Day 1 8/8/08
More like day -1 for Gabe,
Ama and me. We departed Monroe last night at 4pm heading to La
Grande, OR. Jon struggled with the departure but I think once he realizes he gets to fly to Denver on an
airplane and his brother
doesn’t he will be fine. The journey last night was uneventful. We stopped in Yakima at a
DQ for dinner and shared the restaurant with a group of
Wildland Firefighters fresh off the lines of a few local spot fires. As the sun set it glowed a dark red as its light filtered through the smoke of many small brush fires in the area. A few were stopped in their tracks by the ribbon of asphalt we drove the rest were controlled by ten foot wide
firelines, scars in the brush exposing raw soil and separating fuel from fire. In a perfect scenario a bulldozer or piece of machinery would create a perfect
fireline in minutes but from the looks of terrain these lines were handmade by similar rough hands as those sitting across the room eating ice cream.
We crossed the Colombia River around 9pm and wandered into La Grand along I-84. The La
Grande Inn was a welcomed sight at 10:30pm we pulled in, found a room and promptly sacked out.
Day 2 8/9/08
Early to rise I discovered a Starbucks within walking distance of the Inn,
aah, I’m better now. After a quick continental breakfast of cereal, donuts and juice we are off into the sagebrush covered hills of Eastern Oregon heading south along the historic route of the Oregon Trial.
Idaho brings with it a rip-roaring 90+ degree dry heat. We stopped in Boise to stretch on the campus of Boise State University where Gabe took a full body dip in the Boise River, while
Ama broke into a science building and made off with some sort of 3-eyed fish specimen. She claims we can EBay it for gas money. I think the,”I just needed to use the facilities.” comment was a ploy, but ya never know. (Okay, so I made up the fish thing.) Off we go south to Twin falls for a quick refueling and Tropical Mango Gatorade. Gabe chose a fake-
Slurpee instead. The roads in southern Idaho are a collection of well maintained 75mph straightaway’s linked by sweeping banked corners allowing for the increased speeds. We find it is best to stay in the smoother left hand lane as the double and triple semi trucks tend to maintain a slower speed in the right hand lane. Pulling off I-84 there is a 4 mile spur into Twin Falls that passes over the Snake River. The view of the gorge reminds me of the view from I-90 as you cross the Columbia River in Vantage Washington. We are flying by potato fields filled with lush green plants and miles waving golden wheat fields.
I napped as we passed by the “Welcome to Utah” sign. A few minutes later as I awoke from my power nap we were heading south for the Great Salt Lake.
Ama wanted to stop and swim in the lake so we investigated the chances of actually getting into the lake. We found that Antelope Island was the place to go. It was a bit out of the way for us but it was well worth the drive. According to the locals the level of the lake has been dropping over the last few years. When we pulled up to the beach area we found that we had to walk about a quarter mile over very hot sand just to get to the shallow water. I remember reading about the lake as a child and seeing photos of people floating on their backs and reading a book or magazine.
Well it is true you can float. Normally when I exhale I become negatively buoyant but in the very salty water of The Great Salt Lake even when I exhaled completely I could float high enough to have my hands and feet above the surface. It was a great and interesting experience to enjoy the water. We only spent about fifteen minutes in the lake as we were on a bit of a time crunch, having heard of construction delays on the road leading to Rock Springs WY. Walking back to the car was a foot frying dance in the hot sand. By the time we made it back to the parking area we were completely dry and coated with a sparkling dust of salt crystals. After a quick freshwater rinse and a change of clothes we departed for Wyoming
but not before hitting the local Starbucks for an iced mocha. We found lodging in
Evanston, a small growing town of truck stops and hotels. I took a few minutes to get in a run while
Ama and Gabe swam in the hotel pool. Dinner, Olympics on TV and bed time.
Day 3 8/10/08
Today we are off to the
Flaming Gorge park (back to Utah) in search of dinosaur tracks, we hear they are here somewhere, we can hardly wait. The adventure of actually finding the fossilized tracks was interesting. We drove to Vernal, UT and spent some time in the Verna Field House viewing the wonderful paleontology
display, it was amazing.
We did however discover we had inadvertently driven past the road leading to the foot prints. The poorly marked (The sign was facing the other direction and was all off four inches by twenty-four inches, Kind makes ya feel link they don’t want people to come visit. I guess that is better in the long run for the longevity of the fossils.) The footprints were amazing, depressions permanently formed in the sandstone on the shore of the Red Fleet Reservoir.
The approach hike was a roasting mile-and-a-half walk through a soft sand carpeted juniper forest. It was worth the ten mile retracing of lost miles and dehydrating hike.
We clicked off the remaining miles to Steamboat, tossing in a quick stop for ice cream, with expediency, arriving at the rental house around 4:00pm.
It was a blast.
It was a blast.
Then it 
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