No dirt roads lately – on the bike anyway. We did go on a road trip, (in the car). An epic road trip according to our oldest grandson, J.C. who went with us. We picked him up at the airport in Denver and headed west on Interstate 70 across colorful Colorado. Through the Eisenhower Tunnel and the depths of Glenwood Canyon.
I-70 might just be the prettiest section of Interstate in the entire country but it’s still Interstate, with limited access, crowded conditions and little Interstate Oases at prescribed distances along a sterile corridor. Interstate highways are at the opposite end of the spectrum from dirt but when you need to get somewhere fast, they sure come in handy.
And we were on a fairly tight schedule, at least for the out bound leg. A mission to adopt the newest member of the 3mph tribe, an 8 week old Epagnuel Breton puppy – Xam. We made it across Colorado and into Utah on day one, where we camped at Green River State Park. From there we witnessed the last super, blue moonrise we’ll see for over a decade. The next one isn’t scheduled until 2037.
The iridescent, super moon made quite a spectacle, peeking through the clouds and reflecting off the milky, green river. I made a poor decision to leave the rain fly off the tent so we could watch the moon traverse the night sky. The clouds were portending something quite different however. The wind came up hard and whipped the tent mercilessly into the middle of the night. J.C. said “I’m scared” and we said “yeah, so are we.”
The 23 year old REI tent held together but it reminded me of another camping trip with one of my sons to Colorado Bend State Park down in Texas. A storm moved in and the wind rocked the tent, snapping one of the fiberglass poles. I was up most of the night trying to hold the tent together, so it wouldn’t shred, letting the rain in. In fact, this tent was the replacement for that one.
Lesson: Always buy tents with quality aluminum poles. Aluminum can be rebuilt, fixed and tuned while fiberglass can only be thrown in the landfill. The same for steel vs carbon bikes. If you want to ride on dirt, save yourself some pain, just get the steel bike.
I had to go out at 2 AM with a flashlight to put the rain fly on, in the dark, after it started raining. The last super, blue moon for a decade and it was hiding behind the clouds. I think adventure and adversity must get delivered in the same package. Interestingly, once I got the tent all sealed up tight, the wind and rain begin to taper off significantly, hmm.
“It always rains on tents. Rainstorms will travel thousands of miles, against prevailing winds for the opportunity to rain on a tent.” ~ Dave Barry
By morning it had cleared off and we had breakfast burritos before breaking camp and continuing the journey north. Over the pass into Provo and then I-15 through the heart of the Great Salt Lake Basin. It reminded me of the Colorado Front Range. Towns and cities, stacked one atop the other all the way up I-15. An inland sea of humanity on par with the Great Salt Lake.
Utah is the fastest growing state in the U.S. right now and 3 million folks call the basin home, that’s around 80% of the state’s population. They can have it as far as I’m concerned, I’ll take the dirt roads on the Colorado Plateau in SE Utah any day. I would have gone around the whole mess instead of through the middle of it but J.C. had the “Great Salt Lake” on his bucket list.
So we made our way across the causeway onto Antelope Island, the perfect place to experience the Great Salt Lake. Sadly the largest inland sea in the western hemisphere is in real trouble. Between the decades long drought and the overpopulation of the basin, the lake is rapidly dwindling away. And it’s not just sad, it’s dangerous.
The upstream water has been diverted for decades to grow hay and alfalfa and the repercussions of a diminished Great Salt Lake aren’t merely beached sailboats and sad tourists. The real problems are species extinction and toxic dust clouds inundating local communities. We experienced the dust cloud first hand on our visit.
The water level was so low that we had to trudge through the soft sand for over half a mile to make our way to the edge. The wind was blowing so hard that we were getting sand blasted. The touristy trip to the edge of the Great Salt Lake felt like a struggle to survive. J.C. made the mistake of wearing his slides instead of putting on shoes and when they slipped off near the edge of the lake, they were gone.
He made a valiant effort chasing them into the lake up to his knees attempting to capture them but he was no match for the wind on that day and we watched as his slides sailed over the horizon, riding the wind. Two little Nike sailboats. Then of course we had to struggle back up the slope through the soft sand and sharp rocks, with the wind filling our eyes, noses and mouths with toxic dust, yuck.
So it was with a happy heart that I drove across the border into Idaho, leaving the Great Salt Lake Basin behind. We were all pretty thrashed from our tourist debacle on Antelope Island, so we chose the hotel/motel option on night #2. To be continued…
