It was a great ending to July and we started off August just as good! We left Craters of the Moon early and headed along US 26 towards Pocatello. We planned on hitting a Walmart to do some shopping but first, we wanted to see the EBR-1 Museum. In case you don’t know (‘cause we didn’t!), EBR-1 stands for Experimental Breeder Reactor 1, America’s first nuclear reactor. You can find it about 40 miles west of Pocatello along US 26. Unfortunately for us, while we were waiting for them to open, a US Government security dude showed up and told us that the employees had a car accident and would be late. We thought about waiting but since we’ll be back that way after Vegas, we opted to keep going and visit then. After the customary trip in Walmart, I noticed that the right turn signal wasn’t working. I checked the bulbs and they were good so I assumed it was the switch. After heading down I-15 a little way to the US 30 exit, we continued on this great piece of road (which follows the Oregon Trail) to Montpelier, ID where we took US 89 south to Bear Lake. Before we got to Bear Lake though, I called my friends at BMW Motorcycles of Las Vegas and discussed my dilemma with Steve in service. He thought the same as I that it was the switch so he took my appointment for August 6 and before he ordered the part, verified his thoughts with the tech. If that is what it is, the part will be there by the time we arrive. If you get up this way in Idaho, make it a point to stop by and stay if you can at Bear Lake. What a great place! The water is a beautiful color from the calcium carbonate and it is really warm too, being fed by a hot spring. We were lucky again on a Friday night and got one of the two remaining sites. This place is definitely on our ‘come back to’ list. We struggled again with not enough shade but by 7:00 pm the sun went behind some clouds and did not return. That made our evening a lot cooler. We’ve decided that we definitely need two small chairs and a small table to be able to move around to find shade when necessary. Sitting in the sun at an immobile picnic table ain’t working!
Saturday, August 2 turned out to be a much longer day than planned. We originally thought that we’d take US 89 south to Logan, UT and jump across I-15 to visit Golden Spike National Historical Site again and then head straight back US 89 to US 30 and on to Kemmerer, WY where we planned a hotel night. I thought about 200 or so miles. We headed out about 8:30 am and had a great run down US 89, stopping at the overlook for Bear Lake. There we saw three humming bird feeders (taken care of by the rest area attendant) that had more humming birds then we ever saw. We counted 13 but there could have been more (since they are a little hard to count! They’re fast little buggers). While we were there a woman told us that there was a really bad accident along US 89. We went anyway and low and behold, it certainly was. The helicopter landed in the road while we were waiting and all kinds of emergency equipment was there. Finally, the officer told us that it would be at least an hour but probably 2 before they opened the road, there was one fatality but others were hurt quite badly. He suggested we take a detour that was pretty easy to remember but since we weren’t from around those parts, I was apprehensive. We ended up backtracking past Bear Lake State Park (where we started, about 75 miles by then) and up US 89 to ID 36. It was a really pretty ride through the Cache National Forest and ID 36 is a great motorcycle road.
We ended up getting to Golden Spike NHS about 2:00 pm, much later than I wanted to. The upside was that as we entered the visitor’s center, a rein-actor asked me if I wanted to play a part in the reenactment. Well sure! I got to be Territorial Governor Safford from Arizona. It was great fun! We think that everyone should take the time to visit the site of probably one of the most significant events in United States history by going there. The whole story of the building of the transcontinental railroad is fascinating. Here, you can see the (replica, but real!) steam engines (the CP Jupiter and the UP #119) come out and rein-act the whole event of coming together and driving the last spike to unite our country. One of the most interesting things we found out was that the Union Pacific laid 1,086 miles of track (from Omaha) and the central Pacific laid 690 miles of track (from San Francisco) to meet at Promontory, UT for a total of 1,776 miles to unite the country. Quite the number, huh? It must have been some occasion on May 10, 1869!
We left Golden Spike NHS and backtracked a lot of the way except most of US 89 out of Logan, UT because of the accident, we hadn’t seen that part. This road is HIGHLY recommended! It is a great motorcycle road as long as you don’t get stuck behind a party pooper (aka- a camper or motorhome). Very few places to pass. We got back to Fish Haven, ID which is in the southerly part of Bear Lake and stopped for some raspberries (it was Raspberry Days in town and everything was coming out raspberries, if you know what I mean!) and took US 30 east towards Kemmerer, WY. Nice road but straight and relatively boring. We passed Fossil Butte National Monument since we were tired and hungry and pulled into our hotel about 5:30 pm after 350 miles. We saved Fossil Butte for Sunday.
Sunday August 3 took us back 10 miles to Fossil Butte National Monument. We HIGHLY recommend a visit if you area in this area! There is an excellent display of fossils that include an entire community- fish, insects, reptiles, mammals and, plants all having lived at the same time in and around the same ancient lake over millennium. There are very few places on earth where the examples of entire life forms in one community can be found as fossils. Originally an area that was sub-tropical with the lake teaming with life, today, fossil Butte is semi-arid dominated by sagebrush and grasses. It is really hard to imagine. Many of the fossils are so well preserved that scientists today can link them with organisms living today. Pretty incredible! You have to see them for yourself though, the detail is amazing. We did find out that in this area you can go to private land and dig fossils yourself. We met some folks at the hotel who did just that. They said they got about 60 fossils and were quite happy!
We left Fossil Butte by 10:00 and headed back US 30 past Kemmerer and onto Green River, WY to pick up WY 530 south towards Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area. Wyoming 530 isn’t much to talk about for many miles outside of Green River but as you enter the Flaming Gorge area, does it ever get nice! The road begins to twist, climbs in elevation to cool things off and provide spectacular overlooks like Sheep Creek Bay. It’s a great run on a motorcycle! We entered back into Utah and made our way along UT 44 (another great road) to the Red Canyon Visitor’s Center where you get an outstanding view of the gorge. Created by the damming of the Green River, the gorge is huge and makes for some pretty nice boating spots. Though we aren’t boaters, looking down the 1,400 ft to the river and seeing the boats and people swimming in the river almost made us believers! We met some Harley folks there who were pretty interested in our travels and it was good to share some of our experiences with them. We found that the friendliest folks are Harley riders (not counting BMW riders, since they have the edge due to us riding one too) and the least friendly are also Harley riders. Seems the attitude Harley Davidson tries to sell is really already in the rider.
We continued down UT 44 to US 191 straight into Vernal, UT and then east to Dinosaur National Monument. By the time we got to Dinosaur, it was pretty hot! We went straight to the Green River campground to secure our site with the intent to go to the visitor’s center later but we pooped out. We decided to do that on Monday. Since we were there so early, we got a great spot and relaxed the day away.
We saw the clouds the night before but as is typical in the desert or semi-arid places, they disappear by morning. Not so with this crowd! They rained on us intermittently all night and by the time we wanted to get up, they were going pretty good. We got lucky and a break happened long enough to pack, get the rain gear on and head to the visitor’s center for our stamp. We’d been to dinosaur National Monument before and can tell you it is another wonderful park to visit. Take the shuttle up to the upper bone display area and you’ll be able to gaze at a huge wall of dinosaur fossils in the rock, all in the comfort of an air conditioned hall. It is a really well done exhibit. We highly recommend it. The ‘wall of bones’ was actually a bend in an ancient river where after floods, the remains of dinosaurs who drown laid. It is really hard to imagine this area was around the equator then. Not only are the bones cool to see, the park offers lots of other activities. Hiking, rafting and exploring the mysterious canyons that makes up Dinosaur National Monument will sure to please. After our visit to the center, as is always the case when you don your raingear, the weather cleared up. Since we didn’t do breakfast at the campsite, we stopped in Vernal before heading south on US 40/191. This part of the trip wasn’t all that nice until US 191 split from US 40 at Helper, UT. Then the road got REALLY nice. It wound its way up through the mountains and through canyons. It was a really nice drive with NO traffic! The downside was that at the top of one of the mountains the temp dropped to 56 degrees! I would definitely drive the US 191 route again.
By the time we got to I-70 just south of Emery, UT, we decided to hotel it so we jumped on I-70 west to eat up some miles. We didn’t want to have to drive too many miles on Tuesday so we opted to stop at Beaver, UT for the night. That left us with about 200 miles to as Vegas Tuesday with a stop at Cedar Breaks National Monument along the way. It was a really good day with temps mostly in the 70’s all the way from Dinosaur. Anyone who has been out here in Utah in the summer can tell you that temperatures in the 70’s through the low country are a gift. It was a pretty good day at 350 miles.
Well, it will be back in Las Vegas tomorrow, August 5 for a few days then we are off, back up I-15 to Yellowstone, into Montana and then who knows?! So, there will sure to be more great parks in store so stay tuned, we’ll be back soon with our next installment of our National Parks Tour! Greg & Cynthia.