The ride started nice enough with little to no wind and relatively light traffic (we were on I-80 after all). By the second pass of the day, when a trucker blew by me riding the rumble strip in the left lane, we should have guessed that trucks would be an issue today.
I wanted to get a picture of the Bonneville Salt Flats as we came around the corner, but I couldn't find a safe place to pull over and take a picture. By the time we found a place to safely pull over, the impact was gone. The highway over the salt flats is so straight and so boring that the state of Utah has signs posted about drowsy driving. In fact, we saw one drowsy driving sign that said to pull over and rest on the (extra-wide) shoulder because the nearest exit was 15 miles ahead.
We kept up a good pace until we reached Salt Lake City, when the truck traffic (along with the usual Tuesday SLC traffic) picked up. I led us through the city like I knew what I was doing. I wanted to find a scenic overlook to take a picture of the Great Salt Lake, but we never did find one. Instead, we saw this looking back the way we had just come.
We had just passed through Park City, UT, and a pretty bad rain storm. It had freaked me out to the point that I pulled over at a truck parking area in the middle of it. I couldn't see and it was hard for me to follow the road. After that, Donna took the lead.
By then, the trucks had multiplied like freaking rabbits. We would pass them going up the hills, they would pass us going down. We kept a pretty steady speed, keeping pretty much to the speed limit -- less when the winds were at their worst. After the little rain shower that we had ridden through, the air temperatures stayed low and I got chilled. I pulled us over a couple of times to add clothes.
Donna guided us the rest of the way to Green River, WY, our layover for the night. Tomorrow is our last day on the road. We ride home and this incredible adventure comes to an end.
Mileage today: 364.7
Jae's trip total: 4370.1
Donna's trip total: 4363.2
Mixed bag indeed... You probably know already, but the monsoonal flow is in place today. Raining lightly here now, supposed to be that way most of the day. Good luck with the trucks and I-80 today, keep the rubber side down. Only a couple of hundred miles to the relative sanity of 287...
ReplyDeleteYeah, we heard about that. And were (mostly) prepared for it. But after the chill set in as we left Laramie today, we decided to turn back and get a room. We can ride the last 60 or so miles in the warm part of the day.
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