Road Trip: Searching for America

In kind of a first for us, we put our e-bikes and luggage in the back of our Durango and headed west without any reservations or fixed itinerary.  Our goals were to visit some attractive towns and ride some interesting bike trails.  First stop, Grand Junction, CO. What a great outdoors town!  Most significant for us is nearby Grand Mesa.  This was our third trip to the Mesa.  Imagine an alpine forest surrounded by desert.  For most of the region around Grand Junction, it would be easy to picture Wiley Coyote & Road Runner in their element.  But one hour's drive to the 10,000+ altitude of the Grand Mesa, and you are in an alpine environment.  On a previous trip we were hiking on the Mesa with snow falling while the temperature in the town was in the 60's.  This trip, Grand Junction temperature was in the 80's while the Mesa experienced 50's temps.  Grand Mesa is a unique geological phenomenon; the world's largest flat-topped mountain. It is topped with a thick layer of granite which acts as a basin for moisture, like a huge bird bath on a pedestal.

Looking down from Observation Point on the Mesa.  Grand Junction is on the upper left.

Although it is late summer and the lakes are getting low, much of the Mesa is covered with lush forest.

We next headed toward Salt Lake City, but decided to make our final destination the more scenic Park City.  We discovered two main biking trails; not as good as we were hoping for.  The trails held no shade, and we could feel the heat of a sunny day. We spent the morning riding the "rail trail"; then got tickets for some slope-side activities that afternoon and had dinner on Main Street in the old center of the area.  Park City is well organized with many shopping, eating, and accommodation options.  The slopes and lifts were about what you would expect in any ski town.  The surrounding mountainside appears more "brushy" than deep pine forest.  Being close to Salt Lake City is a significant advantage.

Although the slopes were typical for a ski area, the shopping, dining, and accommodations in Park City were extensive and well-organized.

Leaving Park City on I-80, we descended into the SLC basin and immediately became symptomatic from the air pollution (sneezing, stuffy, itchy eyes).  We stopped at Great Salt Lake; it has brine flies and brine shrimp but no fish.  The air was hazy enough that the lake surface simply receded into the haze with no distant landmarks. We headed north past Ogden to find clean air.

Antelope Island in the distance on the Great Salt Lake.

Final stop for the day was Idaho Falls.  Our first impression is very favorable. Our hotel is on the Snake River.  After dinner (outdoors riverside), we went for a long bike ride along the river and discovered a free music concert at a riverside park.

A music concert in the riverside park.

These are the actual Idaho Falls on the Snake River; the falls are wide but not high.

Next stop was Victor, Idaho, which got us close to the Tetons without paying Jackson Hole prices or enduring Jackson traffic.  Victor is about four blocks long but has a variety of restaurants.  We were able to take a bike ride up nearby Darby Canyon.  Our disappointment with Tetons/Yellowstone National Parks was the small number of trails where bicycles are allowed.

We were only able to complete a portion of the Darby Canyon trail as it became too rough for our bikes.

  The Tetons have to rank among the world's most scenic mountains; rugged, rocky peaks with glacier-clad crevices.  Unfortunately, recent forest fires in the West have cast a haze over the entire region diminishing the clarity of distant scenes.  We re-visited Jackson Lake, where we had boated a few years ago; then went on to Yellowstone.  Yellowstone is so big that we were only able to see a small portion in our one-day visit.  At one point a big bull bison blocked our lane of the paved road, just ambling along.  It did allow us a great close-up shot when we were finally able to safely pass him.  We also observed an adult grizzly bear on a hillside a couple hundred yards away; you could see the hump on his back, a telephoto shot.  On a previous trip we had encountered a young female grizzly, but at a much closer range.

Colter Bay marina on Jackson Lake with the Tetons in the background.

This big bull bison decided to amble down the road, and nobody argued with him.

Finally, the bison let us pass in our vehicle.

Finally it was time for a long drive home.  We stopped overnight in Rawlins to see my brother & wife, Jay & Connie, and had a great dinner and conversation.  Dawn & I try to imagine living in a smaller, more remote, town and how shopping must be.  The great advantage being the lack of crowds and congestion.  Our Dodge Durango drove completely across Wyoming, Victor ID to Fort Collins CO, 475 miles on 21.5 gallons of gas (with 3 gallons left in the tank).  It is a great vehicle for trips like this.

Final stretch, south along the Front Range to our home near Monument, we were back driving in an endless stream of traffic, and the haze was significant enough that the mountains were only slightly visible looking west from I-25.  Great to be home.