July 21, 2006 – Day 11 - 533 Miles Provo, UT to Salmon, ID
Provo, UT to Salmon, ID
Took off with Bobby J and Zelda this morning at 7:45 am. We met up with Zelda’s son, Byron, his lovely wife, Val, and Bob’s friends Mike and Jean A from Salt Lake City. They were going to take the Jackson Hole-Teton-Yellowstone-Beartooth ride mentioned earlier. We rode together to Brigham City on I-15, stopping for a late breakfast. A nice little ride with nice people topped off with breakfast on the road: in my book, you can’t start a day better than that (without having to make a Man Law of some kind). While Bobby J and gang headed up Logan canyon, I pushed on up I-15N to I-84W at Tremonton, merging into I-86W to Twin Falls. Managed to get off interstates at Twin Falls taking Idaho Hwy 93 north to Shoshone, then Hwy 75 north to Ketchum/Sun Valley, rejoining Hwy93 just south of Challis. From there it was a straight shot north to Salmon. This is a ride.
My friend Bobby J. is like Louis L’Amour. L’Amour used to preface his books with a statement relating to his geographical accuracy. He wrote that if he says there’s a spring there, there is…and the water’s good. If Bobby J. says a ride is great you believe it, the ride is great.
The first part of the ride north from I-86 is through farmland. (You know what they grow in Idaho…if not, ask Dan Quayle.) Then there are wide valleys covered with high meadow grasses and flowers, punctuated by lava rock fissures and upheavals where volcanoes erupted millions of years ago. The contrast between the black lava rock and the green grasses and wild flowers is special. The Big Wood River parallels the road off-and-on for periods and the elevation rises smoothly until you are in high mountain pass country, peaking out at about 8700 feet at the Galena Summit north of Ketchum/Sun Valley. Then you get to Stanley and the “RIDE” really starts. The Salmon River parallels the entire journey through craggy passes, past cliffs, with the usual rising and falling grades. The country is much like the Yellowstone-Teton area but with supple differences. It’s sort of hard to explain. It doesn’t seem as high, or as “sharp” as the others, but, somehow equally beautiful. There’s a “flow” to it Yellowstone-Teton lacks. It may be as simple as this route doesn’t offer the bumper-to-bumper tourist camper, trailer, motorcycle pack traffic you see through Yellowstone. Whatever it is, there’s a peace here that is really special. And the river…you can practically see the steelhead in your mind’s eye.
My plans were to stop in Stanley for the night, but my radio lost power, a further symptom of the lousy installation job performed by my local Kawasaki dealer on both the radio and horn. Can’t live without a radio, and I really want the horn working, so I decided to push on to Salmon tonight so I have extra time in Missoula tomorrow to see if I can get someone to fix this damn shorting problem. This pushed me into late afternoon riding with all the concerns that carries. Yep, I'm talking about moving animals.
I first perked up when I saw a sign saying, “Watch for Bighorn Sheep on the Road, Next 2.5 Miles.” Now there’s a sign you won’t see in Newark or Philadelphia, isn’t it? After 5:30pm I start watching for deer moving. Sure enough, just out of Stanley with the river now on my left, I see a small yearling doe, come out of the brush toward the highway. She stops, looks at me, and I slow down looking at her. It’s a toss up which of us looked at the other the most skeptically, but I think it was me. She froze with a look on her face that convinced me she wasn’t going to jump onto the road so I sort of coasted by her probably within twenty feet. This is close enough, even with a small deer. About and hour later we tried closer, with bigger (deer).
About twenty/twenty-five miles out of Salmon, there were four of us running up the twisting/turning road north. I was in the lead leaning into each turn and swaying out with full power…the sort of thing that makes riding a bike fun. A car coming the other way blinked his lights at me just before I entered a sharp turn to the right. The guy did me a favor. I slowed and just around the turn was a big mule deer doe. She would easily field dress to probably 125 to 150 lbs. This would hurt. She was moving sort of laterally to my route looking over her shoulder at me. I slowed and we kind of ran pace for pace for 50 feet or so, her slightly in front, then she bolted straight across the road. I had anticipated this, and had slowed to the point I was able to come almost to a stop and then veer left around her as she crossed into the thickets on the right side of the road. We probably came within five or six feet of each other, closer than I liked, but I was fond of the result. There was no game crossing sign in the area, supporting my belief that deer don’t read. I’ve never seen one anywhere near those damn signs. But, still I look, just as I did for the Bighorn Sheep I didn’t see either. I suspect they don’t read either.
While we are discussing road signs, Open Letter to Idaho: Hey, dummies, your Make Idaho Beautiful, Adopt a Road signs are visual pollution spaced about every damn mile with some ludicrous never-fly-tool-and-die-like company noted on them. Put a big plaque at the start with the companies names in an almost impossible-to-read, small font and forget it. If they are truly concerned with making it beautiful they won’t mind. If it’s about cheap advertising through government, tell ‘em to get a lobbyist. That’s what they do in Washington.
End of daily bitch, and report.
Rubberside down!
Took off with Bobby J and Zelda this morning at 7:45 am. We met up with Zelda’s son, Byron, his lovely wife, Val, and Bob’s friends Mike and Jean A from Salt Lake City. They were going to take the Jackson Hole-Teton-Yellowstone-Beartooth ride mentioned earlier. We rode together to Brigham City on I-15, stopping for a late breakfast. A nice little ride with nice people topped off with breakfast on the road: in my book, you can’t start a day better than that (without having to make a Man Law of some kind). While Bobby J and gang headed up Logan canyon, I pushed on up I-15N to I-84W at Tremonton, merging into I-86W to Twin Falls. Managed to get off interstates at Twin Falls taking Idaho Hwy 93 north to Shoshone, then Hwy 75 north to Ketchum/Sun Valley, rejoining Hwy93 just south of Challis. From there it was a straight shot north to Salmon. This is a ride.
My friend Bobby J. is like Louis L’Amour. L’Amour used to preface his books with a statement relating to his geographical accuracy. He wrote that if he says there’s a spring there, there is…and the water’s good. If Bobby J. says a ride is great you believe it, the ride is great.
The first part of the ride north from I-86 is through farmland. (You know what they grow in Idaho…if not, ask Dan Quayle.) Then there are wide valleys covered with high meadow grasses and flowers, punctuated by lava rock fissures and upheavals where volcanoes erupted millions of years ago. The contrast between the black lava rock and the green grasses and wild flowers is special. The Big Wood River parallels the road off-and-on for periods and the elevation rises smoothly until you are in high mountain pass country, peaking out at about 8700 feet at the Galena Summit north of Ketchum/Sun Valley. Then you get to Stanley and the “RIDE” really starts. The Salmon River parallels the entire journey through craggy passes, past cliffs, with the usual rising and falling grades. The country is much like the Yellowstone-Teton area but with supple differences. It’s sort of hard to explain. It doesn’t seem as high, or as “sharp” as the others, but, somehow equally beautiful. There’s a “flow” to it Yellowstone-Teton lacks. It may be as simple as this route doesn’t offer the bumper-to-bumper tourist camper, trailer, motorcycle pack traffic you see through Yellowstone. Whatever it is, there’s a peace here that is really special. And the river…you can practically see the steelhead in your mind’s eye.
My plans were to stop in Stanley for the night, but my radio lost power, a further symptom of the lousy installation job performed by my local Kawasaki dealer on both the radio and horn. Can’t live without a radio, and I really want the horn working, so I decided to push on to Salmon tonight so I have extra time in Missoula tomorrow to see if I can get someone to fix this damn shorting problem. This pushed me into late afternoon riding with all the concerns that carries. Yep, I'm talking about moving animals.
I first perked up when I saw a sign saying, “Watch for Bighorn Sheep on the Road, Next 2.5 Miles.” Now there’s a sign you won’t see in Newark or Philadelphia, isn’t it? After 5:30pm I start watching for deer moving. Sure enough, just out of Stanley with the river now on my left, I see a small yearling doe, come out of the brush toward the highway. She stops, looks at me, and I slow down looking at her. It’s a toss up which of us looked at the other the most skeptically, but I think it was me. She froze with a look on her face that convinced me she wasn’t going to jump onto the road so I sort of coasted by her probably within twenty feet. This is close enough, even with a small deer. About and hour later we tried closer, with bigger (deer).
About twenty/twenty-five miles out of Salmon, there were four of us running up the twisting/turning road north. I was in the lead leaning into each turn and swaying out with full power…the sort of thing that makes riding a bike fun. A car coming the other way blinked his lights at me just before I entered a sharp turn to the right. The guy did me a favor. I slowed and just around the turn was a big mule deer doe. She would easily field dress to probably 125 to 150 lbs. This would hurt. She was moving sort of laterally to my route looking over her shoulder at me. I slowed and we kind of ran pace for pace for 50 feet or so, her slightly in front, then she bolted straight across the road. I had anticipated this, and had slowed to the point I was able to come almost to a stop and then veer left around her as she crossed into the thickets on the right side of the road. We probably came within five or six feet of each other, closer than I liked, but I was fond of the result. There was no game crossing sign in the area, supporting my belief that deer don’t read. I’ve never seen one anywhere near those damn signs. But, still I look, just as I did for the Bighorn Sheep I didn’t see either. I suspect they don’t read either.
While we are discussing road signs, Open Letter to Idaho: Hey, dummies, your Make Idaho Beautiful, Adopt a Road signs are visual pollution spaced about every damn mile with some ludicrous never-fly-tool-and-die-like company noted on them. Put a big plaque at the start with the companies names in an almost impossible-to-read, small font and forget it. If they are truly concerned with making it beautiful they won’t mind. If it’s about cheap advertising through government, tell ‘em to get a lobbyist. That’s what they do in Washington.
End of daily bitch, and report.
Rubberside down!
posted by Minuend | 9:00 PM
1 Comments:
Sorry to hear about your mom. Brought back many memories of our ole town.
Know why, but wish you could have stopped by on the FL bypass. Donna and I would have loved to sit up till dawn listening to your story.
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