8/27/11 Day 22- No storm last night in Moab! We packed up from the campground early and headed out to beat the high afternoon temperatures we hoped! We took highway 191 to 70 through Green River, UT the turned north on 191 through the little towns of Price and Helper. Working our way to Provo, Mark had to bear the terrible road construction or should I say destruction of the highway systems in the Provo/Salt Lake City area. We decided to stay in Provo at the Utah Lake State Park and call it a day in the mid-afternoon.
Utah Lake State Park was booming on this Saturday since the Utah half-marathon was finishing right next to the campground and all the recreational watercraft was launching! The campground was nice- bordering the largest fresh water lake in Utah. It is apparently loaded with different fish and interestingly it only averages a 9 ft. depth. I found out all about that when I tried to swim in it and there was a dead fish on the shore and the water was warmer than the KOA pool was.
Mark was working on making "red-neck fried rice" AKA rice-a-roni with fried spam cooked in! After a little game of football with the rubber football we found it was time to get out the bug spray! The camphost warned us about the mosquitos that come out with a vengence after the sun sets. Well, he didn't lie about that! Soon after that onslaught a thunderstorm hit the area so we retired to the tent for the night as well as everyone around us!
8/28/11 Day 23- Good morning and good bye Utah Lake mosquitos. Putting the wet tent and tarp in the motorcycle trailer we headed north for breakfast at McD's and regrouped! We were so glad we came upon the bird refuge outside of Brigham City. It was just us on the whole 14 mile area and even the interpretive center was closed due to it being a Sunday. This is a 74,000 acre refuge of marshland, water and uplands. You could even see the salt deposits along the marsh. The road apparently ends at the Great Salt Lake but at the end of the 14 mile road it was closed to road construction! So our Salt Lake viewing had to take place from the glimpse from the highway!
More of the bird refuge. There was a rare fisherman on the riverbank this morning. We could hear the birds but didn't see very many.
A few sandpipers callling it home. They were singing like they were in the church choir this Sunday morning. I would too if I knew I had all this acreage to call a safe haven!
Distant shot of the refuge with the Wasatch Mountains in the background. We had the mountain range in view on both sides from our last campground.
On towards Idaho we went on I-15. The Caribou-Targee National Forest mountains are in the background as we head north. Another beautiful sunny afternoon for motorcycle riding. We have over 3,600 miles on the bike so far.
Hello Idaho and farewell Utah. It's bittersweet to know we are working our way home but we feel so fortunate to have experienced this new adventure and travel to areas we have never seen.
About 40 miles over the Utah/Idaho border we ventured off to Downey. Population about 600. Crossing Malad Pass at 5,500 ft. seemed like nothing compared to all the 10,000 ft. passes we'd been over in Colorado! We had read about a Hot Springs Campground so decided to make it our home for the night.... boy we were in for a surprise!
Downata Hot Springs Campground nestled in the trees along highway 91. We were the only campers in the 100 campsites besides the camphosts. The place had literally shut down the day before because school had started in the area! No open pools, waterpark, hot springs, store but the bathrooms were open and they had great internet access! I worked on this blogsite for the rest of the afternoon and early evening! Mark relaxed and grilled up some tubesteaks for dinner.... we promise to eat better when we get home! Well, we discovered that the tent does stay waterproof at night and we can survive an entire night of thunder, lightening and rain. We have NEVER seen or heard what we did this night. Earplugs didn't even come close to diminishing the thunder or the train whistle throughout the night 1/4 mile away. The ground was rumbling and we had lightening 360 degrees. It was beautiful to watch but a little scary since there was only 1-2 seconds max inbetween the lightening and thunder. It made for a good story and I'm here to tell you that we did survive! No mosquitos though just horseflies since we were adjacent to a horse pasture! We wondered where those horses hunkered down for the night :)
8/27/11 Day 22- No storm last night in Moab! We packed up from the campground early and headed out to beat the high afternoon temperatures we hoped! We took highway 191 to 70 through Green River, UT the turned north on 191 through the little towns of Price and Helper. Working our way to Provo, Mark had to bear the terrible road construction or should I say destruction of the highway systems in the Provo/Salt Lake City area. We decided to stay in Provo at the Utah Lake State Park and call it a day in the mid-afternoon.
Utah Lake State Park was booming on this Saturday since the Utah half-marathon was finishing right next to the campground and all the recreational watercraft was launching! The campground was nice- bordering the largest fresh water lake in Utah. It is apparently loaded with different fish and interestingly it only averages a 9 ft. depth. I found out all about that when I tried to swim in it and there was a dead fish on the shore and the water was warmer than the KOA pool was.
Mark was working on making "red-neck fried rice" AKA rice-a-roni with fried spam cooked in! After a little game of football with the rubber football we found it was time to get out the bug spray! The camphost warned us about the mosquitos that come out with a vengence after the sun sets. Well, he didn't lie about that! Soon after that onslaught a thunderstorm hit the area so we retired to the tent for the night as well as everyone around us!
8/28/11 Day 23- Good morning and good bye Utah Lake mosquitos. Putting the wet tent and tarp in the motorcycle trailer we headed north for breakfast at McD's and regrouped! We were so glad we came upon the bird refuge outside of Brigham City. It was just us on the whole 14 mile area and even the interpretive center was closed due to it being a Sunday. This is a 74,000 acre refuge of marshland, water and uplands. You could even see the salt deposits along the marsh. The road apparently ends at the Great Salt Lake but at the end of the 14 mile road it was closed to road construction! So our Salt Lake viewing had to take place from the glimpse from the highway!
More of the bird refuge. There was a rare fisherman on the riverbank this morning. We could hear the birds but didn't see very many.
A few sandpipers callling it home. They were singing like they were in the church choir this Sunday morning. I would too if I knew I had all this acreage to call a safe haven!
Distant shot of the refuge with the Wasatch Mountains in the background. We had the mountain range in view on both sides from our last campground.
On towards Idaho we went on I-15. The Caribou-Targee National Forest mountains are in the background as we head north. Another beautiful sunny afternoon for motorcycle riding. We have over 3,600 miles on the bike so far.
Hello Idaho and farewell Utah. It's bittersweet to know we are working our way home but we feel so fortunate to have experienced this new adventure and travel to areas we have never seen.
About 40 miles over the Utah/Idaho border we ventured off to Downey. Population about 600. Crossing Malad Pass at 5,500 ft. seemed like nothing compared to all the 10,000 ft. passes we'd been over in Colorado! We had read about a Hot Springs Campground so decided to make it our home for the night.... boy we were in for a surprise!
Downata Hot Springs Campground nestled in the trees along highway 91. We were the only campers in the 100 campsites besides the camphosts. The place had literally shut down the day before because school had started in the area! No open pools, waterpark, hot springs, store but the bathrooms were open and they had great internet access! I worked on this blogsite for the rest of the afternoon and early evening! Mark relaxed and grilled up some tubesteaks for dinner.... we promise to eat better when we get home! Well, we discovered that the tent does stay waterproof at night and we can survive an entire night of thunder, lightening and rain. We have NEVER seen or heard what we did this night. Earplugs didn't even come close to diminishing the thunder or the train whistle throughout the night 1/4 mile away. The ground was rumbling and we had lightening 360 degrees. It was beautiful to watch but a little scary since there was only 1-2 seconds max inbetween the lightening and thunder. It made for a good story and I'm here to tell you that we did survive! No mosquitos though just horseflies since we were adjacent to a horse pasture! We wondered where those horses hunkered down for the night :)
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