Tuesday, July 31st: Provo, UT or … an experiment!

We need to keep moving again – if we want to spent a week in Bryce National Park and some other duff days along the road. I can feel she is tense about the upcoming rides: all this monsoon rain in the southern en eastern part of Utah doesn’t help. Another newsflash of flooding streets in Ephraim… But here in and around Provo it stayed dry (so far). Well, after another fruity breakfast we left for the UPS-store and shipped some stuff to St. George. Now came the experiment: let’s try to get to Provo by Trax and bus – will the public transportation system allow this fully loaded Sweet Machine? Well, my woman cycled to the Central Station area and like most area’s around stations anywhere – they are shabby. I believe they just handed out some food for the homeless at the church – there were so many around in one place and they all had some pieces of food in their hands. We left the area to wait for the Trax in a somewhat better place. Getting a ticket: do we need one for the Sweet Machine? When one tram came in, my woman talked to the driver:”No, you do not need to pay for the bicycle and the tram for Sandy is at the other side”. There it came – my boss noticed the signs for bicycle on the ground. 

When the tram stopped , she pushed the button to open the door and … there were stairs in this tram. No way can we lift the Sweet Machine! And there went the tram. No worries – 15 minutes later came another tram and we hoped that this one would not have stairs. Well – as it is: the blue line (going to Sandy) is the only one with stairs. Other waiting passengers couldn’t give her any clear directions either! Time passed and there was the train again. This time she went up to driver and asked how to deal with the problem and – with a smile on his face – the guy told us to use the ramp to get into the tram. And there we were riding in the tram! Luckily not too many people had to get on it! In Sandy came another challenge: will we be able to get a ride with the bus? And yes, the driver let us go on the bus as long as people could pass us and no – you do not need to take the luggage of the bicycle. Sometimes I saw my woman fighting with Sweet Machine when the bus was making turns on the Interstate… but in the end we made it all the way to Provo! We paid only 4.70 $ to ride for 50 miles! We got into Provo at a good time and … we didn’t have to cycle along one Wall mart after another! Will we do it again? Depends on the situation, my woman says! She tells me we would never have been able to do this with a fully loaded bicycle in Belgium! Americans are easy-going!

Monday, July 30th: Salt Lake Cit, UT or … duff day

Ahhh… we can sleep in this morning. Means my woman gets out of her bed at 8 am. A fruity breakfast to start the day in a healthy way. She made a to-do list and going to the bike shop got the highest priority: some air in the front tire would be nice. She cycled through the new city center and it is amazing how fast they work here.

New shops are now across from the Temple. A visit to the U of U is also on the list: my boss can spend a lot of time browsing the book shops at the different universities she visits. Then it’s time to shop for food and go back to the hotel: a laundry bag waits for her! So while doing laundry she gets some time to write her blog. The pictures still have to be downloaded. Ever since the Olympic Games are on TV she doesn’t feel much like writing. And that same Sudoku is still bothering her! Well, there is always tomorrow to write. The news mentions some severe weather issues at the places we are heading to: flash floods caused by thunderstorms in Fountain Green… Oh boy!!!

Sunday, July 29th: Salt Lake City, UT or … USA home # 1

It’s Sunday and this can be seen: boys wear suits and ties, girls have their pretty dresses  on and parents look very fancy. My woman in her cycling shorts does not fit the picture. Another Sunday trait: the roads are empty and parking lots next to churches are full! 

It makes our ride a bit eerie – as in a movie where some kind of catastrophic event happened and wiped out the local communities. Not even a dog was heard! The heat is still on  and finding a gas station for some relief is necessary. I laugh when I see the size of the bottles my human buys keeps growing. But buildings and roads and cars just suck up the heat and together with the hair drying wind we get our share of the warm weather. We cycle past Cherry Hill – some kind of resort with a few water slides (can we go, boss?) and five minutes later we see the amusement park Lagoon. One day… she answers. Now we have to get to Salt Lake City. The No – Granny days are definitely taking up their toll and my human feels the legs do not work well – or is it the mind? Just outside North Salt Lake my human decides to cool down in Mc. Donald’s. With her Sudoku and a cool drink on the table we lower our body heat again (wish I could get out of my fur, but I guess that would be a funny sight!). Believe it or not but we stay there almost an hour – trying to finish that Sudoku (she still didn’t see the solution). Totally energized again we head to Smith’s marketplace for our soup-bagel dinner when a woman shows up and asks us if we really came from Montana (“I had to ask! Wow!”). More positive feelings and yes with new energy we cycle the last 10 K into Salt Lake City. It’s not the scenic route and I wonder if the air is that healthy to inhale. Hurry boss, get us away from this smoking place. 

We head to our first bookstore visit – Barnes and Noble at the Gateway. It’s another way to cool down in a pleasant way. From the Gateway it’s only 5 minutes to the hotel where a package is waiting for us! Have a good night!  

Saturday, July 28th: OGDEN, UT or… No granny and no stopping!

Today my human must climb Sardine Pass – I wonder how yesterday’s ride is treating her legs. This morning the TV is showing Olympic road cycling. It will be hard to get her away from the screen. While she gets the Sweet Machine all ready she watches how the British team works together to get Cavendish to the arrival line. What about the Belgians – she asks me. Well – the only name I’ve heard so far is Gilbert – who tried to escape from the peloton – but has been captured again. Come on boss, we need to get going! We have a long day ahead! So without knowing who won the race we started our daily ride again. A Gatorade stop before the climb and off we go.

 I believe my human has all the adrenaline the cyclists oversea in London have. She just keeps on going. There is no stopping her on the climb. A cyclist without load joins her for a while – offering her a shower at his house (that’s a no – no, boss!!! You know the saying: save water – shower together!) On top of the pass my human does a timid victory dance – not wanting to distract the car drivers. The new road surface on the downhill into Brigham City is wonderful. 

Here, we used to navigate between potholes and debris on the road. Now, the surface is smooth and the noise is reduced! Wonderful for my ears! Finally we reach Brigham City: all that we have climbed from Missoula to Yellowstone is now lost again. Know that we will have to climb all the way to 9000 ft again the next week, if we want to reach Fish Lake. Now my human needs to be clever and stop for water at every chance she gets – the first one being the Burger drive in. A float cools her inside organs while I enjoy sitting in the shade. The traffic is not too bad on this Saturday afternoon, which is good since the shoulder on this stretch of US 89 does not exist.

 We pass Willard bay and also our shower opportunity. At Far West (there is a town with that name) the gas station is a must stop. Here my woman parks Sweet Machine under  a tree in shade while we get to go into the air-conditioned building. It does feel nice to cool down a bit! Gradually we see more houses and stores and the traffic picks up as we get closer to Ogden. We will sleep at a new location and it is a bit of a search before we get there – with our dinner in our bags. 

Friday, July 27th: LOGAN, UT or … NO GRANNY!

2 AM and the wind is almost blowing this cabin away. Lightning in the dark sky, people around on the campground trying to stake down their tents or grabbing stuff that was left outside. But no rain at all! At 7 AM my boss wakes again and for the first time she uses technology to predict the weather: outside it is dark – and dark clouds keep coming from where we have to go to. Storm tracker on the computer will help us out and it did indeed. The radar showed possible rain and thunderstorm till 9.30 am and after that … clearing with no rain anymore. Well, we missed the thunderstorm, had a couple of raindrops while we were having breakfast and the sun showed its face around 9.30 am! By 10 o’clock we were on our way – trying to kill “the hill of Never Again!”.

 Indeed, the first time my boss climbed this thing, she finished and said “never again!”. Since then, we have been cycling over it about 5 times! Never again! She admits she hates the thought of having to work so hard, but once she is actually doing it – well, she loves it. The view of Bear lake (it’s like getting on top of the lake) helps of course. Almost every curve in the road is known – taking the outside curves making the grade somewhat smaller. The “almost top” is some kind of rest stop – it’s parking lot full with busses. The view is awesome, but I think the hummingbirds are the most photographed shots here! 

The one mile to the top is not so fun – but my boss yells out when she finally reaches it. Now, it’s a shoot of almost 30 miles down – with some severe headwinds. The moose along the road is gone. Too bad! A few times my boss cycles of the road, letting traffic pass her, since the winding road in the canyon is really narrow! While my boss cycles I get a chance to look around and it is funny how the scenery changes as we proceed: at the top we had some wider valleys, but further down the canyon is narrow, the grassy lands have disappeared and I see high steep rocks to our sides – the Logan river running next to us. 

My boss is not looking forward to the steep incline out of the canyon – this will bring us to sudden civilization again. But there is no escape! It has to be done! Very slowly she works her way up again (it’s only a ¼ of mile!). 

The ranger station is our first stop after the ride down: my boss wants something cool to drink. She notices some soda machines and buys herself a Mt. Dew! Boy – what a mistake! My boss nearly burns her hands taking the aluminum can from the machine! No cooling system??? What a disappointment. In she goes to tell the ranger about the machines, but they cannot help her! Luckily there is a very cool water fountain in the building! Hurray – water for the thirsty ones! Being somewhat cooler now she can go on – she even has some energy to pay a visit to the State University, here in Logan. 

Students are playing games on the grass fields in front of the buildings. The book shop has what she was looking for and a happy boss can go “home” now. It feels very warm – and indeed one billboard says it’s 99°F . Get me to a cool room, I beg her, but first give me some beef I can chew on – yeah – one from Burger King! After filling our stomachs we head to Baugh Motel – “I knew it was you, when I saw your name on the sheet this morning”. See, that’s why my boss calls this coming home – people know her! Later that evening we enjoy the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games and fall asleep as soon as the Belgians have entered the stadium!

Thursday, July 26th: GARDEN CITY, UT or… my “home”state

Most things around here are connected to BEAR something. There is Bear Lake, Bear River, bears in town …

So I wondered why, and people told me that this area used to have a lot of bears … probably. We are now cycling along the Oregon Trail – pioneer trail! Hence we find a lot of European sounding towns in this region – Montpelier being one of them, but also Geneva, Bern and Paris. 

Along the first part of this flat and shorter ride we swap our way along the road since this valley flat is kind of marshy. (No, not marshmallow!) The easiness of the ride makes our mind wander but we are suddenly brought back to real life when a car honks several times at us. The sign on top of the car reads:”oversize vehicle”. I can already see what’s riding towards us: a giant bullet! Yep, America likes it all to be big! My boss finds a place off the road just before the bullet passes us. Some miles further I notice a field filled with Canadian Geese! 

How I would love to run in there and watch them all fly! But my boss says they could get under a car and she doesn’t want that. There goes the fun again! It seems as if the shoulder along this road is wider – which makes the cycling more relaxing. To our left we are trying to see the first glimpse of Bear Lake – wow – it is so blue! 

Fish Haven is the last town we cycle through in Idaho. Here we stop at a small grocery shop where we get rid of our Idahoan dollars! Now we only need the Utah ones! The shoulder narrows, the traffic gets a bit faster and the road curves a bit more, which makes it necessary to pay more attention. Once in a while my boss glances up to look at the private beaches close to the lake or to think about buying a house on the hillside. Very soon now we’ll be in Utah for the rest of the time! It does give us a strange feeling of having accomplished something already: from the north of Montana to the north of Utah…

But there is more to do! Garden City is known for its raspberries and the ice cream and shakes made with them. We will overnight at the KOA – known to be a very windy place. Since we do not take a rest day tomorrow, we decide to go for the cabin – which will give us the early start needed to climb the hill of 10 K. It’s laundry day, which is a relaxing thing to do. Alas, the spin cycle of the machine didn’t work very well, leaving all our clothes soaking wet! The dryer had to take two turns! KOA-city is invaded by a family reunion: kids and adults – they all wear the same t-shirt! In all this partying, we decide to lay back and try to solve the Sudoku!

Wednesday, July 25th: Montpelier, ID … or two pass day

Well rested and ready to do the job. But first breakfast at the local gas station. There a man asks my woman a lot of questions about my bicycle and then he suddenly begins to ask about Vlaams Belang. Yup, he said it in Dutch! I asked him how he knew about this – of course – the internet. He liked the flag and my boss had this strange feeling she didn’t want to give her opinion about them to this guy. Better to talk politics to people you know. 

First part of the ride is the 15 mile up to the Salt River Pass. From Afton it’s all the way uphill until the last 4 miles when the grade suddenly changes to 7%. Go, woman… do not let this hill beat you! The view of the top helps her speed up a bit. 

One down – one more to go. Now it’s tree time, before we descend, screaming from happiness. This canyon ride was fast! And there it is: Idaho state! 

A little bit further a sign for beef jerky, cold drinks… 

And yes, John is still standing there with his cooler filled with ice and pop while he is handing out jerky bites. For one dollar he lets me drink half the huge bottle of Gatorade. And my boss buys some jerky… I’ll stay close to the food bag, from now on! A big hug before leaving John again – CU next year, he yells! Geneva town and then the BIG hill. Behind me the dark clouds have gathered again, but I look to the West and there it is still okay! In snail tempo we climb – having to stop only once this year! The cooler wind makes it agreeable – even the headwind! Then the final turn for the Geneva Summit: two down!

 From here it’s just 8 miles downhill – with the headwind. We arrive around 1 PM in Montpelier, ID. Coming into town it looks as if this is a ghost town: nobody on the roads or working in the garden. It does give an eerie feeling – as if something extraterrestrial took all the inhabitants away! A good shower at the Super 8 brings us back to being presentable for a walk around town. Tomorrow another state again!

Tuesday, July 24th: Afton, WY or … tsjirp, tsjirp, woef, woef, pscht, pscht

The first thing my boss usually does when she gets out of her bed is looking what kind of weather it is outside. No way to predict today. Clouds are in the West …But for now we just start out with our small incline. We cycle on US 89 and this stretch of the road can become a real treasure hunt: there is some junk to find today also like a license plate of California (which my woman does not pick up – there is still too much car on it), yellow, red or blue balls… While my woman has her head focused on the ground, I look up to the sky trying to find out where that noise is coming from. Next to the telephone poles are poles with a platform high up. There osprey have made their nest and birds are now moving around in there. 

In Etna my woman looks for her name on the bench, but there is something big standing on the bench and her name is now hidden! Meanwhile some dogs are so enthusiastic about me on the bicycle that they come running towards us. But – they are on the other side of the road and there is a lot of traffic! Luckily they stay on their side of the road – I was a bit worried about them! Star Valley is known for farming – dairy farming. And we see cowdominiums where calves are housing for the moment. 

Oh boy… I knew everything is big in the USA, but these chickens are just amazing! I do not want to chase those beasts! They are just good for KFC: a bucket of 6 wings gets you going for a long long time! 

Pscht, Pscht, pscht … boy, I need a tree desperately hearing that noise all the time. Farmers have the sprinklers on, since it’s been dry out here too. But no trees around. My boss will only stop in Thayne – next to the Cheese factory. She tells me it’s time for the tree, but she also urges me to hurry: black clouds are rolling in. She doesn’t  really know what to do: go on or wait and see if it gets bad! She knows the route and thinks that she can always hide somewhere in a barn if there is a thunderstorm over our heads. The pace is up – the clouds are culminating. There you have it.. a few drops and in the plastic bag again. Her idea of hiding at that house is not so good: a warning sign of a dog changes her mind. In the distance she sees the rain falling – where we are it is just dripping a little bit. Come on boss – hurry up to the post office of Grover. We are just in time before the rain reaches us! Luckily it doesn’t rain too hard nor too long. About 10 minutes later we are rolling again – the last 5 miles to Afton. The town has this arch of antlers across US 89. It isn’t until we cycle underneath them we notice two men crawling up there. What were they doing???? It’s now just one block to the Hi Country Inn: the place hasn’t changed a bit – it’s still a mess, but the people are so friendly! And yes, my boss will go and fetch us some food from the Red Baron – across the street.

Monday, July 23rd: Alpine, WY or … following the Snake

Oh boy – what a dark grey clouds are hanging in the trees on the mountain. It’s even a bit chilly. Yeah – my boss is going to have a cowboy’s breakfast. I’m getting a sausage and some bacon! The first ones on this trip! A stop in the bicycle shop for a new tube seemed like a good idea – in case we get another flat. Today my woman is in a speeding mood: she wants to do some fast riding on this downhill ride on the curves along the Snake river. At the end of the ride she does go to an overlook and wishes she was in one of the rafts on the river. 

And guess what -  at one moment all the clouds lifted and the sun was back at the blue sky. The ride to Alpine is fun! And if anyone wants to see where we are: go to the webcam of Alpine Wyoming, junction 89. Maybe you’ll see us waving at you!