August 4th, 2010 - Day 5
On the fifth day of my trip, I woke up in Vernal, Utah. I was waking up in a city in a state I’d never been in before. If I had any lingering questions about where I was or going, they quickly evaporated. I left the motel relatively early and passed Fort Duchesne for the third time in ten hours, no sign of the dog and her pup. I ended up filling up with gas at the station in Roosevelt that I’d filled up the night before.
Arriving in Heber City from the southeast is an almost religious experience, you round a corner and then you’re facing the south face of Clayton Peak, which is looking over the city like a stone guardian. After a brief lunch at a cool little restaurant I headed for Salt Lake City. Riding through sparsely populated areas with only the occasional population center spoiled me and left me ill prepared to deal with the traffic nightmare that was waiting for me between Heber and Salt Lake City. The lights are a few miles apart and it’s guaranteed that you will always hit the next one while it’s red. Very few of the drivers used their turn signals and nearly hit me a few times.
Salt Lake City’s statehouse is on top of a hill (mountain) and nearly the highest point in the city, I think one of their temples is the only thing higher. After doing the standard capital dance, I was looking forward to hitting the road and getting away from the city. Since Boise, Idaho was next and it’s northwest of Salt Lake City, I was expecting to head north and west. Gypsy told me I was headed east, sometimes I’m glad I listened to her this time, other times, not so much. If I’d followed the directions I’d printed off from Google, I would have missed Cache National Forest, it was a nice respite from the city and I couldn’t believe how close it was to the city. Unlike the sprawling metroplexes of the plains that have suburbs than go on for so long that they become exurbs, a lot of the the cities in the mountains are cities with abrupt ends, it’s refreshing.
After consuming and digesting the curves of Cache National Forest, I was sated for a while. I had the feeling I was adding a few hours to my trip by heading west when I hit Wyoming again. I was worried that I was trusting the gypsy too much and that it would lead me astray, and it would, but not today. When it was beginning to go dark I noticed a few antelope on the side of the road on the other side of a fence, I turned around to get a photo but they bounded away. They were the first indication that I wasn’t going to have a good time getting photos of animals.
I stopped in Afton, Wyoming for the evening, staying at the Hi Country Inn. The woman running the inn informed me that during certain times of the year they have a huge pack of wolves that descend the walls of the valley, that day was apparently not that time of year. They were having a county fair in town, but I was too tired. Looking back on it, had I more time, I would have stopped at every celebration that was going on.