Easy Rider 2006: Day Three - Blackfoot to SLC

It is only 149 miles from Blackfoot to Salt Lake City -- if one sticks to the Interstate. But why would one want to do that when we could do it in 224 miles? The Interstate is a long slab of hot concrete with big triple-trailer rigs wearing ruts in the road surface that grab bike tires and drag you all over. It goes straight as an arrow, and you miss things. The Interstate forces you to go fast -- 75 mph or more just to avoid getting run over. No, who would want that unless they had to? Certainly not us. It appears however that this deviates from the norm -- and the powers that be keep conspiring to MAKE us take the Interstate, and constantly try to direct us or redirect us to it. Try being the operative word here....It seems at every exit, every turn, and every junction, there was a sign telling us to go back to the Interstate "THIS WAY", or even misdirecting US Highway signs pointing to the Interstate as well. We refused to fall for that conspiracy.

This short hop to SLC began with the ubiquitous "breakfast buffet", consisting at the Best Western Blackfoot -- of generic "wheat oh's" and bagels, with tepid weak coffee. We loaded up the bikes, gassed up, and tried to find US-91, the north-south route that was the old road between Northern Utah and Idaho. The main road in Blackfoot was signed for "Interstate 15 Loop", which is the bypass route that was set up in vain to try and get the lemmings off the concrete slab. It really doesn't work, but its where you find the local hangs and dives that serve great burgers and shakes and stuff like that. This did indeed turn into US-91, which, when we found it, we settled back into the bikes, put our feet up on the travel pegs and cruised under the cursed freeway and followed the rail line to the next town. Old roads tend to follow old rail lines -- this one was no exception, and we'd wave at the engineers to get them to blow their horns, and enjoyed the empty road, the cool morning temperatures, and the solitude of the byway. US-91 was once THE major road between Ogden, UT, and northern Idaho, through Idaho's Cache Valley and beyond. The Union Pacific line to Butte, Montana paralleled the route, and there were lots of little monuments set up by the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers to mark history potty-break stops or some such thing. There is (was) generally a small town every 15 miles or so, and many of them cling to life of some sort now that it has passed them by on the Interstate a few miles to the north-west. It's where we found a cool abandoned gas station that hadn't pumped gas in some time -- well before it went over $1 a gallon anyway.

If old US-91 is a side road, then we went off of the side road onto an even more side road -- named the "West Side Highway". It's really more of a farm road, that Idaho maintains by spraying tar down and sprinkling rock chips every few years. It also runs down the West side of the Cache Valley -- hence the name -- trough a string of very very small farm towns, one of which is where my Mother was born and raised.

Clifton, Idaho -- population in the low three digits, has a single gas station/store and a post office, a Mormon ward house, and a handful of my relatives. My "aunt" Jane (really my Grandmother's sister), once ran the store and post office and gas station, but is now 86, a widow, and winters in St. George Utah with the rest of the retired Mormons these days. She was however in Clifton when two sweaty, leather clad Harley Riding guys roared to a stop next to her house, which is next to the store. Once she figured out we were harmless, she insisted we come in and then insisted on going next door to the store to get us a fantastic bar-b-que lunch -- which no one else knows about since they are all stuck on that insane Interstate the other side of the valley. We had a nice, but short visit with Jane and then road off down the West Side Highway and crossed into Utah.

It got very warm after lunch and we went around Logan, Utah -- something I was hesitant to do, but the traffic congestion on the one road through town is insane and it was rather hot and the stop/go traffic would have been no fun. We picked up US 91 again at the end of the Cache Valley and rode over Sardine Pass to Brigham City Utah. At this point we had only a short stretch of US-89, which I thought would be cooler than the super-slab since when I was growing up this road was lined with miles and miles of fruit trees and orchards and the shade was very cool, and there were lots of little drive ins and fruit stands to stop and get refreshed at. Alas, they have all been replaced by tract houses as this is now part of the Utah Urban Sprawl. We opted to high-tail it to Salt Lake for a cool shower, so we genuflected and throttled up the on-ramp to I-15.

I don't think either of us had been more miserable this trip than the stretch from Brigham City to Salt Lake. The freeway was under construction, the traffic heavy, the speed limit an insane 75 mph, and we got stuck behind several "almost" empty dump trucks who had just enough sand to spit out little grains every few seconds which felt like a visit to the acupuncturist.

By the time we got to Bountiful, about 10 miles from SLC, Tony signaled he'd had enough and we exited off onto US 89 and right into the lap of an old "Dairy Ann" drive in, where we promptly stopped for an ice cream and a break. After that, we decided to stick to 89 and come into SLC the "old" way behind the Capitol building. We cruised through town, and were tempted to stop by and say hello to my Mother and her husband Ron who are tour guides for the Mormon Church -- we thought our road weary, sweaty biker look would go over big and maybe scare a few old ladies at the same time. However, the cool shower at home was too tempting, so we made it to my Mother's house a little after 3p.

So now we are showered, in clean clothes, and waiting for Mom and Ron to get home so we can go to dinner. We'll rest in SLC for a day or so -- it will be nice to NOT get on the bikes, except for a run to SLC Harley for a tune up for the next leg of the trip -- we'll drop the bikes all day at the dealer tomorrow, and be ready to go Sunday morning after the Chorus sings at a couple of Baptist churches and boards their buses for Pocatello, Idaho, for the first show on Sunday night. We'll also take a break from the blog, so until then...

From a cool, air-conditioned couch in my Mother's house...

Gary and Tony