Day 6 - Suicide Varmits and Violating My Own Goal

I got underway by about 7:15am from Bear Lake and was treated to a spectacular sunrise over the lake as I sped along the empty roadways in the cold. And cold it was. The bike's air temp guage hovered between 32 and 35 for the first couple hours as the road straightened beyond the lake. I've made a mental note to consider heated gloves (or perhaps just better gloves) for any such future trips as the heated grips only served to keep my palms warm at these temperatures.

As I rode, I repeatedly noticed vultures feasting on the remains of varmits without being able to discern what the roadkill might have been. The feasts seemed to be going on everywhere -- two or three in every mile -- and I was amused by how the guests would know to take flight just moments before I interrupted their breakfast. As I cruised along, the straightness of the road allowed me to hold the handlebar with just one hand while putting the back of my other hand's fingers against the heated grip. This helped ward off the chill but turned out to by a bad idea when I had the opportunity to witness first hand how the many feasting tables had been set. In the blink of a moment, a furry varmit decided that our paths should intersect and darted directly into my front wheel. I had no time to react -- and the bike shuttered with a thump. In the moment it looked like a rabbit and in my rearview mirror I could see that another table had been set for my feasting, feathered friends. Later I was told it might have been a prairie dog. Whatever it was, I was glad it wasn't a deer or an elk -- and I was better about keeping both hands on the handlebars while the memory of the encounter was current.

As the droning on straight roads continued for longer than I like, I wondered why such varmits choose to run across the road at precisely inopportune moments. I had witnessed the behavior before with what I termed "suicide squirrels" in the Parkfield area of California on a motorcycle trip with my older brother. Is it possible that they gather in groups on the side of the road urging "your turn, your turn" to play the adolescent game of "chicken?" Probably not. But whatever instinct drives it, I'm certain of one thing -- the vultures must be pleased.

The roadside was not without plenty of interesting sites -- if not the typical fare of travel guides. I was fascinated with wonder at who would have decided to make Carter, Wyoming their home when all I saw was delapidated buildings, abandoned cars and a couple of trailers. I would love to explore the history of the little bump in the road -- but my quick internet search at the end of the day only confirmed that programmers forgot to exclude tiny towns with a population of 8 when they dissect the demographics. See wikipedia's entry here -- the section on demographics should be a case study of worst practices for statistics majors. And for those with plenty of time on your hands, did you know that you can travel through Carter, Wyoming yourself and make your own assessment using Google's Street View. Check it out here.

The straight roads finally descended into one of the areas that all guides consider to be one of the most beautiful drives: the Flaming Gorge National Recreational Area.

I was not disappointed. I even took a 10 mile side-loop road that National Geographic advised was "not to be missed."

All beautiful even if the roadway on the side road left lots to be desired for a big touring motorcycle (several areas were only gravel).

After that I was treated to more wonderful roads: what's not to like about a road that advises "8% grade - 10 switchbacks in the next 10 miles" when you're on a motorcycle? But the roads finally brought me to Vernal, Utah and the dreaded State Route 40, a flat, straight pavement for too many miles to get me to Steamboat Springs, Colorado where I had a condo waiting for me -- complete with washer/dryer and where I had arranged to spend two nights so I could have some downtime off the road and get some laundry done. But even the long, straight ride turned out to be fun by some people I met. I'll post about that next time as I have an extra night off the road.

If you remember I set my goal of about 250 miles a day -- but today I knew would violate that goal because I knew there would be plenty of straight roads -- and I wanted to get to my Steamboat Springs destination and take a day off the road. So, I put 382 miles on the bike today -- just under 7 hours in the saddle/moving time.