Day 18 & 19

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Day 18

Today's route is self plotted in order to get us to Preston for a night, with the plan to cross the Rockies the next morning to join up with the Utah BDR in Garden City at Bear Lake. Reaching our turnoff for our first plotted tracks, we noticed a few no trespass signs. Unsure whether the signs applied to the land either side of the tracks or included the tracks, we opted for discretion and stayed on the road. As all the flat scrubby land from Arco southwards seems to be owned by the Atomic Energy Commission we figured the penalty for trespass could be vaporization.!

Turning off onto wide flat gravel roads we passed through Atomic City which was 3 or 4 dilapidated buildings - (perhaps this had been a test site!) we eventually reconnected with our plotted route & we started passing through flat cropping land where the paddocks stretched for miles & the average farm machine seemed the size of a small house. After coffee in American Falls we started climbing into a mountain range before our route, which Google had as a legal road, seemed more like a private farm track. Backtracking we re-plotted a route around this area which took us 6kms up a track to a point we knew Google thought we may not be able to get through. In the event, we could & did on a farm type track among trees & cows at around 2400m. Descending on this track we had to contend with rocks, tree roots & deep ruts all of which required a high level of concentration. Other than the usual deer & ground squirrels we saw no "critters" today but plenty of cattle on our farm excursions. Into Preston we found good motel accommodation, walked up the street to Wendy's for dinner (Sunday night - the town was closed). 330kms today.

Day 19:

Preston was still closed Monday morning, so we headed for our self plotted route over the Rockies to get to the start of the Utah BDR. On the map this showed as a gravel road but was really a rocky, rutted track up, up, up into the forest.This was typical back country America, Beaver dams, salmon jumping in pools, Black Bears catching Salmon at waterfalls, deer frolicking - we even saw a red Indian on a horse out hunting! (Hat tip to Jack London) A great ride of 70kms before we started descending past attractive looking ski fields (grass & pine trees at this time of the year) into the resort town of Garden City. Expensive holiday homes littered the hill overlooking the massive Bear Lake. A late breakfast here then we picked up the Utah BDR. More perfect adventure riding trails through forestry as usual climbing to a record so far of 2700m with amazing vistas. Quite a lot of side by side traffic meant we had to remain alert & remember to keep well right. After 100kms on this track & 60kms on seal we arrived at our pre-booked motel in Evanston Wyoming. 250kms today with only a few deer sightings. Tomorrow back into Utah on the BDR.

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