We bought some groceries for dinner (shish-ke-bobs) and camped at Millsite State Park which was probably our most scenic campsite.
Located along the Millsite Reservoir and with hardly anyone there, we had a nice scenic campsite, a fire, and even showers! We used some of the meat I saved from my dinner at Ridgeway along with other stuff we bought and had an awesome dinner with hostess donette's for dessert (my favorite "bad" snack).
We had a guy camping a couple spots away on a BMW 1200 GS and invited him over to share our fire.
It was a nice clear night where we could see the stars and enjoyed a nice conversation around the fire. We rode 332 miles today and it really didn't seem that far.
Tuesday, September 28, 2021
Our goal today is Wendover, Utah where the Bonneville Salt Flats are located. Tim got up around 6:30 and got a fire going. Dave and I were slower getting out of our tents, but we eventually got there. We got some breakfast going and started our daily packing up. We left the campground around 9am and headed into Ferren to fuel up and continue heading northwest. We rode through Huntinton and turned left on to state route 31 which was a pleasant road taking us through central Utah.
My earlier travels through Utah left me with the impression that it was a primarily desert state and for the southern parts, it is. But the central area that we were riding through was lots of hills with aspens, beech, tamaracks, and firs giving us a very colorful scenic ride during late September when everything is changing colors.
Route 31 takes us through Fairview and from there we took US89 down to Mt. Pleasant, then a shortcut on 116 over to 132 so we could head north again. The reason for that was we were going to take the Nebo Scenic Byway. And scenic it was! A nice and twisty road that on a Tuesday was not crowded at all. We were able to keep a decent pace enjoying the serpentine nature of the road while taking in the smash of colors that was on every turn. This is a fully paved road, but I would recommend it to anyone especially in the fall when the colors are at their best.
All good things do come to an end though, and eventually we rolled into Payson for lunch (Arby's) at 12:30pm. When I say good things came to an end, I mean it. From there west is nothing but flat, arid land with high winds coming from the north. We took US6 to Eureka, then 36 north through Stockton and Tooele, then Grantsville and finally I-80, the slab, and the nearly straight road due west. The winds were constantly from the north at around 35-40 mph and so we were leaning right for nearly 100 miles. There are no pictures of this horror. It was ugly – worse than Wyoming – and we didn't think it would get worse than that. We were on the freeway from 3:30pm until we got off at a few minutes shy of 5pm. I have to say that it felt like a lot longer. Only the last 5 minutes or so were we out of the wind, finally blocked a little bit by the peaks just north of Wendover and the Bonneville Salt Flats. Like other days, we had planned to camp but the wind just beat us down and we elected for a motel again. We were able to get a couple rooms at the Motel 6. It was 331 miles today and it felt like much more.
Tom Clark
I'm a Senior Software Engineer at Intellitect, living in Spokane, Washington. I also do a little development work on the side. And I love riding motorcycles all over the country with my friends.
