I've been really bad about keeping this updated, if anyone cares. Mostly, we just have had spotty internet connection. Even in the big RV "resorts" its been crappy. But we're briefly back in SJ for Sarah's wedding and the Halloween block party. This is the last time we expect to have to be somewhere at a specific time. Patti's wedding being the exception. We're off to the Pinnacles next, and then heading south. Looks like the greater Palm Springs area, and the Colorado River area for November, and maybe December. Who knows.
After spending almost 3 months in places like Montana, S. Dakota and Wyoming, the return to civilization was an eye opener. That civilization came in the chaos that is Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City during the week of the SDS Congress. Every Mormon in the WORLD is in Salt Lake City the same weekend we are. The traffic was a frikkin' nightmare. Clogged freeways. Man. Its been a long time since I've seen a clogged freeway. And downtown is wall to wall white shirts and ties. There are millions of 'em.
Salt Lake is really a lovely city, the crowds notwithstanding. Temple Square is beautiful, although Mormon children are just as annoying as any other children. Lots of parks in Salt Lake, all through the downtown and throughout the perimeter. No "old town" however. Its a pretty modern city. There are a lot of historical momuments and markers, but no historical town. A little disappointing, that. I've been through the SLC airport a million times, especially when working for Novell, but we always went to Orem or, later, Provo, never into Salt Lake. Being a family-centric area, there are, roughly, a billion letterboxes. We did a dozen I think. But we did see a lot of the city and surrounding area. The capitol is sturdy and unremarkable, but that's not the draw ... Temple Square is the center of what is Salt Lake City. We did have pretty mcu the best Indian Food we've had in a heck of a long time in SLC, a place called Khatmandu. Outstanding. And there are more bars than I woulda thought. And, of course, we found our share.
 Looking down on SLC from the spot where Brigham Young and his cohorts stood to plan out the city. Smoggy city. |  Throngs of Mormons heading to the convention center for the annual LDS congress. This isn't the SLC Convention Center, its on ly the LDS convention center. Its a city block long. |
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The Mormon Temple in the middle of Temple Square, and the Utah State Capitol building on Capitol Hill overlooking the city. Lovely site, not a lovely building.
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The Pioneer Monument and the Pony Express monument. Two of dozens and dozens.
Being a gearhead, there are two basic rules; the louder and faster, the better, and....better to participate than to watch.
Lynn and I were on our way back to the bay area, and were discussing crewing for Papi at the Bonneville World Finals....a day or two with some long driving stretches, and changed plans made this wonderful diversion possible.
Being on the salt at Bonneville, as part of a crew, is the only way to go. Complete access granted by the red "crew" wristband, and being introduced by Papi...who seems to know frickin' everyone - was the Gearhead E-Ticket without the lines.
If you've never heard of Bonneville, it's about 125 miles west of Salt Lake City, and just to the right of the Nevada border. What's there? Frickin' nothing but flat salt for a long damn way. If you've ever wanted to see the curvature of the earth, you could hitch a ride on the space shuttle, or you could go to Bonneville.
A few times a year, a bunch of lunatics take what they are working on - just short of firing themselves out of a howitzer - travel to the salt flats and see how damn fast they can go. for some of these vehicles....it's not that fast. No offense to the woman riding the 60's BMW 500cc stocker....or the Ozzie riding the turbocharged Buell Blast.....but there were people laying it on the line to become the fastest pilot of a vehicle on the salt. the amount of money was staggering. You look into the 40's chevy lined up and you see a distillery's worth of billet aluminum plumbing feeding a v-8 with a roar that would make Thor say "oooohhhhh, yeah, BABY!"
You'd also see a streamlined airplane without wings, motivated by wheels, painted by Chip Foose, with a cockpit that would make Captain Kirk envious. Billet, composites, flashy paint jobs, 50's buicks out of bare steel with mods that would impress Jesse James. This is the place to be. The gamut ran from beautiful sexy machines to cobbled, dented, rattle-can painted machines that were mechanically as good as they could be made.
Our friend Papi is one of those guys; willing to put his money where his mouth is, exercise considerable riding talent, and attempt to do things damn few people have done - go a real 200 mph. The world is full of people who woulda/coulda/shoulda/wanted ta....but never did. The people who stop talking, make a commitment, and follow through are few and far between; Lynn and I were crewing for Papi and his crew Chief Dennis. Two such people.
Riding on salt....isn't like riding on asphalt. It isn't like riding on gravel roads. The wet salt stuck to my boots like gritty mud. Think about riding 200 mph on that. Without brakes. With over 200 hp.
Needless to say, Lynn and I had a ball. We stood within feet of ground pounding streamliners taking off. We chatted with the starters. We poked our heads into cars, ogled bikes, chatted with owners, builders, drivers, pilots, and were immersed in the FAMILY that is the Land Speed Racing community. For that, a simple thank you could never repay the charming hospitality shown to us by Papi, his Crew Chief Dennis, and the organizers and participants in this religion.
Instead of watching from the sidelines, we were changing sprockets, wiping salt from various parts of a ZX-14, helping prep it for runs, getting it to the line, driving down the line to pick up Papi and his bike after his speed runs, making more changes to the bike, more wiping down, more inspections......what a frickin' blast. Not the most relaxing way to spend almost a week...but far better than sitting on a beach and far more rewarding.
We busted our asses and were rewarded with an experience like no other.
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Mark working on Steve's (Papi) bike in the pits and at the start line. Between each attempt at "the record" something always had to be done. Especially on the salt. Salt gets into everything. Mark worked his butt off.
 We were up at the crack of dawn everyday. Honestly I've seen more sunrises this week than in a decade. And more than I care to see in a very long time. |  These guys were our next door neighbors in the pits. Absolutely insanely fast machine. Seemed like a pretty sane guy until I saw him take off on this thing. Rider's name is Mark and he went 215 mph |
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 | When Steve, Dennis and Mark were doing the technical stuff, I was wandering the pits or at the startline watching the crews, taking pix, or watching the run. I love streamliners and hotrods. I used to watch streamliners dragrace when I was a teen/young adult. MArk tells me the dragsters have different engines. Whatever. I built a few beauties when I was doing model cars also. But hotrods? My first love. My most treasured models were hotrods. The streamliners, or airplanes on wheels, may go over 300 mph, and the rods may not get over 100mph, but the love and the passion ... OK, maybe there's passion in both. Get a load of those paintjobs. The flag/eagle streamliner was my favorite and did very well ... marines. My show favorite, however, is the combo in the right. The rod is driven by a Scot in his 50's. Can't remember his name, but what a hoot. Darling wife with a quick and charming laugh. |
Mark didn't care if we went to, or through, the Tetons. So we originally intended to exit the park out the western end into Idaho. Then, he decided that as long as we were here, we SHOULD see Jackson Hole. After all, it is a major destination in this part of the country. I am really glad we drove through the Tetons. It is an amazing stretch of road. We stopped for lunch along the way and enjoyed the fabulous fall colors against the backdrop of these incredible mountains. One interesting fact is that these mountains are continuing to grow, rising further every year ... while Jackson Hole sinks every year. That's why its called Jackson Hole. Who knew?
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Jackson, however, didn't live up to its press. On the surface, its darn cute. Great looking western facade buildings. But, kinda like Deadwood, its all facade. OK, exterior maybe some of them are legit 1800's buildings, but inside ... the whole frikkin' town is a mall. Really. With the likes of the Gap, Forever 21, and Coldwater Creek, to name a few of the chains represented here, pretty much every structure on the 2-3 streets of the downtown is part of the mall. Oh, there are art galleries, and one really lovely furniture store, but mostly chains. And the worst? "Family friendly" saloons. Excuse me? That is soooooo wrong on every level. Screams tourist trap. And, in all fairness, in the middle of the week this place is packed. Another reason to hate it. I mean busloads of tourists rolling in. Most hotels had buses parked in their lots. Most of the tourists were European or Asian. And loud. OK, we've spent way too much time in South Dakota and Wyoming where there are no people. We did find the Cowboy Bar. The only original business in town and 21 and over. A little silly, as the bar stools are all saddles. Nice saddles, mind you, but I can't say they're comfortable. I had to sit sidesaddle. Mark did post a photo of me at the bar, on the saddle, on his facebook page. It made my butt look big, and, honestly, the one thing on my body that has never been big is my butt. But that's another story. So, we ordered; Mark always asks after the local pale or amber brew because what's the point in ordering something we can get anywhere. So the guy pours a Jackson amber. We look at each other and say, um, where's the brewery? Two blocks over. We finished our drinks and walked over to the brewery. Where Mark found his new favorite brew. Pako eye-p-a, at Snake River Brewery. Good wine list too. We loved this place. And he took two "growlers" of Pako home; it could come in handy at Bonneville next week.
 A shot of main street Jackson Hole |  Bogart hunting elk |
Apparently on Labor Day weekend it snowed in Yellowstone and several areas had to be closed down. At the end of September/beginning of October, it is in the low 80's. Only one campground is open and it closes this weekend. Two of the resorts are still open, and I think they close this weekend as well. Or they may stay open until the park closes for the season on October 15. Whatever. The campground we're in is pretty inhabited, but generally only for one night; a phenom that boggles our mind. So many overnighters in so many places. Many of whom never leave their rigs. This is a dry camping area...no hookups for nothing. People drycamping tend to be outside more, so there is more outside activity than we see in full service parks. Note to self, lets drycamp more often. The smell of campfires and meat cooking. Mmmmmm. We BBQ'd every night here. We didn't update the website for the same reason .... no wifi, no 3G, no electricity. OK, yeah, we have a pretty darn good generator, but the no 3G thing did us in. What we did do is ride the BMW through some spectular scenery and hike our butts off. And no, the super volcano that is Yellowstone did not erupt while we were there.
Old Faithful is cool, but who knew that geyser basin has dozens of active and entertaining geysers? Its amazing that busloads of people will arrive withing 15 or so minutes of an Old Faithful eruption .... during the week, hundreds of people. They hang around to watch it blow, and the get back on the bus and leave. Hell, Old Faithful is only one of them, people; take the 6 mile walk around the loop and see some really cool stuff. But no, they all leave. Well, ya know? fine. Less people around to bug me. Us? We hiked up the half mile, straigh frikkin' up trail to the lookout to watch Old Faithful from the top. That was cool. Then we took a half mile trail up to something called Solitary Geyser, which was quite lovely and erupted every 15 minutes. We had our picnic lunch up there, actually. Then we decided to take the other route down, about a half mile to the "boardwalk" leading the 6 mile loop around the basin. Just before we hit the bottom, we hear all this commotion and snorting and saw two grumpy buffalo standing in the middle of the trail. These are not nice critter, people. These are big, mean, fast and grump critters. And they were blocking our trail and growling and pawing the ground. So we turned around and hiked back up that half mile. And then down the other half mile original trail. The buffalo had been hovering around the boardwalk just an hour ago, and caused it to be closed .... coulda been those same grumps that forced us back up the trail. Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy.
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Old Faithful area from the lookout a half mile up, just before and during it's eruption
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These 3 bulls were getting their jollies by harrassing the humans. The ranger closed the road to humans for a while because they kept charging the pathway. The two guys up front kept arguing about something and snorting and butting each other. Then one of them stood right on the path and dared the puny humans to pass. Several times they charged, and yes, we were on the path when they did, and no, I didn't stop to take a photo... although a couple of morons did.
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In addition to the geysers, peppering the landscape are beautiful hot springs. They are so clear and colorful, and steaming. I actually thought these were cooler than the geysers .... well, hotter, acually. More serene and pretty without the violence of the geysers. Didn't make me feel I was walking in the middle of a caldera.
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 Here is The Daisy Geyser erupting. She's almost as reliable as Old Faithful. Fact is, many of them are. There are signs on most of the geysers letting people know when they're expected to go off, and the signs to look for. Daisy goes off every couple of hours. The Castle, which they think is the oldest geyser in Yellowstone because of its cone, goes off once a day, but usually at night. Old Faithful is actually a youngun in the basin. |  There are geysers all along the river, which keeps the river from freezing during the winter. Its very cool to see the steam fromthe geysers, and hear the sizzling wnen a geyser overflows into the river. |
 Along the 6 mile loop, we crossed the river with the Majestic Falls in the background |  Old Faithful blowing from up close. |
 | About a half mile or so from our campground is a resort. The resort was closed but the restaurant and bar were open. We didn't eat at the restaurant, which did look pretty good... but we were cooking. We did go over for a drink though. The bar was a bit divey... and therefore up our alley. The bartender said they were closing in three days for the winter. On the way back to our camp, we came upon an Elk. We'd been told that a black bear was following the elk into the campground every night. We saw the elk, but damn! We didn't see the bear. |
