Monday, 11 October 2021
I changed my mind, because by this morning, the weather forecast had changed. Now the weather service was saying maybe snow tonight, about an inch Tuesday, no snow on Wednesday, but snow again on Thursday. Each evening there'll be a hard freeze, ensuring that any snow or ice on the roads then would remain until at least the middle of the next day, if not longer. On Wednesday, the temp's not expected to get much above freezing all day.
The park ranger had already told me someone's reserved my campsite beginning Thursday, so if I stayed that long I'd have to move to a different site.
When I walked the dogs down into the main part of the campground, I heard someone firing a gun several times higher up the hill. This campground sits where a decently high hill meets the half-dry lake and there are campsites on several levels of the hill. But above those are about a dozen houses, and I guess someone in one of those houses is a gun enthusiast. But because I couldn't even tell where the person was, let alone what he or she was shooting at, the shots made me nervous.
Taking it all in all, I decided to eat the money I'd already paid for tonight's reservation and go on down the hill to Beaver until the weather system had passed. I knew I might actually be heading into worse weather than I was leaving, because Beaver sits on the west side of the mountains and, as far as I could tell from the forecast, the mountains would be providing a shield from some of the worst weather. But I still decided to make the move. Beaver is an actual town and is on the interstate, making me feel less isolated if I did get weathered in. The Beaver KOA said they had plenty of room for me, so I went.
I saw a Great Egret standing at the lakeside - thought I was seeing things, but the bird book says they're here during spring and fall migration, which I guess would be about now. It's called Funk's Lake because in the 1870s, Mr. Funk bought this land from the Indians living in this area, built a dam by hand (with the help of his sons), filled it with water and planted 65,000 trees. He then built lake cabins, swimming facilities, a dance hall, a steamboat and an ice cream parlor. His resort was apparently heavily patronized. I suppose the lake might still be patronized if there were more water in it, but it looked like a canoe might be all that would float out there at today's water level.
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| today's route |
On the road
Just outside the campground entrance, I had to stop and wait for several wild turkeys to cross the road. It took them a few minutes to notice me sitting there, and then they got flustered and went every which way.
I passed through Gunnison again and found the town of Centerfield (just over a third the size) immediately next door. Gasoline was 7¢/gallon cheaper in Centerfield than in Gunnison. Go figure.
Much of today's drive was through farming country - crops and cows. I saw one cow that was white with big black polka dots all over its body. Really. Almost like a very big Dalmatian.
It's hard to get away from reminders that Utah is the Beehive State.
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| Utah state highway signs |
I used to know why that's their nickname but forgot so I've looked it up. Early settlers saw themselves as being industrious and hardworking, and they saw the fabled busy bees as a metaphor for themselves. Hence the nickname, the state motto ("Industry"), the official state emblem (the beehive, since 1959) and the state insect (the honeybee, since a 1983 lobbying effort by a 5th grade class). And the name originally proposed for the state of Utah - Deseret - is derived from a word meaning honeybee in the Book of Mormon. See how it all fits together?
Salina is the first major town south of Gunnison, and the highway sign called it "Salina." But the Welcome To . . . sign called it "Salina City." You know, sticking the word "city" on the name of a town makes complete sense if the county or the state has the same name (e.g. New York City vs. State of New York) but that's not the case here in Utah. Salt Lake City is indeed in Salt Lake County, but that's the only duplicate name I've found. These folks just like to plunk the word "city" onto the names of their towns.
On my way to join I-70, I was stopped at an intersection in Salina and noticed Famous Mom's Café, so I looked it up to see if it's really famous. And the answer is, sorta. It's been around since 1924, so the original Mom is probably no longer with us. But Yelp reviewers say a bunch of little old ladies work there, so who knows. The food is said to be very good standard café food. But I found one odd comment on Yelp: Salina was the site of a POW camp during WWII, and it was the site of the largest killing of enemy prisoners in the US. Very strange story, and here's the link if you're curious. https://en.wikipedia.org/Utah-POW-massacre (And all I was doing was looking up Famous Mom's.)
Both yesterday and today I drove through a lot of these striped mountains. White with red stripes and red with white stripes and all white and all red, most sprinkled with evergreens like chopped parsley on a restaurant dish. They were really pretty.
On one side of the highway I saw a large solar array, and immediately opposite on the other side I saw an equal amount of acreage of junked vehicles. Further along I passed another large solar array, followed by an equal amount of crop fields. Utah's land is multi-purpose.
It's easy to overlook major holidays when you live like I do, and it took the radio to inform me that today is Indigenous Peoples' Day - the first to be officially celebrated by a US president, it replaces Columbus Day, which is reasonable given the fact that none of his expeditions got any closer to our country (or continent) than Haiti/Dominican Republic. Anyway, Pres. Biden issued a proclamation to mark the day which I hope provides guidance for the future. https://www.whitehouse.gov/proclamation-indigenous-peoples-day
I went past the Fremont Indian State Park, where there's a museum that protects various petroglyphs, pictographs and artifacts left by that culture. The mountains in this area had changed to white with pale olive green stripes - subtle and very pretty.
It was also in this area that I came to signs saying when the lights were flashing (they weren't today) either chains or snow tires were mandatory. There was a chain-up area right before a serious hill that had my ears popping, followed by a 5% grade.
Despite the downward turn of the road, I came to Clear Creek Summit, elev. 7,180', followed by a 6% grade that included a series of s-curves. Glad I wasn't trying to make that drive after a hard freeze.
Just before I rejoined I-15, I came to another chain-up area and another sign for mandatory chains/snow tires. And another summit of 6,600'. And another 5% grade. A lot going on on this interstate.
And then on to the town of Beaver, or Beaver City as the sign said. Settled in 1856. I guess the industrious honeybees just naturally belong with the beavers.
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