Day 11 and 12 August 18

Man and River

S sleeping 

From our room in Utah somewhere north west of Ogden

Losing track of time after days of travel and hotels; morning at Best Western Plus aka The High Country Inn in Ogden, UT.  Moved on through wheat and sage mostly with apple and grape and corn to the Quality Inn in Selah some miles west of Yakima. Free and healthy breakfast there; well, free... sort of. One of those rotating waffle machines that can go so wrong in the quiet of those hotel free breakfast rooms. Stopped in to see R in Hillman City where she is sitting cats after the fire. They may have me come in tomorrow to get the bed frame out of the burned debris if it is not burned.
Adventure after adventure, on and on.

Day 10 August 16th

S, Mr. Simpson and Dr. Ruud

Well, truthfully this is a quick record of days 10, 11 and 12 which have definitely been non-travel days for me at least because of having to deal with what I felt was a problem with the brakes on the van and some laundry emergencies that fell to me since S has taken some fishing opportunities. I have mostly only taken random bike excursions around town.Food has been good and certainly plentiful here with a large dinner party last night at the Sauce on the Blue in downtown Silverthorne. Doctor Ruud's wine choices were especially tasty - shout out for the Meiomi Pinot Noir.Yesterday I took the van to Ski Country Shell and Towing for to see about mushy brake pedal action. Later in the day Eric of SCS and T called to say the master cylinder was bad and he could overnight the part from Tucson and install today for $831. S was agin it but I got to choose and told Eric to go ahead and launch the operation. He almost completely promised to get it done today, Thursday, as S was yelling in the background that she had to be at the Seawall Park meeting on Monday as a matter of national security.Today, Thursday, opened with a 5 am Pacific time text from R that her house in Seattle burned down. All persons in the house are physically unharmed but shell-shocked understandably. R will need a whole new wardrobe, a new key to her car, a computer, probably a phone and a place to live. Trouble is we are here without a vehicle and she is there without many things including a sense of security. To distract from anxiety about R's anxiety S and I went for a bike ride around the lake but at the halfway point S turned back and I said since we were halfway why not go all the way but no S said. So I went on and got lost in the various toney subdivisions and ski destinations and pedaled miles eastward on state hwy 6 in to the Rockies,  thirsty and the wrong way and no shoulder and of course with the low oxygen and high ultraviolet. My man Eric at the Ski Country Shell and Towing called as I neared the top of Swan Mountain with the not wholly thrilling news that the van was finished at the slightly reduced price of $823. Eric mentioned that I sounded out of breath and that he had been an athlete at Leadville high school which was in a town (Leadville) known for its high altitude/low oxygen and for a century of lead mining and subsequent lead contamination. I thanked Eric and had a nice nap and a nutritious and emotional dinner once I eventually got back to the house.

Home page photo from Ski Country Shell and Towing web site

Day 9 August 14th

Today was an aimless time at least for this tourist in which I did not walk with the rest but rode the bike about the area. Heat was an issue but not that feeling of asphyxiation one gets up here when hiking up hill. Some chores were done such as an appointment to have the van brakes checked with a bike-by of the service station offering the brake check (place looked authentic), new grips to replace sticky melting ones and some bike lube and batteries for the van electronic key which is sketchy for some reason. Everyone came home about 3 pm and our subgroup made a nice dinner and the hot tub made an appearance after its refreshment by Tub Heaven a commercial outfit here in town.

Day 8 August 12th

In a cohort of 12 or maybe a few more the recording of a fraction of the interactions daunts. Suffice to say that today we walked hard for 12 miles above 12 thousand feet. There were fewer expressions of friendship or expressions of much due to the lack of oxygen and a surfeit of intense ultraviolet. The rest was big dinner in house after which much singing. 

Day 7 August 11th

Breakfast at the Quality was edible but an oddly alien formulation of standard ingredients, but edible is edible and free is free. But you have to ask, is it really? Waiting for S who is up in room 247 engaged in long distance Seawall Park work.  Meanwhile I shake the road dust from the bedding. Soon enough I can turn key and enjoy the gargle of van diesel. The high drivers perch suits as well and off we go. Also soon we stop for coffee at the Red Buffalo in Silverthore followed shortly by bbq and quickly thereafter we were in Frisco at the house meeting the people. There followed many arrivals and expressions of friendship and a fairly joyous round of cornholing which unexpectedly I was somewhat the natural at. 

Day 6 August 10th

Greenhorn in the Green River

petroglyps

The Casbah

This is the falls from the Snake River Falls camp - the Snake doesnot fall only a small side river - also mystery smudge

Diorama of famous fossil hunter and his prosthethic limb

Dinosaur Brew Haus

We got up but we didn't go anywhere right away mainly because S did not want to; she wanted to go swimming (again). So I guess I wanted to work on the water system which was sputtering to the point of being useless. So I messed with it and refilled one of the plastic tanks the pump draws from and this helped a little. S made a nice breakfast of omelette and bacon with banshee toast (the last of that loaf). Not long after we left at 10 am we arrived at the Dinosaur National Monument and 105 degree heat. Dinosaur history had been the subject of an audio book S and I had been listening to for the last several days so the monument was appropriate. After the Quarry House with its wall of in situ bones we struck off for Josie Morris' homestead down in the park and walked the trails to two separate box canyons of magnificent proportions. Before the monument I should mention we had a sumptuous lunch at the Dinosaur Brew Haus in Vernal, UT.; raucous but with clear attention to the quality of the burger. Also of note within the monument was a float in the Green River for the cooling. When I had previously asked the girl behind the counter at the Quarry House I was admonished that entering the Green other than to ankle depth at the boat launch was simply out of the question, but no it wasn't. After a couple three hours at the monument we blasted toward a town called Maybell sort of looking for a string of Yampa River side state parks and sort of thinking about a hotel. I compose this record now at the Quality Inn in Craig, CO after kind of dinking about with a nice German fellow at his hotel across from the fair grounds where there was too much noise from the fair and he told us to go to this other place run by his friend at the other end of town but that was slightly sketchy looking (big sign on the highway for the place was blown out, for one thing). So the Quality it was. A good day and tomorrow the start of the real reason for this trip: visiting with a select group of S's friends from Texas at a house owned by one of them in a place called Frisco, CO.

Day 5 August 9th

Flaming Gorge Resevoir 1

Swan Valley/Irwin to Flaming Gorge

Flaming Gorge Res 2

We tried this section of Flaming Gorge Resevoir camp but it didn't seem to have restfulness at the level we sought 

Swan Valley to Manila

Again, out early without the benefit or desire really for breakfast.  That attitude changed about 61 miles south at Heggs Cafe in Afton Wyoming. We spoke of a light meal but alas fell prey to cowboy portions of pancakes, bacon, sausage and coffee and that was only mine. After some bumpy, some smooth, some Idaho, some Wyoming and Utah we hauled into Fossil Butt National Monument and were once again a little awed by the willingness of the federal government to spent lavishly on shrines to natural history and the splendid results. On to Flaming Gorge Reservoir, that jewel of the man made West, where inserted ourselves in a spot to behold. Awning up doing a fine job, down to the water for the obvious, watching the fish hawks and antelope play, on the bike to check the price of this place for the night I heard a loud crack-thump and turned to see an adult osprey plumment straight down from a power line to earth. I set the bike aside and walked to a randomly burned and clearly dead bird. As the guy said, sitting across the field in the shade thrown by his rv, “At least it was quick.”