Our Road Trips

9/14/2014

It is Saturday, the campground is full and so is the boat ramp...lots of boats in the water. It is a beautiful day for boating, probably not too many left for this season, so folks are taking advantage.

We are going on a loop that will cover 3 scenic drives per a pamphlet given to us at the Visitor's Center...We will have covered 5 out of 8 in the pamphlet, plus one not there by the end of the day..

We head south and pass where we were on Friday and keep going. These western states have a lot of State Parks, overlooks & roadside parks...all pretty & well maintained. Locals use them a lot. We see a big party of some kind at one such place, probably a kids birthday...lots of small ones. We continue on into Provo, drive down main street past the stadium where BYU plays football and a lot of fields where college kids are out playing Frisbee football and getting into the swing of a new year.

We head east to a destination we not only have never been, we have never heard of before, Helper, UT. The drive is along a Scenic Route and the topography changes pretty rapidly as we go. There is a huge coal electric plant just before Helper at the bottom of a long hill, so we check that out, seems to hire 1/2 the town. We drive into Helper, what a rundown slum looking place. But they also have a Country Club for the folks who hire all the locals and pay them minimum wage go to spend their profits.

We gas up and head out of town, this time along the Energy Loop, a 50 mile ride through oil fields & coal mines on the way to Duchesne, which is mostly an oil processing location in the middle of nowhere. But there is a huge reservoir just west of town on the Strawberry River called Starvation Reservoir which supplies the town with its water supply. We continue west on the Strawberry Valley Scenic Byway back towards Heber City. There are lots of rock formations along the way and the Strawberry Reservoir, another huge water body that provides irrigation & recreation. It is Saturday, lots of folks out riding their 4-wheelers in the countryside.

We arrive back in Heber City at 530 and drive to the Heber Valley Historic Railroad station to go on the 115th Anniversary train ride, with a special price of $10/person. They have an old fashion gun battle during a staged train robbery before we board where all the bad guys end up dead at the hand of the hero town sheriff, and then they all get up and take pictures together...the kids love it. We left shortly after 6, stop long enough for a character to come on and 'rob' us before handing out candy to the kids. We are entertained by two young fiddle players and the scenery as we pass. The track takes us along the same reservoir our campground is on and affords us the chance to take pictures of the campground and our camper. We stop at the end of the line where the engine switches to the other end of the 3 car train and we start our trek back to Heber City, this time in the dark. It was a fun time. We go looking for a restaurant and that proves to be harder than it sounds at 10 PM...seems this town closes early. But we find a little pub and have some not too good food and a couple of brews.

We stopped for some groceries at a 24 hour store and get back to the camper about 1130...been a long day. We are moving south tomorrow, where we will visit some of the National Parks in southern Utah and possibly meet up with our Alaska friends who are in Moab. Another adventure awaits,

Steve & Barb Larson