Saturday, June 8th

Final Descend

The road out of Richfield leads north into a busy farming country. Several villages dot the wide valley with many lone farm yards in between. For some reason, this feels rather boring; perhaps because it is so very familiar. At the entrance to Salina, an alternative option branches off into the mountains bordering the left side of the valley.

It doesn’t quite go up the mountains, some of which are still covered some snow, but finds a valley to run along west. It is maybe a mile wide and has steep walls on both sides. It also features its very own lake, Scipio Lake, albeit a very green murky one. Its shores serve as grazing ground for cattle.

Shortly before the town of Scipio, the valley descends, turns right and widens. The town has not much in the way of businesses but is happily decked out in stars-and-stripes along its main street. An Interstate highway comes up from the valley and presents the only option to cross the range blocking the western pursuit. It does so, however, in a southerly heading necessitating a ten mile detour. Once safely across the mountains, I leave the Interstate again, which is pushing on to Las Vegas and, ultimately, the Mexican border beyond San Diego.

A sign points towards Great Basin National Park instead, a hundred and thirty miles to the west. I follow its direction a bit. This here indeed is a great basin. Endless flats, around its beginning here beset with knee-tall grass, lead off into a hazy distance where mountains can be all but imagined. There are a few odd lone mountains here and there but even they eventually cease to exist. As soon does the grass; being replaced by sand and the little thorny bushes.

I turn north again in Delta, settled 1907, a small city with lots of space. The road now runs along the eastern boundary of the basin but still safely inside. It once again follows the Sevier River, which has managed to get here by way of a giant detour.

Mountains threaten first in the east and then even ahead, so the road quickly reconsiders and swings north-west in Lynndyl, which smells deliciously of freshly mown grass. But it can’t avoid them entirely, gives in and climbs unto a hilly range. Somewhere to the left there appear sand dunes.

The road climbs higher and higher and gets ever so more bendy. Despite all its thorny bushes, there was quite some human life in the basin, but here in the mountains it soon disappears, leaving the traveler alone with the road.

This only changes again half an hour later having mastered the range and twisting into the Vernon. At its road-side stop, a motor-cycle expedition enjoys its lunch break, perhaps fifty metres of bike after bike. One gentlemen carelessly runs around the road, camera up high in this new awkward photographing position.

Beyond Vernon, farms celebrate a reappearance. This may have to do with the fact that the landscape is becoming rather flat again. But not for long and it is yet again time to climb. On the right appears an actual blue, murk-less lake. The road ignores it and instead enters the village of Stockton, a fine example of a vibrant off-side town near a large settlement. That settlement suddenly appears as the end of Stockton is also a ridge. Beyond lies the basin of the Great Salt Lake. There’s tall, snow-sporting mountains in the far east, their smaller cousins covering the view onto the valley that houses Salt Lake City. Below is merely the sprawl of its outlying towns, Toole and Grandsville.

And thus begins the final descend of this trip, back into the madness of modern American city life: five lane streets with endless concrete shoeboxes on either side and more cars than stars in the sky. Down by the lakeside, yet another Interstate offers a quick way into town. It shares the shores with a railroad line and a large factory, spreading its suspicious smells which enthralls a flock of seagulls.

But before I even arrive in Salt Lake City, I reach its airport where I will spend the night in a nearby hotel. As I pull into the hotel parking lot, the trip counter stops at 2568.5 miles or 4133.6 kilometres. All that’s left now is to fill her up and return her. And then get ready to return to that other, immobile life.