Northern Utah and southern Idaho

After our stay at Gooseberry Mesa we drove north to Provo then Ogden, Utah. Up north the weather is a little colder and moist, like summer in my hometown Seward!


You can tell that Buffett is enjoying the trip as much as we are!

In Ogden we found a couple good trails to spend 2 and a half hours on. This section was pretty steep and tricky, it took me 5 or 6 tries to ride through it without stopping. We'll be back in this town in September for the Xterra USA Championship race held in Snowbasin.

Behind me if you look close enough, you can see the trail climbing up along the mountain.
On a 60 mile road bike ride we got to see a historic site! This is the Golden Spike Historic Site in Promontory, Utah. In 1869 on May 10, a golden spike was driven into the railroad and completed the first transcontinental railroad that was built by Union Pacific from the east and Central Pacific from the west. This was the first direct transportation route from the east coast to the Pacific ocean and China trade.

Still on our bike ride we stopped by a rocket display at the ATK Aerospace Facility.

This particularly massive rocket behind me is a Reusable Solid Rocket Motor which is used to carry the space shuttle into space. It is 149 feet long, 12 feet in diameter, and weighs 1,255,978 lbs. When attached to the space shuttle, this rocket burns for only 122 seconds and has 2.6 million pounds of thrust, enough punch to zoom at 3,094 mph. When the burn time ends, at 24 nautical miles above the earth the rocket separates from the shuttle and falls back a bit then parachutes into the Atlantic Ocean. Then boats find it broken up into segments and take the segments back to the mainland U.S. where it is reassembled for reuse.

When we're not riding and looking at old trains and rockets, this is where we are! (At least some of the time.)
This is the Crystal Spring, a mineral water hot spring. A great reward for a cold swim in a funky 20 foot long outdoor pool filled with 64 degree water. And by the way, in northern Utah there's still snow on the mountains behind us.


After the hot springs we crossed the state border into Idaho. Dad and I went for a bike ride again through the hay fields with cows scattered here and there.