Michigan to Oregon 2019 - Day 7 and 8 - Great Salt Lake, Boise Art Walk, then Home Sweet Home

August 27 - Tuesday
Salt Lake City, Utah to Boise, Idaho
It has been getting a little more disorganized each day!

We saw a couple of these car washes as we headed out of town. Quite the style statement.

Antelope Island Road, a piece of peace in close proximity to a million people.

And what it looks like on the map.

Unlike the Great Lakes, the Great Salt Lake is a little low this year.

There's the lake. It must be coffee break time for the birds.

The black spots on the rock and all that black on the ground are brine midges. They don't bite and just flowed around our shoes as we walked by here, very weird.

A view from the visitor center.

What a nice and thoughtful touch!

Timing is everything even when it is mostly accidental.

There is a herd of real buffalo on the island as well but we didn't see them.

We are jealous of these riders but it is time to continue our journey home.

Back to the remoteness.

Our lunch stop in Snowville, Utah. The meal was delicious and BIG.

Almost as soon as we crossed the border it started getting greener with a lot more farming.

Our motel was in downtown Boise so we walked to dinner and did some sightseeing along the way to and from.

We were impressed with the bike facilities they have added since we biked through here in 2007.

And there were a lot of people on bikes, too.

Part of the Freak Alley Gallery

We found Lincoln again which seemed appropriate for our last night on the road.

It was just too tempting. It did have a nice tone.

The husband of the woman that took this picture rang the bell too when his group gathered around the bell for a picture. Must be a guy thing.

Thank you, Boise, for a very pleasant evening.

August 28 - Wednesday
Boise, Idaho to Sweet Home, Oregon
It is nice to be back on our home turf. We only took a few pictures after this since we had better ones from our bike trip in 2007. It was also quite smoky almost all the way to Burns. As always, it was so nice to have the tall trees of our forest welcome us home as we crossed the Cascades. Thank you for sharing this journey with us!

The Total Trip
June 30 to August 28
We touched 16 states and 1 Canadian province.
We biked 1,222 miles (Selkirk Loop and Canada)
We drove 6,300 miles
Family time - invaluable!

Michigan to Oregon 2019 - Day 6 - Arches National Park, part 2

August 26 - Monday
Moab to Salt Lake City
We did get our early start. The early light on the Colorado River at the north end of Moab, looking west from Lions Park bridge. It was a pleasant 72F at 7:30.

Arches National Park Visitor Center

Courthouse Towers Viewpoint

The Petrified Dunes

The trail to the North and South Window Arches

Turret Arch

North Window (the light wasn't very good for South Window)

The trail to Double Arch

The Parade of Elephants

Double Arch

Double Arch ended up being our favorite of the day. We did stop at the Delicate Arch Viewpoint, which is the most famous of the arches, but we thought these arches were much more interesting. And it was a lot easier to get up close to them.

Sand Dune Arch trail

We left this one for last since it was mostly in the shade and it was headed to 100F again today.

This little guy liked the shade too.

The arch itself was pretty small compared to the others we had already seen.

But its surroundings were fascinating.

Time to head for our lunch spot.

Salt Valley

Panorama Point, our lunch spot. The shade was much appreciated since it was over 90F already.

The changing light angles really change what you see in each rock formation. Rocks we saw early this morning had a whole different character on our way back to the park entrance.

It has been a wonderful visit to this beautiful and dramatic landscape but now we need to move on.

Before heading north though, we checked out the Colorado River at Lion Park one more time.

This time the light looking east was much better.

The "check the oil" light came on just before here (Crescent Junction). They had lots of space aliens but not the kind of oil we needed. We did find what we needed in Green River, about 20 miles away.

Carbon County, on Highway 191, named for its major product which is coal.

It was quite the contrast to drive through Spanish Fork (for gas) and Provo (to get dinner), after driving all day through VERY sparsely populated parts of the state. It was big city all the way to our motel in West Valley. That shiny spot in the distance is Utah Lake.