The water level of East Canyon, Little Dell and Mountain Dell reservoirs were all noticeably lower than earlier this summer. I elect not to continue to Emigration Canyon and spend the few miles until the mouth of Parley's once again playing the game of traffic chess. The ride was 217 miles.
I decide at Kamas that I have enough fuel to get to Evanston and start up the canyon from Kamas. I am heading on highway150 through the area of the highest elevation in Utah and of course I will see King's peak, the highest point in Utah at 13, 528 off to the not so distant right. Fall is very noticeable, leaves turning and an abruptness to the cooler air. Most of the campgrounds I pass on this road have all ready closed for the season. The traffic is light in both directions and I try to ride not over 10 to 15 miles an hour of the posted limit. The lower part of this canyon is open grazing and there are still some cows that haven't been moved in anticipation of winter.
My sister Cynthia use to do some camping with her children in this area, and I am reminded by the name of several campgrounds she enjoyed., Soapstone and Christmas Meadows. I decide at Mirror Lake, not to turn off, on this road, if you stop you are supposed to pay a fee and also there is a part of me who has believed to one level or another that when you visit some places, you help destroy the very reason you wanted to go there in the first place. But the lake is very clear and I have memories from previous stops with others to suffice for today. Looking down at the GPS I see that I am over ten thousand feet above the level of the sea and as I behold the glacial spread of the Unita's, the only East-West Mountain chain in the Continental United States. I think about the process of glaciation and that leads me to suddenly thinking that Terminal Moraine, would make an interesting name for a female character in a short story. Now, all I need to do, is to come up with a plot line to fit the character's name. She would of course, besides being beautiful and smelling of both homemade bread and sage, be part French and I would try and find some fancy spelling of her first name, to make it sound more alluring. But the road beckons and as I get down to a lower Altitude and get closer to the Wyoming boarder, I am reminded of other things, and Termi-nal, ceases to occupy any part of my thinking.
The big flat valley in Wyoming between just beyond the boarder and just before you get to Evanston, is called Hillard, and although I can't tell you where Hillard proper starts or stops, I did in the mid 1970's spend many weekends in this area, moving cattle from the back of a horse. My family started running cows on some land north of the airport, as either a lark, or a fun weekend hobby, but like a lot of things my father did, it soon grew and took on a life of its own. The two main adages I remember from my days in the cattle industry were as follows: It doesn't take fancy barns and white fences to put fat on cattle, it only takes grass and water, and my favorite. The way to earn a small fortune in cattle is to start out with a large one! We decided in the fall of 1973 that we would increase the number of mother cows we were running during the next year. That also would mark the first summer that we would sub-lease some summer ranged near Croydon ,up Weber Canyon towards Lost Creek, from a neighbor. I remember that Bob, my father and that is what I called him my whole life, made me do up a business plan on this increase of cows and the leasing of summer range and I learned a lot in doing it. The first year I under estimated the weight gain of the calves and under estimated the overall expense of checking on the cows, and on the number of calves that we lost during the grazing period. We bought cows through the Producer's Livestock auction in North Salt Lake and had even joined the Coop. Bob knew one of the head people at Producer's , Van Moss, who had even passed out in a bathtub at one of my parent's parties in the 1950's. Van's son Russ was just a couple of years older than me, and was also one of the Auctioneer's at the Monday and Wednesday Auction. The term used to describe what an auctioneer does is Crying. He cries the auction. Van and Russ had some yearling heifers for sale and I went up to Hillard to look at them. We ended up buying about sixty five or seventy five of them with the stipulation that we wouldn't take possession of them until late October or early November of 1974. I don't remember Bob looking at them before I bought them, and I had agreed that I would help take care of them during the upcoming summer, the land up there is mostly irrigated meadows, courtesy of the Bear River and I went up many times that summer with Russ, and using a borrowed horse, I didn't at that time have a decent horse trailer, helped move the cattle, got a good feeling of the land up there and stayed several nights at a big ranch there owned by a man named Dick McGraw. The next year, because of a divorce, that place would be for sale, but things had changed by then. Bob and I also spent the summer looking to buy a ranch somewhere. I also ended up late in September in driving to beyond Dallas Texas to pick up a 20 foot Goose necked trailer to help in hauling cattle and calves. The ride to and from Athens Texas is a tale in and of its self. My good friend Robert Weyher went with me and boy was it a long trip back. I ended up bringing back all of the parts to make a 16 foot goose neck trailer for Ken Garff and coming back over Eisenhower pass on Interstate 70 my mileage dropped to about six miles per gallon. Thank goodness I had a main and two saddle tanks on the truck and gas was relatively cheap!
When we took delivery of the cows, it was time to brand, and to check for pregnancy, etc. In those days some of the best cattle equipment was made by a company called Powder River, this was way before I even knew where the Powder River was located and they had a manufacturing facility in Provo. We ended up getting a parcel of their movable and interlocking 16foot panels, a cattle chute, a squeeze chute, complete with preg gate, and of course a calf table. We had both electric branding irons and a propane burner to heat up a metal wand to help de-horn calves, this was after giving them shots, castrating them if necessary and branding them as well. I have been kicked by both calves and cows so many times. We had a registered brand NT for Northpoint Towers and I even wore a Stetson hat, and listened to Charlie Daniels. I paid for the balance of the cows upon delivery and they were to start calving in mid February. Bob and I had a trip planned in January to look at ranch land in Costa Rica. One of my nieces and one of my nephews; brother and sister, and children of my deceased sister Cynthia, have both purchased property in Costa Rica. Bob loved both Costa Rica and Guatemala and I was looking forward to the trip, although I had mixed feelings about potentially living part of the year out of the US. We continued to look around Utah, Idaho and Wyoming at ranch land and I have always wondered where I might be today if we had purchased a ranch somewhere in the West. In early December of 1974, Bob dropped dead one evening.
The calving of these new mothers was bittersweet. I ended up having to aid a fairly large amount of these births by pulling the calf, and I would come out of the barn where I was calving them at two in the morning, the snow coming down, with my hands and arms still drenched in amniotic fluid, and suddenly remember that I could help a calf being born, but my CPR on my father had not worked. The next fall I spent several weekends traveling with Russ Moss in Nevada and Wyoming on cattle buying trips These were trips to established clients of Producer's to weigh and sort the cattle. I learned a great deal and met some very interesting hard core ranch people. I even got a chance to load cattle into rail road cars and by this time I was a veteran at loading semis with cows. Later in the fall of 1975 I attended a week long seminar at the famous Graham School for Cattlemen in Garnett Kansas. During that hands on week, I learned how to test a cow for pregnancy , which involves putting on a giant glove, and putting your hand up a part of a cow where the sun wasn't meant to shine, and then you push down on top of the uterus. If there is a calf there, it will bounce up against your hand. I also learned a great deal about herd management and artificial insemination. I also in 1976 attended the annual Livestock Show in Denver Colorado. Russ still is a cattle buyer for a large company and lives near Greeley Colorado.
We continued to run cattle until about 1984 and at the same time I was doing some real estate things, but would start out every morning and end up every evening feeding and checking on cows. It was a good balance to more cerebral undertakings and gave me a good balance in life.
I was pleased to see that the Hillard area is still very much farm and ranch country and there did not appear to be many new houses, and where there were, it was a case of probably building a bigger house, or a second house for another generation. There are a lot of gas wells around this area, and that has certainly helped in the stability of ownership. At Evanston I gassed up and then headed toward the boarder and the ride through Echo Canyon via I-80, this section of the road is called the Eisenhower Highway. In 1919 Ike was part of a military convoy that drove across the United States from coast to coast. It tested the feasibility and problems of doing this and it took 61 days to go from Washington D.C. To San Francisco. In 2009 a John Ryan rode a Big Honda from Pruhdoe Bay Alaska to Key West Florida, 5, 641 miles, in 86 hours and 31 minutes. The prior record was held by Salt Laker Gary Eagan at 96 hours and 1 minute. This is straight through with in reality, no sleep, and you would me a complete zombie by the time you were done. In 1945 on his first visits to Germany, Ike was impressed by the Autobahns and during his Presidency the Interstate Highway Act was passed. Ike was very proud of this legislation. Part of its financing was Pentagon related, to help get it passed, and that is why there is a small amount of Interstate Highway in Hawaii. I seem to remember that one of the last sections of the original Interstate to be finished was a section of I-70 between Green River and Salina, Utah.
I don't know why Echo Canyon has never been one of my favorite rides, certainly there are red rock canyons and one gets a sense of what it must have been like for the pioneers but it has always lacked something to me. Its always windy and since I have tended to ride it in summer, hot. At Echo I head towards I-84 and when I had stopped for fuel in Evanston I had clicked my way point for home and was pleased to see that it had me turning off at Henefer, which even without a GPS I had decided to take, and coming into the valley via East Canyon and Big Mountain. The water level of East Canyon, Little Dell and Mountain Dell reservoirs were all noticeably lower than earlier this summer. I elect not to continue to Emigration Canyon and spend the few miles until the mouth of Parley's once again playing the game of traffic chess. The ride was 217 miles.
Monday, September 13, 2010
MY SISTER WEARS COMBAT BOOTS*
After getting home from last week's ride, and washing the bike, I saw a site you never want to see, a small section of the rear tire, was showing the first tell-tale notion of steel cords. I knew I was going to shortly need a new tire, had even ordered one over the web, and was awaiting its arrival, so until it came, and could be mounted, it was park the bike, do not pass go, etc.
The sum total of the front and rear tire of a bike, that is touching the ground at any point in time, is referred to as the contact patch. This small amount of rubber, has to adjust to all of the demands put upon it by the road, and the rider. The traction pie is only so big, and the more contradictory demands a rider makes at any point in time, the less that is available to respond to any one of them. This is why good tires are a necessity. My bike, is a kind of sports-touring bike, and this bike puts more emphasis on the sport than touring. I usually get about 8 thousand miles out of a rear tire and about 10 thousand out of the front. It costs roughly about $275 for a pair of tires and several years ago I use to go through about 2.5 sets per year. Now I am going through about one pair per year. I also track my MPG and can tell you how much gas I have consumed in the previous year and that on average I gas up every 165 miles. The actual range on the bike is probably about two hundred to two twenty five max. In 2010 I have spent around $185.00 for gas. The physics of riding are fascinating, and the two books I have highlighted are very informative and thought provoking.
I had thought about where I wanted to ride this weekend, the Mirror lake road to Evanston, when I got a call from my brother-in- law Larry to see if I wanted to take a ride on Sunday morning with both he, and my sister Valerie. We haven't ridden together for several months and of course I said yes. Valerie has been riding for about twelve or so years, Larry since he and Valerie married a few years ago. I have watched Valerie; from the day she picked up her first new bike, after taking a Motorcycle Foundation Safety class, It seemed to take hours that first day for her to ride her bike, a Yamaha with shaft drive, to her house. And after the first ride to Magna, I wondered if she had not make a mistake in buying a bike. I figured out that the best way to help build her confidence was to ride someplace with as little of stop and go riding as possible. Ride to Tooele, stop for lunch, and ride back. This seemed to do wonders. The rides got longer and longer. Needless to say, she got better and better and she is both graceful and proficient on her bike. She outgrew her first bike in her first year of riding. She has had 3 BMWS. Larry is on his second BMW. It means an awful lot to me to be able to share my passion for riding motorcycles with a member of my family. She also speaks Swaner, a dialect spoken and on some levels only understood by my sisters. I can make reference to things that happened when we were children and that will explain to any of my family present, just what I am feeling about a given event. It is nice and comforting to be around family and I usually speak will all or most of my sisters at least once or twice a week.
Valerie has gone on trips with me to both California and several times to one of my favorite motorcycle rallies just out side of Taos, New Mexico. It is possible to attend a BMW rally somewhere in this country every weekend from about the middle of April till the end of October. Utah's rally the Red Rock Rendezvous which I helped found, and named, is held the third week of June in Panguitch. I used to go to about six to eight of these rallies each year. This year I have not been to any and this is also the first year since about 1988 that I have not camped out in a tent. The first rally Val went to with her own bike, other than a BMW club camp out in Southern Utah, was the memorial day weekend rally which was then in Quincy California. I arranged for Val's bike to be taken in an enclosed trailer to Quincy, and after I had been there a day or two, I rode down to Reno and Picked Valerie up at the airport on the Friday of the long weekend. We then rode on my bike back to Quincy. Just up from Truckee there is a beautiful expanse of forest that really is the forest prime evil. It rained the whole weekend of and on, and although we did do some riding around the area, I didn't get to show her all of the beautiful places around Quincy. We came back on highway 50 with some friends and I was rather surprised on the return leg, when at one point, Valerie suddenly passed me at over 100 mph. It turned out that she had been thinking about it the whole way home and had even discussed it with my friends. It was a riding rite of passage for her and she did it in a straight section of road with little traffic.
Valerie has gone with me to the rally in Sipapu about three times. Sipapu is about 35 miles south east of Taos, New Mexico up in the mountains. I have attended this rally about twelve times. Its about 675 miles from Salt Lake City and we usually ride it in one day, both ways. Sipapu, which to the Pueblo Indians is the entrance from below ground to our world, in Kiva's it is a small indentation in the floor of the Kiva which symbolizes this portal through which their ancestors first emerged in to the present world. Sipapu New Mexico, is the site of a mom and pop Forest service ski resort. The rally takes over the whole facility and there is first come first serve free rooms in the lodge. Valerie does not like to camp, so I would always take my tent, and Valerie would carve out some space in a room in the lodge. Making it into a woman's only dorm. We always made it part of the weekend to ride down to Santa Fe, for a few hours on Saturday. We have also been up to Angle Fire and have visited the breath taking Vietnam Memorial which is located there. It was started as a father's memorial to his son who died fighting in the war. We have stopped at many old churches on the way to Santa Fe, that always make me think of the Willa Cather book, “Death comes for the Archbishop.” I always figure out a back roads route out of the mountains and we ride through small Villages where the dogs still bark in Spanish. It was always festival weekend in Santa Fe, the weekend after Labor day, and the few blocks around the Palace of Governor's is always closed to traffic. After walking around, doing a little shopping, Valerie likes silver jewelery and fancy belts, and maybe going to a couple of museum's we would pick an upscale place for lunch, and then head back to Siapu. The first year she went we had lunch at the Pink Adobe, where we had lunch several times when we were kids. It is now famous for having been famous, although we did share for desert, a piece of their signature Apple Pie. Santa Fe is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the United States. It was the first Foreign Capitol, invaded by the United States in 1846, and the natives at first, welcomed the invasion. We spent a great deal of time in New Mexico on family trips, and it does remind me of the exploring that Valerie and I did on these trips as kids.
Valerie is a real trooper, except for unpaved roads, or sections of gravel, she is game for most situations, and in rain, sleet or even hail, she maintains her position, in most circumstances, a comfortable distance behind me. Larry likes to hang back far enough on his bike, that he can virtually ride at any speed he wants. Larry was with me three years ago when I was viciously attached by two deer near the Jeremy Ranch exit of of I-80. He called Valerie who wasn't with us, and she called everyone else, so that by the time I arrived at the hospital, all of my family, living in Salt Lake City, were all ready there.
On this day, we rode up Parley's Canyon past Park City, to the turn off on Highway 40 toward Heber City, Our destination was Kamas for breakfast, at Pasillas. We ended up having to ride to the junction with Highway 32, because of a closed exit ramp, Then it was up to Francis, and then North a couple of miles to Kamas. After breakfast we headed to Wanship and the ride back on I-80 to Salt Lake. My gas light came on, I had not filled the bike before we left, and I turned off at the Jeremy Ranch exit, and gassed up and drove the remaining way home by myself.
Weather permitting we will probably ride every weekend till late October. I have certainly in some years continued to ride my bike into December and a couple of years ago, I rode to Arizona in early December to visit some friends who winter there. I had to cut short my trip, because of an expected snow storm in Utah and had barely returned home when the first massive snow storm of the season arrived. I have also made trips to Death Valley in both January and February.
Todays ride was about 125 miles and there is more of a hint of autumn in the mountains than there was last week. I was glad I had re-inserted the lining in my coat and closed the vents in both my jacket and pants. *She doesn't really wear combat boots, but she does have stylish boots and even sometimes wears a pink motorcycle jacket and currently, a black Arai helmet.
The sum total of the front and rear tire of a bike, that is touching the ground at any point in time, is referred to as the contact patch. This small amount of rubber, has to adjust to all of the demands put upon it by the road, and the rider. The traction pie is only so big, and the more contradictory demands a rider makes at any point in time, the less that is available to respond to any one of them. This is why good tires are a necessity. My bike, is a kind of sports-touring bike, and this bike puts more emphasis on the sport than touring. I usually get about 8 thousand miles out of a rear tire and about 10 thousand out of the front. It costs roughly about $275 for a pair of tires and several years ago I use to go through about 2.5 sets per year. Now I am going through about one pair per year. I also track my MPG and can tell you how much gas I have consumed in the previous year and that on average I gas up every 165 miles. The actual range on the bike is probably about two hundred to two twenty five max. In 2010 I have spent around $185.00 for gas. The physics of riding are fascinating, and the two books I have highlighted are very informative and thought provoking.
I had thought about where I wanted to ride this weekend, the Mirror lake road to Evanston, when I got a call from my brother-in- law Larry to see if I wanted to take a ride on Sunday morning with both he, and my sister Valerie. We haven't ridden together for several months and of course I said yes. Valerie has been riding for about twelve or so years, Larry since he and Valerie married a few years ago. I have watched Valerie; from the day she picked up her first new bike, after taking a Motorcycle Foundation Safety class, It seemed to take hours that first day for her to ride her bike, a Yamaha with shaft drive, to her house. And after the first ride to Magna, I wondered if she had not make a mistake in buying a bike. I figured out that the best way to help build her confidence was to ride someplace with as little of stop and go riding as possible. Ride to Tooele, stop for lunch, and ride back. This seemed to do wonders. The rides got longer and longer. Needless to say, she got better and better and she is both graceful and proficient on her bike. She outgrew her first bike in her first year of riding. She has had 3 BMWS. Larry is on his second BMW. It means an awful lot to me to be able to share my passion for riding motorcycles with a member of my family. She also speaks Swaner, a dialect spoken and on some levels only understood by my sisters. I can make reference to things that happened when we were children and that will explain to any of my family present, just what I am feeling about a given event. It is nice and comforting to be around family and I usually speak will all or most of my sisters at least once or twice a week.
Valerie has gone on trips with me to both California and several times to one of my favorite motorcycle rallies just out side of Taos, New Mexico. It is possible to attend a BMW rally somewhere in this country every weekend from about the middle of April till the end of October. Utah's rally the Red Rock Rendezvous which I helped found, and named, is held the third week of June in Panguitch. I used to go to about six to eight of these rallies each year. This year I have not been to any and this is also the first year since about 1988 that I have not camped out in a tent. The first rally Val went to with her own bike, other than a BMW club camp out in Southern Utah, was the memorial day weekend rally which was then in Quincy California. I arranged for Val's bike to be taken in an enclosed trailer to Quincy, and after I had been there a day or two, I rode down to Reno and Picked Valerie up at the airport on the Friday of the long weekend. We then rode on my bike back to Quincy. Just up from Truckee there is a beautiful expanse of forest that really is the forest prime evil. It rained the whole weekend of and on, and although we did do some riding around the area, I didn't get to show her all of the beautiful places around Quincy. We came back on highway 50 with some friends and I was rather surprised on the return leg, when at one point, Valerie suddenly passed me at over 100 mph. It turned out that she had been thinking about it the whole way home and had even discussed it with my friends. It was a riding rite of passage for her and she did it in a straight section of road with little traffic.
Valerie has gone with me to the rally in Sipapu about three times. Sipapu is about 35 miles south east of Taos, New Mexico up in the mountains. I have attended this rally about twelve times. Its about 675 miles from Salt Lake City and we usually ride it in one day, both ways. Sipapu, which to the Pueblo Indians is the entrance from below ground to our world, in Kiva's it is a small indentation in the floor of the Kiva which symbolizes this portal through which their ancestors first emerged in to the present world. Sipapu New Mexico, is the site of a mom and pop Forest service ski resort. The rally takes over the whole facility and there is first come first serve free rooms in the lodge. Valerie does not like to camp, so I would always take my tent, and Valerie would carve out some space in a room in the lodge. Making it into a woman's only dorm. We always made it part of the weekend to ride down to Santa Fe, for a few hours on Saturday. We have also been up to Angle Fire and have visited the breath taking Vietnam Memorial which is located there. It was started as a father's memorial to his son who died fighting in the war. We have stopped at many old churches on the way to Santa Fe, that always make me think of the Willa Cather book, “Death comes for the Archbishop.” I always figure out a back roads route out of the mountains and we ride through small Villages where the dogs still bark in Spanish. It was always festival weekend in Santa Fe, the weekend after Labor day, and the few blocks around the Palace of Governor's is always closed to traffic. After walking around, doing a little shopping, Valerie likes silver jewelery and fancy belts, and maybe going to a couple of museum's we would pick an upscale place for lunch, and then head back to Siapu. The first year she went we had lunch at the Pink Adobe, where we had lunch several times when we were kids. It is now famous for having been famous, although we did share for desert, a piece of their signature Apple Pie. Santa Fe is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the United States. It was the first Foreign Capitol, invaded by the United States in 1846, and the natives at first, welcomed the invasion. We spent a great deal of time in New Mexico on family trips, and it does remind me of the exploring that Valerie and I did on these trips as kids.
Valerie is a real trooper, except for unpaved roads, or sections of gravel, she is game for most situations, and in rain, sleet or even hail, she maintains her position, in most circumstances, a comfortable distance behind me. Larry likes to hang back far enough on his bike, that he can virtually ride at any speed he wants. Larry was with me three years ago when I was viciously attached by two deer near the Jeremy Ranch exit of of I-80. He called Valerie who wasn't with us, and she called everyone else, so that by the time I arrived at the hospital, all of my family, living in Salt Lake City, were all ready there.
On this day, we rode up Parley's Canyon past Park City, to the turn off on Highway 40 toward Heber City, Our destination was Kamas for breakfast, at Pasillas. We ended up having to ride to the junction with Highway 32, because of a closed exit ramp, Then it was up to Francis, and then North a couple of miles to Kamas. After breakfast we headed to Wanship and the ride back on I-80 to Salt Lake. My gas light came on, I had not filled the bike before we left, and I turned off at the Jeremy Ranch exit, and gassed up and drove the remaining way home by myself.
Weather permitting we will probably ride every weekend till late October. I have certainly in some years continued to ride my bike into December and a couple of years ago, I rode to Arizona in early December to visit some friends who winter there. I had to cut short my trip, because of an expected snow storm in Utah and had barely returned home when the first massive snow storm of the season arrived. I have also made trips to Death Valley in both January and February.
Todays ride was about 125 miles and there is more of a hint of autumn in the mountains than there was last week. I was glad I had re-inserted the lining in my coat and closed the vents in both my jacket and pants. *She doesn't really wear combat boots, but she does have stylish boots and even sometimes wears a pink motorcycle jacket and currently, a black Arai helmet.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
RIDE THE HIGH COUNTRY
As a general rule, I don't plan on being on the road; in any major sense, during one of the three day weekends. Not only is there extra traffic, but people are in a hurry both coming and going and sometimes the tension you feel on the road is palpable. But I did want to go on a ride and I figured that Saturday, both weather wise and traffic wise might be the best bet. I had been thinking about where I wanted to ride the whole week, and since they were talking about how bad the traffic in Utah County was going to be Saturday afternoon, I opted to leave early and hit Happy Valley before the traffic started to pick up.
As I left my driveway, Miles Davis from his “Kind of Blue,” came on my Ipod No matter how often I re-load my Ipod, at least two or three of the piece's from this recording, seem to survive, Its as if they had some sort of digital extraterritoriality that exempts them from being removed. The traffic on both I-215 and I-15 did not seem much greater than a usual Saturday morning and except for the construction in Utah County and the narrowed roads, it did not get heavy. I passed some new sound barrier's being installed, I have mixed feelings about sound barrier walls, If I lived near the freeway, I am sure I would want them, but they tend to make the road seem less organic, at least to me, almost reminds me of a cattle chute. A cattle chute road! I will have to think about that.
Just as I exit I-15 at Spanish Fork, there are a bunch of motorcycle's a head of me. Mostly couples on Big Honda's and Harley's and thank goodness most of them are wearing helmets and have at least long sleeved shirts on. Also stuffed animals seem to be popular. They all turn off at the Chevron station, and I head up to a station up the road, that is less crowded.
As I start up the hill toward the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon I see the 8 windmills a head, if I were a child, riding in a car the other way, and saw against the silhouette in the distance a field of blades it might even frighten me. Instead I think how much my father would have been intrigued by both the advances in wind power and solar energy. The traffic has started to pick up in the canyon and I have to wait till an open section to pass a couple of cars. It doesn't seem long until I see in the distance, and my garmin points out that I will be turning off of highway 6 just above the old town of Thistle, which was of course buried by flooding a few decades ago. It is chilly enough that I turn on my heated grips to the lowest position and even wish I had put one of my liner's back into my coat and closed all the vents.
After the new junction I am back on my beloved highway 89. I have spent so much of my life on this highway both in Utah, Wyoming , and Arizona,. At Fairview I turn off and start heading east on highway 31 to Huntington. Years ago, probably the late 1980's or early 1990's I first rode this road on a bike. I had read in the paper that they had uncovered a woolly mammoth while working on a water retention basin and after digging it out, it was going to be taken to BYU for study and eventual public display. You could only see a part of it, as they were digging it out, but it was interesting. It appeared to be a little bit bigger than a buffalo.
The first part of this road, up the canyon till about the summit, has been newly chipped sealed. I have very mixed feelings about chip sealing, to me, it is the paving equivalent of a comb over! It just masks the underlying problem of the road needing some real attention. Down and dirty and fairly cheap. All the places I have been to this summer have had newly chipped roads, I think that is why Utah had such a large percentage of shovel ready projects for the Federal Stimulus Funds.
This road has wonderful fairly evenly spaced sweeping turns, my favorite and after the summit, the chip sealing ended and I was back to regular paving, this coincided with a change in county's. The elevation at the summit is about 9,500 ft. Down the road to my right there is a turn off for Joe's Valley and reservoir, and a continuation onto Ephraim. But it is a dirt road and although my bike would handle it okay, I would need to probably make some suspension adjustments to enjoy it. My Great Great Great Grandfather, what a mouthful, Peter Madsen was one of the founders of Ephraim, and supposedly even named it. He converted to the LDS faith in Copenhagen, was baptized by Erastus Snow who opened up Denmark for the church. Peter Madsen even lent Erastus $300 to help Erastus get back to Utah. One of each of their grandchildren would marry each other and be my Mother's parents. Peter and his wife were part of the first group of converts from Denmark to come to Utah. He never gave up his ale and spirits, and said you can't deprive a Dane of his coffee. Peter Madsen and his wife emigrated to the USOFA, and came West in a Handcart company and after a brief stay in SLC, they headed down to Sevier County in 1853. They stayed in Spring City the first year. Peter Madsen was a wheelwright and a carpenter and in his long life, (91 years) he worked on three temples constructed in Utah, fought in the Black Hawk War, worked on the railroad as it came down Weber Canyon in 1868 and lived until 1910. His daughter Cathrine was my mother's grandmother and she lived till she was 92 and died a month or so after I was born. I suspect that my love of reading and knowledge, stem from my Madsen-Rodgers genes. They all read and wrote and had good memories.
Back to the road! I have ridden on this road many times and it has such a good feel to it, the air is crisp and although I can't see any hints of autumn in the foliage, one sense's it in the air. I stop for a drink of water and I remember a ride in this direction in 1995 in the fall, when someone on a bike behind me, who I knew, ended up crashing on a fairly tight turn towards the bottom, he was trying to keep up with me. I was far enough ahead of him, that I didn't see the crash, it was only because when the road got straight I couldn't see anyone behind me, that I got concerned and went back. They ended up taking him to the hospital in Price, I had to call his wife, who I had never met and tell her about the crash, and later they ended up flying him back to Salt Lake City. About the time I am thinking about this, I ride past the turn off to the Crandall Canyon mine and decided I needed to think about cheerful things.
At the junction with highway 10 I turn north for the ride to Price. This is fairly bleak desert country and not an easy place to live, or to make a living. At Price, I turn onto highway 6/191 and head to Helper for gas. If I gas up here, I will be able, I think, to go the rest of the way home without stopping for gas. I stretch and get off the bike at Helper, have some water and get back onto the bike for the several mile ride to the turn off of highway 191 and Indian Canyon to Duchesne.
Indian Canyon has both some nice turns and also some long climbing stretches of straight road. There is some traffic on this stretch and I get stuck behind about 7 cars as the road meanders toward the summit. Finally there is a place to pass, and I drop down a gear or two and quickly pass five of the cars and trucks. The other two are a little bit ahead and it takes me a mile or so to catch up and pass them and as I head down towards the eventual junction in Duchesne with highway 40 I think about how easy it still is in the West to be somewhere where there are probably no more than one or two people per square mile. Several years ago I went on a ride with my friend DeVern, where one of my criteria for where we went, was that it had to be at least two counties away from the nearest Starbucks.
I had thought about stopping in Duchesne for something to eat, but I wasn't hungry and decided I would wait to see if I was hungry by the time I got to Hanna. I have eaten many times at the Hanna Cafe. I stay west bound on highway 40 till its junction with highway 208 and the ride to Tabiona and Hanna. As I head down some fairly tight turns before it flattens out, there are some free range cows to the right side of the road. The yearling's eye me as I ride past. This whole area is pretty and green. From Tabiona till just past Hanna at every house there are Flags Flying. For whatever reason, I find this kind of moving and just before I get to the Hanna Cafe, I decide that I will stop if, I do this quite often; I decide that if so and so is, then I will. Anyway I said to myself that I would stop if there was either a BMW motorcycle or a Ducati at the Cafe. There wasn't so I continued to the mouth of Wolf Creek Canyon and highway 35. I have all ready ridden this road, once this season and for a holiday weekend the traffic is sparse, I had only been on the road for a few miles when a bunch of bikes coming the other way pass me, and there is both a BMW and a Ducati in the pack, Another road with wonderful vistas and sweeping turns. The air is cool and crisp and all is right with the world. Just past the summit (9400+ft) I stop for another drink of water. Down the road a few miles is where a friend Randy Montgomery was killed on a bike back in 1999. It was just a little bit after the road had opened, after the final section had been paved and was in November. I think of all that Randy has missed, the Olympics that he was so looking forward to and his younger children growing up. As I pass Woodland, I waive at my friend John's Cabin, although I don't know which one it is.
The rest of the way home was fairly routine, although the closer I got to the mouth of Parley's canyon the worse the traffic became. As I turn off the road to home the GPS shows 347 miles for today's outing. Not a bad days ride! I did think about Randolph Scott and the movie “Ride the High Country,” I also remember that there is some speculation about his relationship with Cary Grant, who lived with Randolph on and off and between marriages for about 12 years. Maybe Randolph made great chili or it was nice not to have to worry about leaving the toilet see up. Anyway, its still a great western.
As I left my driveway, Miles Davis from his “Kind of Blue,” came on my Ipod No matter how often I re-load my Ipod, at least two or three of the piece's from this recording, seem to survive, Its as if they had some sort of digital extraterritoriality that exempts them from being removed. The traffic on both I-215 and I-15 did not seem much greater than a usual Saturday morning and except for the construction in Utah County and the narrowed roads, it did not get heavy. I passed some new sound barrier's being installed, I have mixed feelings about sound barrier walls, If I lived near the freeway, I am sure I would want them, but they tend to make the road seem less organic, at least to me, almost reminds me of a cattle chute. A cattle chute road! I will have to think about that.
Just as I exit I-15 at Spanish Fork, there are a bunch of motorcycle's a head of me. Mostly couples on Big Honda's and Harley's and thank goodness most of them are wearing helmets and have at least long sleeved shirts on. Also stuffed animals seem to be popular. They all turn off at the Chevron station, and I head up to a station up the road, that is less crowded.
As I start up the hill toward the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon I see the 8 windmills a head, if I were a child, riding in a car the other way, and saw against the silhouette in the distance a field of blades it might even frighten me. Instead I think how much my father would have been intrigued by both the advances in wind power and solar energy. The traffic has started to pick up in the canyon and I have to wait till an open section to pass a couple of cars. It doesn't seem long until I see in the distance, and my garmin points out that I will be turning off of highway 6 just above the old town of Thistle, which was of course buried by flooding a few decades ago. It is chilly enough that I turn on my heated grips to the lowest position and even wish I had put one of my liner's back into my coat and closed all the vents.
After the new junction I am back on my beloved highway 89. I have spent so much of my life on this highway both in Utah, Wyoming , and Arizona,. At Fairview I turn off and start heading east on highway 31 to Huntington. Years ago, probably the late 1980's or early 1990's I first rode this road on a bike. I had read in the paper that they had uncovered a woolly mammoth while working on a water retention basin and after digging it out, it was going to be taken to BYU for study and eventual public display. You could only see a part of it, as they were digging it out, but it was interesting. It appeared to be a little bit bigger than a buffalo.
The first part of this road, up the canyon till about the summit, has been newly chipped sealed. I have very mixed feelings about chip sealing, to me, it is the paving equivalent of a comb over! It just masks the underlying problem of the road needing some real attention. Down and dirty and fairly cheap. All the places I have been to this summer have had newly chipped roads, I think that is why Utah had such a large percentage of shovel ready projects for the Federal Stimulus Funds.
This road has wonderful fairly evenly spaced sweeping turns, my favorite and after the summit, the chip sealing ended and I was back to regular paving, this coincided with a change in county's. The elevation at the summit is about 9,500 ft. Down the road to my right there is a turn off for Joe's Valley and reservoir, and a continuation onto Ephraim. But it is a dirt road and although my bike would handle it okay, I would need to probably make some suspension adjustments to enjoy it. My Great Great Great Grandfather, what a mouthful, Peter Madsen was one of the founders of Ephraim, and supposedly even named it. He converted to the LDS faith in Copenhagen, was baptized by Erastus Snow who opened up Denmark for the church. Peter Madsen even lent Erastus $300 to help Erastus get back to Utah. One of each of their grandchildren would marry each other and be my Mother's parents. Peter and his wife were part of the first group of converts from Denmark to come to Utah. He never gave up his ale and spirits, and said you can't deprive a Dane of his coffee. Peter Madsen and his wife emigrated to the USOFA, and came West in a Handcart company and after a brief stay in SLC, they headed down to Sevier County in 1853. They stayed in Spring City the first year. Peter Madsen was a wheelwright and a carpenter and in his long life, (91 years) he worked on three temples constructed in Utah, fought in the Black Hawk War, worked on the railroad as it came down Weber Canyon in 1868 and lived until 1910. His daughter Cathrine was my mother's grandmother and she lived till she was 92 and died a month or so after I was born. I suspect that my love of reading and knowledge, stem from my Madsen-Rodgers genes. They all read and wrote and had good memories.
Back to the road! I have ridden on this road many times and it has such a good feel to it, the air is crisp and although I can't see any hints of autumn in the foliage, one sense's it in the air. I stop for a drink of water and I remember a ride in this direction in 1995 in the fall, when someone on a bike behind me, who I knew, ended up crashing on a fairly tight turn towards the bottom, he was trying to keep up with me. I was far enough ahead of him, that I didn't see the crash, it was only because when the road got straight I couldn't see anyone behind me, that I got concerned and went back. They ended up taking him to the hospital in Price, I had to call his wife, who I had never met and tell her about the crash, and later they ended up flying him back to Salt Lake City. About the time I am thinking about this, I ride past the turn off to the Crandall Canyon mine and decided I needed to think about cheerful things.
At the junction with highway 10 I turn north for the ride to Price. This is fairly bleak desert country and not an easy place to live, or to make a living. At Price, I turn onto highway 6/191 and head to Helper for gas. If I gas up here, I will be able, I think, to go the rest of the way home without stopping for gas. I stretch and get off the bike at Helper, have some water and get back onto the bike for the several mile ride to the turn off of highway 191 and Indian Canyon to Duchesne.
Indian Canyon has both some nice turns and also some long climbing stretches of straight road. There is some traffic on this stretch and I get stuck behind about 7 cars as the road meanders toward the summit. Finally there is a place to pass, and I drop down a gear or two and quickly pass five of the cars and trucks. The other two are a little bit ahead and it takes me a mile or so to catch up and pass them and as I head down towards the eventual junction in Duchesne with highway 40 I think about how easy it still is in the West to be somewhere where there are probably no more than one or two people per square mile. Several years ago I went on a ride with my friend DeVern, where one of my criteria for where we went, was that it had to be at least two counties away from the nearest Starbucks.
I had thought about stopping in Duchesne for something to eat, but I wasn't hungry and decided I would wait to see if I was hungry by the time I got to Hanna. I have eaten many times at the Hanna Cafe. I stay west bound on highway 40 till its junction with highway 208 and the ride to Tabiona and Hanna. As I head down some fairly tight turns before it flattens out, there are some free range cows to the right side of the road. The yearling's eye me as I ride past. This whole area is pretty and green. From Tabiona till just past Hanna at every house there are Flags Flying. For whatever reason, I find this kind of moving and just before I get to the Hanna Cafe, I decide that I will stop if, I do this quite often; I decide that if so and so is, then I will. Anyway I said to myself that I would stop if there was either a BMW motorcycle or a Ducati at the Cafe. There wasn't so I continued to the mouth of Wolf Creek Canyon and highway 35. I have all ready ridden this road, once this season and for a holiday weekend the traffic is sparse, I had only been on the road for a few miles when a bunch of bikes coming the other way pass me, and there is both a BMW and a Ducati in the pack, Another road with wonderful vistas and sweeping turns. The air is cool and crisp and all is right with the world. Just past the summit (9400+ft) I stop for another drink of water. Down the road a few miles is where a friend Randy Montgomery was killed on a bike back in 1999. It was just a little bit after the road had opened, after the final section had been paved and was in November. I think of all that Randy has missed, the Olympics that he was so looking forward to and his younger children growing up. As I pass Woodland, I waive at my friend John's Cabin, although I don't know which one it is.
The rest of the way home was fairly routine, although the closer I got to the mouth of Parley's canyon the worse the traffic became. As I turn off the road to home the GPS shows 347 miles for today's outing. Not a bad days ride! I did think about Randolph Scott and the movie “Ride the High Country,” I also remember that there is some speculation about his relationship with Cary Grant, who lived with Randolph on and off and between marriages for about 12 years. Maybe Randolph made great chili or it was nice not to have to worry about leaving the toilet see up. Anyway, its still a great western.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
"In the Mountains, there you feel free!"
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
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
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
A Day in the Desert
This past Sunday, I really did go for a ride. From last week's missive, I still had the Desert on my mind. I did think about heading up Parley's to play in the Wasatch Mountains, “where the gods of the Ute's slept in the cool of the day”, but I knew the Tour of Utah was ending and that traffic might be a problem. I therefore headed west on I-80, the wind was persistent the whole ride, but fairly moderate in its velocity. At the Toole Grantsville exit, I stopped and topped of my tank, so that I could do the rest of the contemplated ride without having to stop. I got back on I-80 westbound again and proceeded till the Rowley Dugway exit. One can't think of Dugway without also thinking sheep. An old line ranch family I know has some large holdings in the Dugway Valley where they winter sheep. It it known to have a fairly mild winter there, mild being a relative term. Compared to Woodruff and Randolph Utah, it is down-right balmy, but then anyplace has a mild winter compared to those two places. About ten to twelve miles from the junction is the sign for the ghost town of ISOSEPA, which mean Joseph in Hawaiian. In the 1880's some Polynesian converts to the LDS church began to come to Zion. At first a large number of them settled in the North Salt Lake area. They were discriminated against by both the local merchant's and population and were not allowed to stay in the Hotels in Salt Lake City. It was determined that they needed to be relocated. All the choice parcels around the Salt Lake Valley had been spoken for by various individuals and entities. Any way, what they ended up doing was taking these people who for generations had lived someplace where the temperature does not vary a whole lot, and they moved them to a place, so remote, that it made the middle of nowhere look convenient. Temperature from around 90-100 in the summer to well below zero in the winter and wind almost all the time. What were they thinking! It was a typical early joint-stock type company, and the inhabitants were nothing but indentured servants. At some point they had a sort of arbor day and planted over 500 trees of various kinds, including a large orchard. The inhabitant's worked very hard, make it bloom like a rose, even won a beautification award, but it was never successful economically and in the late 1890's they even had a few people get Leprosy, which didn't make them any more acceptable to their neighbors in Grantsville, Tooele, and made their excursion's to the Temple Square not as enjoyable as it should have been. Once the church had built a Temple in Hawaii, the whole place cleared out and it became a Ghost Town. Recently there have been some excavation work done out there to see what artifacts might have been left.
A few miles down the road, I go past the Goshute Indian Reservation, where the tribe wants to store nuclear waste that is so hot, it makes the operation of Energy Solutions at Clive, look like a place it would be fun to camp. Enough said. I did notice that on either side of the reservation there were farms with green field's and fairly new equipment. Perhaps a low interest rate loan could be arranged to help the Indians do the same.
A few miles later I hit the end of the road, paved where there are three options. One: is to take the dirt road to Simpson Springs , Fish Springs and beyond, two: Have the necessary papers to get admitted to the Dugway Proving grounds. What we are proving I don't really know! My father did some electrical work at Dugway and once told me this story. He had a contract to wire a tower. Their was a large platform at the top and in the middle it was clear. The contract called for electrical boxes and a small platform about every five feet from the top to about ten fee above the ground. He had no idea what it was for, until at a later time his contact person told him that it was used for the following activity: At each five foot level, there were camera's mounted facing to the opposite side. There were also strobe lights at each of these platforms. Rabbits were injected at the top, with whatever, and then dropped down the middle of the tower, at each level a picture of the rabbit was taken. This also gave them a time line and what they learned was how long, after a rabbit was injected with this or that, it took for the rabbit to die. Needless to say, there was probably never a rabbit that was alive by the time it hit the bottom. You will be glad to know that the Dugway Proving Ground alarm poles scattered throughout the Dugway, Rush and valley South of Stockton, now have solar collectors to power them! What a Country!
At the junction there is also a large LDS Stake Center, both to serve the ranches in the Dugway and Rush Valley's and also the people who reside at Dugway. The reason the building looks so large, is that there is nothing around it. The third option which I chose and which was one of my destinations, was to head east toward Johnson Pass and Rush Valley. I have always ridden this road, East to West, and wanted to ride it West to East. For a road in the middle of nowhere, it is fairly well maintained. After I pass the summit and could see in the distance Rush Valley, there was a truck and trailer in front of me that advertised inflatable Bouncers, JohnnyJumpups for all kinds of events, indoors and out. What they were doing at just before noon on a Sunday in late August, I have no idea and probably don't need to know.
As I hit the junction with highway 36, I wasn't ready to head home, so I turned south on highway 36 till I hit the little hamlet of Faust. Years ago I had an eerie experience in Faust, where my Dune buggy just stopped running. I checked the ground on the battery, knew I had fuel, but I couldn't find anything wrong. After about five or so minutes of poking around, I walked back to the exposed engine and with a screw driver, shorted out the starter against its housing and it started up. It never did that again. I also had a girl friend in the mid 1970's who's last name was Goethe and was a direct decedent of the poet. At Faust I took the bypass road, which I have always heard called the Pony Express trail East where it reaches a junction with highway 73. From there I road through Fairfield, Cedar Valley, Cedar Hills and of course Saratoga Springs. Every time I drive there I can't believe the growth, especially when you consider that Utah has a hefty number of properties in foreclosure. I have read the population projections for this whole quadrant and it boggles the mind. Where are these people going to work, all of them can't make big bucks over the Internet while working at home! In the future I am afraid that everywhere from Provo to Ogden is going to be part of a giant conurbation, a word I just learned, a continuous urban community, made up of smaller entities that retain to one extent or another their individual identities. I am glad that it will be when I am no longer a functioning carbon entity.
I turned north on highway 68 to enter the Salt Lake Valley and after meeting up with I-15 I rode the rest of the way home. Today's ride was 188 miles. I got home well before the wind picked up, causing roads to be closed, cars to roll over and my power to be out till Monday morning.
A few miles down the road, I go past the Goshute Indian Reservation, where the tribe wants to store nuclear waste that is so hot, it makes the operation of Energy Solutions at Clive, look like a place it would be fun to camp. Enough said. I did notice that on either side of the reservation there were farms with green field's and fairly new equipment. Perhaps a low interest rate loan could be arranged to help the Indians do the same.
A few miles later I hit the end of the road, paved where there are three options. One: is to take the dirt road to Simpson Springs , Fish Springs and beyond, two: Have the necessary papers to get admitted to the Dugway Proving grounds. What we are proving I don't really know! My father did some electrical work at Dugway and once told me this story. He had a contract to wire a tower. Their was a large platform at the top and in the middle it was clear. The contract called for electrical boxes and a small platform about every five feet from the top to about ten fee above the ground. He had no idea what it was for, until at a later time his contact person told him that it was used for the following activity: At each five foot level, there were camera's mounted facing to the opposite side. There were also strobe lights at each of these platforms. Rabbits were injected at the top, with whatever, and then dropped down the middle of the tower, at each level a picture of the rabbit was taken. This also gave them a time line and what they learned was how long, after a rabbit was injected with this or that, it took for the rabbit to die. Needless to say, there was probably never a rabbit that was alive by the time it hit the bottom. You will be glad to know that the Dugway Proving Ground alarm poles scattered throughout the Dugway, Rush and valley South of Stockton, now have solar collectors to power them! What a Country!
At the junction there is also a large LDS Stake Center, both to serve the ranches in the Dugway and Rush Valley's and also the people who reside at Dugway. The reason the building looks so large, is that there is nothing around it. The third option which I chose and which was one of my destinations, was to head east toward Johnson Pass and Rush Valley. I have always ridden this road, East to West, and wanted to ride it West to East. For a road in the middle of nowhere, it is fairly well maintained. After I pass the summit and could see in the distance Rush Valley, there was a truck and trailer in front of me that advertised inflatable Bouncers, JohnnyJumpups for all kinds of events, indoors and out. What they were doing at just before noon on a Sunday in late August, I have no idea and probably don't need to know.
As I hit the junction with highway 36, I wasn't ready to head home, so I turned south on highway 36 till I hit the little hamlet of Faust. Years ago I had an eerie experience in Faust, where my Dune buggy just stopped running. I checked the ground on the battery, knew I had fuel, but I couldn't find anything wrong. After about five or so minutes of poking around, I walked back to the exposed engine and with a screw driver, shorted out the starter against its housing and it started up. It never did that again. I also had a girl friend in the mid 1970's who's last name was Goethe and was a direct decedent of the poet. At Faust I took the bypass road, which I have always heard called the Pony Express trail East where it reaches a junction with highway 73. From there I road through Fairfield, Cedar Valley, Cedar Hills and of course Saratoga Springs. Every time I drive there I can't believe the growth, especially when you consider that Utah has a hefty number of properties in foreclosure. I have read the population projections for this whole quadrant and it boggles the mind. Where are these people going to work, all of them can't make big bucks over the Internet while working at home! In the future I am afraid that everywhere from Provo to Ogden is going to be part of a giant conurbation, a word I just learned, a continuous urban community, made up of smaller entities that retain to one extent or another their individual identities. I am glad that it will be when I am no longer a functioning carbon entity.
I turned north on highway 68 to enter the Salt Lake Valley and after meeting up with I-15 I rode the rest of the way home. Today's ride was 188 miles. I got home well before the wind picked up, causing roads to be closed, cars to roll over and my power to be out till Monday morning.
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