Ho ho! I'm back! Sorry for the lack of posts. I took a break from blogging over the summer. And what a busy summer it has been! Kiri and I took on a rather large, and scary, project that is finally starting to pay off. We took a small vacation to San Francisco. I was able to go on another amazing motorcycle trip through California. Yes, I took lots of pictures! And three weeks ago we also added a new addition to the family. Meet Brandy! We found her at the pound, where she told us she needed a good home. And yes, she and Sheba get along fine.
I'm going to punch it into overdrive to try to catch up on posts. So where did we leave off? My dad and I had spent the night in Craig, Co. The next morning we broke camp with our sights on Utah.
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We caught a quick breakfast at McDonald's before heading out. I noticed this truck in the parking lot. Three dogs in the back and none of them moved from their locations while the owner ate breakfast inside.
Outside of Craig two things happened. We saw some pronghorn sheep that for whatever reason I didn't stop to take pictures of. My dad still brings that up in conversation.
The other was that I had my first close encounter with a deer. I'm cruising along at 75 when a single deer pops out of a bush and decides to cross the road between me and a oncoming car. I slam on the brakes, causing them to lock up. The deer starts to have second thoughts and slows down a bit. This gives me time to get off the brakes and regain traction, I've dropped down to around 40Mph. The deer says "screw it, I'm going" and finally makes a mad dash all the way across the road. It's at this time I figure out I'm not going to hit it and watch as it scrambles off on its way. For the rest of the morning I was a bit on edge over the whole incident.
The rest of the trip into Utah was uneventful. I believe this was the day before Memorial Day, and every small town we rolled through had flags showing. We stopped in Duchesne, UT for gas and food. The
Cowan's Cafe had some great grub.
We headed south on highway 191. The scenery was amazing. We were following suggested routes from the Butler Maps I bought and they really point you in the right direction for nice roads.
One of the many summits we rode over that day. I believe this was in Ashley National Forest.
We headed west onto highway 6 and missed our turnoff onto highway 96. We ended up going over Soldier summit at ~7500' where it was pretty darn cold. It seemed colder the second time around when we went back over the pass to find the right exit. (Sorry, that was incorrect. In writing up the next post I realized we missed our turn off the next day) I was getting low on gas when we finally came over a ridge and looked down on the town of Scofield and the nearby reservoir. I was able to find some pretty expensive gas in town.
Outside of Scofield we jumped onto highway 264. There was a coal plant in the area and their conveyor belt ran along side the road for a couple of miles. It looked like the body of a snake rolling over the hills.
Looking down into the next valley. We took the road going to the left. The one heading up into the hills was dirt.
Somewhere near the Upper Huntington Creek area.
There were people out in the river fly fishing.
This was at the Huntington Reservoir.
We finally dropped down out of the
Manti-La Sal National Forest into the town of Huntington. My dad and I were pretty tired and looking for a place to camp. After an exhaustive Google search I couldn't find anything. We decided to find a motel in the next town of Castle Dale. We we arrived we found a empty motel with a note saying to call a number. When I called the number the owner said she could drive down to Castle Dale but that she was currently at her other motel in the town of Huntington! I said fine. Rather then have her drive down we'd drive back the 10 miles to Huntington. My advice to any would be travelers who find themselves smack dab in the middle of Utah..don't expect much in the way of lodging.
The only thing open in Huntington, on a late Sunday evening, are gas stations. My dad drove down and surprised me by bringing back heat lamp pizza! This was our dinner in the motel room that evening. It was perfect!
Sorry for the short post but if I'm going to catch up I'm going to have to move quick. Good to be back! See ya tomorrow.
Glad to have you back and posting. It sounds like you had a busy summer.
ReplyDeleteYour pooch looks like a nice addition to the family even if you did name her Brandy. I say that as when people hear my name they usually have to tell me about a dog named Brandy they used to have or know. Well, either that or the song by the Looking Glass, lol. Remind me to thank my mom for my name - not!
I enjoyed hearing more about the Colorado trip. The weather looks warm and inviting. I bet it seems like a long time ago.
@Trobairitz - Thanks, it's good to be back. Sorry about the name:) If it makes you feel any better we didn't name her, the pound did. Neither one of us could find any fault with how it sounded so it stuck. Unlike when we got Sheba. Her name from the pound was Licorice. Kiri wasn't having any of it, so she was named Sheba:) It does seem like quite awhile ago. I'm eager to finish it up and move onto the next trip!
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