Day 286 Tue 16th Aug Salt Lake City to Vernal 439km

Last night we went out for dinner with Tex’s Daughter, her husband and two kids, (a boy and a girl.) Grandpa – Tex is a very good Grand Father in my opinion. Reed is very fond  of Grandpa Tex.

This morning we headed East, soon we were climbing and it became cooler. Then, only 80km into the ride Tex surprised us with a very nice stretch of Gravel road. the higher we climbed the more it started looking like the Karoo, and the road was a fast gravel highway, speeds of 120km was safe and one only needed to watch for stretches where the road was covered in small stones, like riding on marbles, so you had to quickly reduce speed to go through corners.

Tex had to squat-down to attend to a “Call of Nature” and he wore his helmet as he knows his friends and he knew we were surrounded by stones, clever man as there was not much cover for him.

Soon  we were climbing higher and the road started twisting and turning through a forest, with lakes and plenty of Camping Grounds where people were camping and boating for the holidays:

Then we crossed into the state of Wyoming, and the road changed to farmlands, lots of cattle and horses grazing on the green grass, passing through farms with the occasional rattle as we passed over the Cattle Grids in the road,  smelling the farmers cutting the grass long before passing them. We were on the Scenic Byway, beautiful.  My “Photo Model” Milsy always close by and available, riding up to the signs before me and giving my camera his best smile.

We passed through little towns, like Robertson, population 95, and Mountain View, Population 1290. In one of the small towns on route we found these two cousins selling Lemonade and Cool Aid, 50c a cup. We pulled up and completely rattled them, too many orders to deal with at once, trying to understand our foreign accents when we speak English,  Dollar Bills being stuffed into the Jar, they were raising money for a charitable cause the one said, so extra money was given. And then a bee stung the one little girl and she was shocked and started crying, we, all being fathers immediately tried to help and Pie held her hand to see if the “stinger” was still stuck into her hand. I pulled out my knife to offer it to Pie to scrape the stinger out and the girl was even more spooked, oops, my mistake. Luckily the stinger was not stuck in her hand and she stopped crying. They were very organized, mom was part of the planning team as there was a dustbin and kitchen towel and a table cloth.

All the time while we were crowding the lemonade stand the town Sherriff was parked 50 meters away carefully watching us, making sure we are part of the “Good Bikers” and not those giving us good-guys a bad name.

Then the landscape changed again and we entered back into Utah. Our lunch stop had an interesting sign at the cash register.

Then the landscape changed again as we climbed up  and down the mountain pass, into Dinosaur-country.

We were passing thorough an area rich with Fossil finds. The pass we were riding on, at an altitude of 2500m once was covered by the sea, which is now 1200km away, so when you read the signs along the road telling you that shark, sea-urchins,  coral and “large marine reptiles” were discovered in the “dunes” around us, you wonder, how much water was there all those millions of years ago to have covered this mountain we were riding over. One of the signs:

Below is a photo of the most attractive bike and rider, arguably, me on DadAss, I love her very much, she has not missed a beat. Only little issue was the brake reservoir I broke by falling in the soft sand.

Tomorrow we are going on a Hike to Dinosaur Monument where they are still busy digging and discovering fossils of Dinosaurs who once roamed this area before becoming distinct.