Dick’s Travel Blog

Left for Yellowstone early morning in anticipation of running into bad weather or roads or both. Had to take a few more photos of the Tetons. They seem to have a magnetic quality to them as if drawing me in.  Oh well!  Had a chuckle when in line to pay to get into Yellowstone. It’s $25 per car plus something else but with my Golden Passport card I just showed the attendant and he whisked me right in.  No charge! For as long as I live!  As my Jewish friends would say…Such a deal!

Yellowstone is vast.   As in really vast.  Every where you turn there is some thing of note.  Be it a mountain; a field in which to view elk;  bison; deer; and moose.  A Hot Spring; a Sulphur spring; a cascading stream; a view from high up; and a waterfall or two.  And don’t forget Old Faithful.  I didn’t stay with the crowd to wait for Old Faithful to get it up (I’m too embarrassed). So don’t look for any photo of it. I drove around half the park then went to a campground to bed down for the night. Another surprise. With the Passport card I get half off the fee. Saved $11. Then the snow came. It snowed most of the night but not much accumulation where I was. Higher up was a different story. The route I planned to take that morning was closed. It was a route which promised a potpourri of waterfalls. Since the road was closed  I went another route and exited out the Northern Entrance into Montana. To be honest and I’m not sure why, I was disappointed with Yellowstone. Perhaps it’s because of all the hype it gets and because3 you see it at its best in films or on the Discovery channel.  It’s not that any one thing was less than expected. It’s just so vast and unless you are inclined to meditate over hot springs as far as the eye can see. Or can fantasize when dinosaurs roamed there and picture the volcanoes erupting and the mountains pushing up from below, it has to be a little less than you might have assumed.Despite that and the weather, I’m very glad that I made the  journey both to the Tetons and Yellowstone,  especially since  I was so close in Idaho.

Batteries installed and all is well. Don’t have customers to visit for a while and as I said before I changed my mind and decided to go to Yellowstone although I originally hadn’t planned to. However, the closer I got the more excited I was at seeing in person what I had probably seen on Discovery channel at least a dozen times. The prospect of passing through Teton Mountain National Park made it even more so. I had always heard of the beauty of the Tetons and knew that the largest Mountain was called Grand Teton. The entire range is called the Teton Mountain Range not the Grand Tetons as you hear occasionally. There was an immense difference in the landscape between Utah and Idaho, with Idaho offering a landscape of low rolling mountains surrounded by lush green (usually from potato fields). I was surprised by the beauty although I don’t know why I should have been.As usual the actual journey was uneventful with me staying overnight at a Flying J truck stop. As I came closer to the Tetons the elevation increased to a final 8000 ft at the campground I stayed at. The slide show “OnTheWayToTetons” has several photos of the Tetons which were snow capped when I arrived and fully covered when I left. During the 4 days I stayed there I hardly left the Coach. Most often to the store for milk or something. The temperature dropped to 20 at night, rising only to 40 or so during the day.

It’s taken me a while to sit down and catch up on the writing for the Blog. Several things account for this. One, is I’m basically lazy and having no one here to bug or encourage me I tend to let it slide. That causes more problems since the longer I delay the more I forget what it is I’d like to say. Another reason is that it seems after a day of whatever, I’m hooked on Fox News or vegetating and watching Law and Order reruns. The third is I’m just basically lazy and if I jotted down notes or recorded a few comments on a small recorder, the job would be much easier.   I don’t and therefore its a bigger task than it should be.  I can draw an exact parallel to recording my expenses.  If I did them every day its a minor task.   Since I procrastinate,  I’ve got at least 3-4 weeks of entries to make. That’s about 3-4 hours work. Oh well so much for the lesson on doing whats in front of me each day.

After leaving Lake Powell I headed for Utah to visit 2 clients I have there. One is in Salt Lake City and, rather than stay in Salt Lake City, I decided to stay at a campground in Provo,  just south of   Salt Lake City.  The Campground was amongst the best I have stayed at.  It was inexpensive by comparison yet had all the amenities including a neat Office and store of which I’ve included a photo.  I stayed the weekend and explored the area on the Harley.  I stopped saying this is the most beautiful place since it seems that every place I go is more awesome than the last.  Provo is no exception. You can almost reach out and touch the snow capped mountains surrounding the city especially to the east. The temp was 75-80 degrees and the sky was absent any clouds until the day I left Salt Lake for Ogden. Provo reminded me somewhat of Atlanta, without the traffic and without the throngs of people.  It was extremely clean, spread out, and everyone seemed to want to outdo the neighbor’s landscaping. The homes were generally much smaller (and affordable ) than Atlanta and one could see the pride their owners had in them.  I saw very few for sale signs which is always a good sign.Saturday the 24th May I rode to the Harley Dearler  and brought a tee shirt. The dealer had recently moved and the new place was expansive, and was packed with people closely representing Harley Owner age demographics of about 45-60.  I was older than most but looked way younger and much cleaner. Why is it that Baby Boomer Harley owners feel that they must look like the folks who rode when they were young and developed their original desire to own a Harley.  I guess the clothes, beards, ponytails, overweight Mama’s with Property of tattoos enhance the experience.  Me I like the Power at my fingertips, the wind blowing through my hair (don’t wear a helmet where it isn’t  required), and the knowledge that many others would love to be riding but for one reason or another are not.  On Monday I bought a few shares of depressed Harley (HOG) stock. The actual downtown of Provo was very similar to downtown St Pete, specifically Central Ave with the trees, antique shops, and small restaurants. The outskirts of Provo which is very large was crowded with sprawling malls, car dealers (Ala US 19 in clearwater), and the proliferation of apartment houses.  I couldn’t take photos while I was riding and it wasn’t safe to pull over. I went to see the campus of Brigham Young University and was really impressed. Those folks did not spare any expense. The grounds were immaculate and the buildings were a combination of the new and renovated old. All blending into a cohesive architecture very becoming of an academic environment. I mentioned this to a fellow at the campground and he had just the day before given a symposium at BYU and agreed with my statement that they didn’t spare any money. He added that the halls at BYU were larger than most class rooms at many other colleges.  Anyway the setting was gorgeous and right at the base of a few snow capped peaks which you can see in many of the photos in the slide show. I took out my trusty camera , framed a beautiful combination of the Student building with the mountains in the background and pressed the button. No deal! The battery was dead. I had become so used to the battery in the new camera lasting so long that I neglected to charge it. As a result you will just have to picture it or Google BYU.I went back to the Coach and decided that was enough work for the day. Put the battery in the charger and walked(slowly)  to the Camp Store and bought some Fig Newtons which lasted till about 9PM. Sunday I went to Utah lake which is only a mile or so from the campground. There is a $9 fee but the guard let me go for nothing when I told him I just wanted to take some photos.  I rode around and  almost dumped the bike on some 2-3″ deep gravel. It’s common knowledge that my kind of bike with a raked front end, and a wide wheel on the rear is more difficult to handle than others without those features. As I type this, at the base of the Grand Te ton Mountain, it just starting snowing big time. Oh well, back to Utah Lake. I survived the almost dumping of the bike and it kinda felt good that I was able to keep it upright and get through the gravel. The lake is large and judging by the crowd, very popular especially for boating.  I took a few nice photos but I must admit that the best attraction and the  best scene was of the women (girls) wearing  bikinis that I thought would be illegal in most places. There was one gal who was wearing what I am sure was a jock strap sized for a three year old which incentivized me to buy some shares of International Wax when I returned to the Coach.   I considered asking her to pose for some photos sitting, leaning, and making love to the Harley.  I was willing to pay her but didn’t have the nerve to ask.  I was afraid my motives would be misinterpreted and conjured up some image of a group of kids (teenagers) chasing me and yelling dirty old man !. All I wanted was to photograph the Harley at its best. I recall the Old Man (capitals intended) when asked why he owned a Honda instead of a Harley he said…No matter how long I rode my Harley my dick didn’t get any bigger.  I guess Penis extension qualifies as a reason to purchase a Harley. Present company excluded.