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!