TravellingStrom

Sunday 5th April – Salt Lake City

Up and at em fairly early today, just to get some things done. The weather was excellent, clear skies, still cold though. But, first off I got a surprise phone call from Jim and Lesley, the Moto Guzzi couple whom I met in Oz on the west coast and we have been keeping in touch 🙂 They are on the east coast of the US down the south end of Mississippi and are staying the weekend; they gave me some interesting info about phones etc, so I may end up with one, when I get my money access sorted out.

OK, today my main goal was to finish off the electrical under the seat area, which I did and then get the Happy Trails system installed. This took a little bit of effort as the framework seemed to have bent a bit in transit, so I ended up using the vice and a bit of muscle to get things in the right spot. I did notice though a fatigue fracture on one of the supports under the rack system, not caused by the vice or me. I will show the HT people when I go visit them and see if it can be fixed, it is not serious.

Once I had installed them, it was just a matter of getting the Madstad bracket and windshield on and as Ken was itching to go for a ride, we did so 🙂 We were going to ride to a place called Lehi, about 50 miles south and look at some tents at a place called Cabelas.

We hit the road just after 10 and headed somewhere, I have no idea, but we stayed off the freeway and were mainly doing country roads. There was a lot of snow around and it was cold, I have to wait until next Tuesday for some hand guards! The views were spectacular though 🙂

We had travelled up into some high twisty roads and the temperature dropped even further, but after an hour or so we got to the shop. I decided that I would take my thermal underdaks in and put them on as I was freezing. Inside was amazing, they had built a mock mountain and it was covered in stuffed animals, a lot of it from around the area, some not.

I checked out the tent that had been advertised on the net, this is after we had to wait 15 mins while one was brought up from the warehouse. It was false advertising!!! The web site specifically said this particular tent had a vestibule at each entry with full fly, but the tent box showed and said it had door overhang, not a full fly. 😦 I was very disappointed, the guys at the shop were unhappy too as they failed to ‘upsize’ me! I just think it was a data entry error, not on purpose, but I was a bit pissed off. Never mind, I could look at another place Tuesday when The Tent Man is open, and then decide what to do from there.

We left and the car park was a hive of bikes, the good weather brought them out of the closet. 🙂

We did not have time to do a ride to Salt Lake itself to see the bison as it was a family dinner that evening and we had to be back by 5pm. So, instead we went to find a road that Ken sort of knew, down some more country roads.

We ended up at a dead end, but the view was worth it, so I took a photo opportunity. Now, how far from tropical Queensland has this fella travelled, eh?

As the snows were melting, the 4WD’s were out in force and we asked some locals for directions to a specific road, they had been mud bashing and were heading for some more.

So, we headed back down the hill, hopefully to take the right fork!

Once on the correct road we were passing through lots of orchards and I noticed these funny windmill things in the middle of the fields. I ended up finding out what they were from Ken after I pulled him up at the next intersection, so I went back and took this photo.

You can see what looks like a big propeller attached to a small hut on a big pole. Well that is what it is, there is a motor under the hut thing and when it looks like frost they fire these up and apparently the wind being blown across the fields stops ice forming.

Next stop was a small town/village called Goshen, not for any real reason except Ken is making up a slide show of all the towns around Utah, so he used today to grab another couple. 🙂

Then, although I had seen heaps of these signs, I have not been in a situation where I could easily pull over and grab a shot, so this time I managed it 🙂 This is my first North American road kill warning sign to add to my collection 🙂

Then we started homewards, this was a reasonably fast trip but by crikey it started to cool down, even with the thermals. I later found I was running the bike clock at the wrong time zone, so it should have read an hour later 🙂 We were running north and had about 50 mile or so to go when we passed Utah Lake, which I thought was Salt Lake, but was told later that it was a fresh water lake. I have not seen Salt Lake yet.

We eventually arrived at Kens place about 4’ish (proper time) with his family members starting to arrive, so it was good timing. We had a great meatloaf dinner, and some of the kids had birthday presents to open. It was a good evening but not a late one as there was school and work in the morning. Well, not for this little black duck, but you know what I mean.

I have worked out my distances as of now, so I will start adding them to the page as I go, assuming I remember of course 🙂 I may even put in the conversions as I go as well, who knows, but I had time this time.

Day ——————————–178ml———-285km
Total USA ————————–840ml———1344km
Trip Total ———————–22,240ml ——35,584km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

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