Saturday, July 27th: Provo, UT or … we are now frontrunners!

It has finally happened – the sun is giving way for some grey clouds…What a bummer! But wait, my woman is checking information on the computer and she has a great idea. Let’s use the new Frontrunner train from Salt Lake City all the way to Provo! It’s only one hour on the train and it costs 6$10. That’s a great deal! At 10 a.m. we hang out on the platform, waiting for our train to come. A bit anxious to know how we’ll get Sweet Machine on it. While waiting, my woman starts a conversation with this lady: a nurse for a week in California – a grandma for a week in Provo! She flies every week back and forth! The pay in California is three times as much as here in Utah and she flies for free (family working for the airline) – so a house in California and a house in Utah sounds like a perfect idea! The train is wonderful – a special wagon for cyclists in it! 

So we arrive in Provo around noon – plenty of time to play in the bookstore of Brigham Young University. When we finally get out of the bookstore, it is sprinkling just a little bit. Now we head back down and after eating a bagel at Einstein bros we head to our hotel – we think. The woman checking us in is so excited about us coming from Belgium, since she’ll be going there in a week or two. My woman and her get to talk a bit about Belgium and traveling around. Finally we get to go to our room to relax from our hard day (?) on the road!

Thursday, July 25th and Friday, July 26th: Salt Lake City, UT or … ouch, ouch, ouch

Two days to get the muscles in the legs and the hips back in shape… Walking isn’t that easy and my woman doesn’t feel too comfortable leaving Sweet Machine locked up to something. But still, we manage a visit to Barnes and Noble (bookstore) and Dick’s (sporting goods). We also get some explanation about the Surface RT (Windows) and we also visit the Apple Store. There is also some time for laundry needed. But mostly we both relax and chill out (in the afternoon). 

Wednesday, July 24th: Salt Lake City, UT or …run woman, run!

At 5 a.m. the alarm sounds. Get up and jump into your running outfit, woman! Yup, she’s going for a 10 km run. The sun isn’t even up yet, but she is going to do this. A taxi is waiting for her at 5.30 a.m., taking her all the way to the east side of the valley – university property. A lot of people are there – lines for the portable rest rooms. My woman feels a bit nervous, but her goal is just to keep on running and finish. Time is not important. At 6 a.m. – or just a bit before – she can hear the countdown at the starting line. Time to start running! Most of the course is downhill, which seems to make this run easy, but actually one has to brake with every step. Don’t go too fast in the beginning– was my advice. Many runners pass her in the first half, but later on she is the one who passes the others. There are some women and men who are pushing a stroller where kids are sitting in. There is a 89 year old guy, a 82 year old grandmother with angel wings on her back… It’s just one mix of runners. Halfway she gets a cup of water… that’s hard – keep on running and drink at the same time! Comes the turn into the street where the parade will pass at 9 a.m. Here people on blankets and in chairs are giving out high-5’s, cheering the runners…My woman almost starts to cry…This is wonderful! What a great feeling! It doesn’t matter if people know you are not! One mile before the finish another cup of water is given. Then comes the turn into 700S street … the finish is slightly uphill and the rays of the sun are now playing in my woman’s eyes. She’s speeding up a little bit – yes, she still has some energy over! Then… the finish! She did it! Euphoria! Smiles all around on every runner’s face. The oranges and bananas are a welcome treat!

http://www.zazoosh.com/events/802

(the number of my woman is 3363)

 Now, she has to walk all the way back to the hotel. Many runners are still on the course. When she finally enters the room I give her a big high 5 paw! Awesome, woman! But now comes the soreness and stiffness… The warm shower feels good on the legs, but we have no time to dawdle. The parade will start and we still have to walk 7 blocks to get there. My woman grabs breakfast at the hotel and off we are. We arrive at a spot next to KSL 5 TV and we plunge down on the street. The parade is all about the Mormon pioneers who came here in this valley in 1874. The president of the Mormon Church, the mayor of Salt Lake City, a senator with his body guards, floats from the University of Utah, from Brigham Young University, from different stakes, high school bands,… it’s a long 2 hour show and sitting on the street is not that comfortable (let’s try to lay down a bit…) – especially after running 10 km and when the sun is starting to heat up. 

When the show is finally finished my woman walks to City Creek Shopping Center: the new shopping center (from last year, but then she didn’t go there) is a jewel! During the day walking starts to become more difficult and around 3 o’clock my woman decides to go to the cool hotel room. Later that evening, on the news, she hears that two women got abducted from the Mc. Donald’s – just around the corner. (They got away near Park City…). What a strange world we live in!

Tuesday, July 23rd: Salt Lake City, UT or … just follow that bus!

My woman is getting excited when she thinks about tomorrow… First today though! 

Today’s ride is not so exciting: we go from one town into the other without even knowing when one begins or ends. Roy, Layton, Kaysville, Bountifull, North Salt Lake and I believe I’m forgetting some. A big sign of road work and detour worry us a little but we have learned to ignore those signs and to just keep going until we head into trouble. 

The only things we see are rows of red tons along the curb. But no one is working here! And if you want to know which route we took – just grab a schedule of bus 470 from Ogden to Salt Lake City! We followed the bus! Sometimes that’s good advice! 

In Bountifull the side walk was full with empty seats and blankets: at 4 p.m. the Pioneer parade was heading out!

My woman was tempted to stay and watch, but… she had some other business to take care off in Salt Lake City. Somehow we missed the Mac Donald’s just before North Salt Lake. Nothing to do now except to go on cycling. The not so scenic route into the big city takes us along refineries and a quarry, where new houses are being built too. 

But it is a bike route – no cars, except big trucks for the quarry! Hey woman, where are you going on 700 South? This is not the way to our hotel! Indeed, but she still has to pick up her number for the run tomorrow! They do not find her name on the list of runners, but after searching for Belgium, we find out she is registered under Renet Kroket! My woman bursts out in laughter! How funny to see this written on a list! Once we have the number, we return to the main drag close to the Temple. The Hilton Garden Inn will be our home again for a couple of days! Friendly people and good cookies! 

Monday, July 22nd: Ogden, UT or … what just happened?

Sun is out – wake up! A nice breakfast is waiting for my woman in the breakfast room, but since there is no one there, she just takes the good food and brings some for me along to the room. While she packs the Sweet Machine, I remind her to drink water before leaving. Yup, there is another hill to climb before we’ll reach the Valley. But before the climb, we can go to Dr. Pierce. I suppose he must have been some kind of Dr. Phil years ago! 

Again, my woman used not to like this climb (too hot and too hard!) but since we’ve done it a couple of times now, we know how it “works”. “Just relax while climbing and have no negative thoughts”, I tell her! “That’s not the problem,” she answers, “those flies just do like my sweat but I hate those flies – they sting! I’ve had enough of it!” I wonder – is she going to stop? Now I see – she’s taken out the insect repellent again! And yes… they stay away now! It’s even nicer for me now! Another yell… was she stung? No, we’ve reached the top again! Now comes the screaming downhill into Brigham City. In this town we have a short break to chill a bit. Back on US 89 we meet a lot of cyclists going the other way – what a lot of greeting! Here in the valley I notice the temperature is higher than in the mountains – don’t overdo woman, don’t get overheated! I think she didn’t hear me, because we ignore the gas station where cool temperatures are awaiting us. No, we keep cycling and I must confess, my woman does well in this heat. Something must be motivating to keep her going. Ahhhhhhh, now I know! It’s the I-Hop: a pancake, Belgian waffle breakfast place. Sweet Machine gets a place in the shade and we get to sit in the air-conditioned place. My woman chooses to get a salad. While we were waiting for the order to come, we suddenly heard this big bang against the window. Wet marks show us that a bird flew against it! What is it with those birds this year: one at home, one at school and now one here in the USA -  they all just fly against the window. This one is lucky and got away with a headache or maybe a concussion. And the salad… that was a big mistake! My woman gets a salad which hardly looks like what was proposed on the menu. Friendly she returns it, only to get a version which was a little bit better. “Next time, woman, just get some French toast with berries!”, I tell her. It’s only a few miles further to the center of Ogden, where we booked a hotel (no campgrounds). 

Around 4 p.m. my woman heads out again (boy, she must love the heat). She’s going to take a walk in the historic part of town. Well, it did look historic… almost a ghost town! You must know that Ogden is a big city! It feels so strange to see almost no one on the streets. True, it’s hot out, but even the shops look historic. She walks into an antique shop and browses around. A few houses further the bakery invites her to come in. A cookie for desert, she thinks! Well, that was it – historic Ogden. Definitely not the right timing to visit!

Sunday, July 21st: Logan, UT or … hit the ditch!

Wake up, woman… we have a great climb ahead of us! Our neighbors offer to take our luggage over to Logan, but we respectfully decline. My woman is not afraid anymore of this climb…she’s actually starting to love it! Why? While climbing, the view on the lake below is so awesome… especially early in the morning, when the sun plays peek-a-boo with the hills on the east side of the lake. 

And then there is always that formidastic feeling when reaching the top… She tells me her blood rushes a little bit faster then and she feels so proud. All-right, she does the trick with taking the outside curves, swinging from the right to the left of the road, but there is hardly any traffic yet on this early Sunday morning. Two cyclist fly downhill… they are lucky now, but yesterday they had a long , a very long uphill. As we reach the rest stop – which is almost the top (there is still that nasty last mile) – we notice a deer standing on the road, looking at us as if we are the craziest creatures on earth. The rest stop doesn’t only mean nice views – there are toilets here! 

I watch the hummingbirds flying around the feeder. This climb takes us almost 2 hours – the traffic is now picking up, since everyone seems to head home to go to work on Monday. One time we saw a moose grazing along the river, so my woman and I look around on the downhill ride… and guess what… no moose but a coyote just crosses the road in front us! Great! This is what makes my woman so happy! Another adrenaline rush through her veins! The first part of the downhill seems like flying – we get a nice shoulder for us! But then – as we near the canyon, the road narrows. My woman cycles defensively and when she can, she just goes off the road and let the cars pass. Her concentration reaches peak level while she thinks it’s too bad she isn’t able to look around a lot and enjoy the walls of stone next to her. The road curves a lot, which adds to the concentration needed.

 At one point there are no lines anymore on the new black paved road. To the side is a lot of gravel – not the place where a cyclists want to be, but it is the place where cars push us towards! Crossing the river again and then the headwinds… my woman doesn’t like these last 10 miles. At one point a car almost touches us, sending my woman almost into the ditch. She’s fed up with it now and wishes to see the last steep hill into town. At last, after passing the dams, we get to do this climb. The ranger station on top is our rest stop again. It also gives a nice view of the city of Logan – down below. One can see it’s Sunday…once out of the canyon it’s as if all the traffic evaporates – there’s hardly anyone to see. 

My woman goes to the supermarket to get some food and then we head “home” – the Baugh Motel. Later that afternoon, while I’m resting on the bed, my woman makes a trip to exciting Wall Mart. She needs some lotion for her dry feet which are painfully cracking at the heels! Luckily my paws are still okay!

Saturday, July 20th: Garden City, UT or … what a nice blue color!

No alarm to wake us this morning. For breakfast my woman brings me my first Belgian waffle: she had to stand in line for it (the baseball tournament, of course), but it filled my stomach. Now woman, I have this feeling there’s going to be a bank robbed at noon. Yup, Butch Cassidy and his gang are back in town to do their job all over again. So if we don’t want to get hurt, we’d better leave town. The biggest effort of the day is the overpass over the railway tracks. And my boss says this is a short but steep thing! We cross the valley from East to West and as we pass the Bear River, the birds just freak out and start flying all around. On our route are several small Mormon Pioneer towns. The first one is Ovid and the lumber yard adds a special smell to it. Love that wood! 

Then Paris comes along with it’s Tabernacle. The route is straight and almost flat. We notice people in their garden, mowing the grass, a farmer working in the fields, some old cars at a garage and

 …lots of cars towing boats. My boss wonders why they are not on the lake! Maybe they are searching for a place to park the car where they can launch the boat, I tell her? The shoulder is not so fun to cycle on. The road has been paved about three times – and that means the shoulders has three heights…. Not so fun! Some cyclists pass us – and only one gives us a warning and talks to us. The rest, my woman says “hi” but not one responds. They are too busy being too fast! Fish Haven has a little grocery store and my woman gets there just as everyone else gets there. She actually wanted a raspberry shake, but they seemed too busy so she just got a soft drink. It’s another 6 km to the border of Utah!

 This is our last state to visit – it feels a bit like coming home. The KOA of Garden City is a busy place: it’s weekend and July 24^th is coming up and … the weather is awesome. The blue color of the lake is formidastic!

 Our neighbors come from Salt Lake City – they are here to spend the weekend in a cooler environment. They are just relaxing – doing nothing at all. My woman has to do laundry which is the reason she walks around on the campground in her pijama’s! What a life. Tomorrow … the Hill of Never Again! Tomorrow Belgium has a new King!

Friday, July 19th: Montpelier, ID or …long live the Arctic Circle

The alarm sounded rather early this morning. Hate that little black box! Woman, get up! There’s a lot to be done today. Breakfast was the last banana oatmeal bar we were carrying with us since??? No, not last year! My woman got some ice for the 4 water bottles. One has to be prepared… We left town when the sun was just creeping over the hills. 

Made this a nice cool ride. First stop was the gas station just south of town – Rulon Gardner’s picture hanging there. Another bottle of water should be enough for the whole trip – now we carried almost 4 kilo’s more than usual. The first 20 km were already slightly uphill. The traffic we had yesterday, seems not to be running on a Friday. Suddenly I could hear some classical music – not very well, but still…. Oh, my woman has the red cross radio out! Now if the tempo of the music could just be a little bit faster…Some smiley balloons turned a smile on my woman’s face. Then at last the 4 km climb to the top of pass – at 2350 meters. 

And guess what – we now had a 25 km descend into Idaho. On that stretch there are no houses… just the hills, some trees and Salt Creek. 

Hey woman, why don’t you stop to take a picture of the Idaho border? See that car there just in front of it… well, there are 2 men sitting in there and she doesn’t feel right about that. Along the road the signs warn us about the jerky: elk, deer, beef… all fresh! But just as we arrive at the point where the old man sells his goods, we see him pull out and leave the place. No cool Gatorade, no jerky, no pep talk, no water… We have to go on! A little bit further some strange animals stand along the road. Talk about big!

 Well, the hill out of Geneva is also big. It’s getting around noon time – it’s not the hottest time of the day yet,  Like an ant, we crawl up along the hill – I’m watching the Polar making sure my boss doesn’t overdo or overheat.

 Looking back from where one comes always gives my woman a great feeling and boy – the valley looks so far away below us. Geneva summit – a yell – a water bottle over her head.

 Just as we start our descend, we notice an unlucky creature. Did he climb too fast? 

Montpelier canyon road is narrower – especially towards the end so extra attention is needed. But then we are finally back into a small town – houses with gardens in front after a morning of being out where no one lives – or hardly anyone! Keep going straight woman – it’s calling us! Yup… The Arctic Circle – a good place to cool down, have a coke float (the first one this summer) and boy, does my woman likes that hot dog (no, not me!). The place is so busy: a baseball tournament for youth in town! Kids from Wyoming towns like Evanston and Jackson Hole are here to play! The Super 8 – with airco will cool us down. Later that afternoon, my woman heads out to do some shopping: fresh carrots, plums, banana….life is good again!