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!