Took
88 out of CA over to 395 and up into Reno, spent the night there and met
with the CPA who was working on my personal tax return. Headed outta there
early afternoon on 80E to Winnemucka (not much happenin' there!) then
95N to McDermit, right at the OR border and spent the night.
3rd day out I stayed on 95N (got stopped not far into OR for not having my headlight on - guy couldn't figure out what to do with me because CA doesn't require a special license for riding a trike and OR does so he told me to turn my headlight on and let me go) till Nampa then 55E just long enough to get to 78E (kinda runs parallel to 84E) and stopped in Hammett for gas and food and how to get to Twin Falls. REAL down home people there, one lady let me try her drink just so I could see how it tasted! Got good backroad directions over to Twin Falls and spent the night there.
4th
day 30E to 81S and finally caught 84S toward SLC but still pretty early
and looked like rain on down south so turned east again and went through
Logan up 89 to Bear Lake, a most scenic ride - too bad I didn't have my
camera! Down 30 from there to Randolph for food and gas and weather starting
to look kinda ominous. Everybody at the gas station said forget going
back over the mountains on 39 (Monte Cristo summit), could be snowing
up there for all they knew. Crap. Started to sprinkle. Crap. Headed south
on 16 and made it to Evanston, WY and spent the night there. Didn't get
too soaked but completely covered with bug goo from the cold rain and
cow pastures along the way.
5th day was glad I was in WY (Mormons in UT got this thing about making it easy to buy booze) and saw a liquor store on the way into town so stopped by there to refill my whiskey supply and headed on down to SLC on 80W. Pretty funny: overshot my original destination by 100mi and had to backtrack! Made it down there and warmed up in the sun and other side of the mountains from where the storm was still lashing about. Rode all over the place till finally finding the hotel where we were staying and got to get my act together again before going out to dinner with the rest of the meeting participants. (The meeting was the excuse for the ride, I'm on the customer advisory board of the real estate group I hooked up with a couple of years ago to show me places to invest.) This was Thu Aug 26. Spent Fri and Sat in meetings, then a party at the owner's house and got totally plastered on Martinis and took all of Sunday to recover enough to go out and replenish supplies before taking off on Monday headed for Jackson Hole.
After I had gone down the road I got an e-mail from the owners son with a picture of a poster he had in his room that I somehow found quite entertaining after all the martinis at the party on Saturday. Maybe if you get really drunk it'll be entertaining to you as well?
The Stranger
