I figured besides wanting to make sure we were alive the next thing you’d want to know is, How is that near beer? We gave it an honest shot and both were disappointed. It’s not that it doesn’t work per say, but the feeling of intoxication and joy must be constantly tended to. Meaning if you are not actively drinking you are rapidly becoming sober. I don’t know about you but I drink to get drunk, near beer feels more life chasing the dragon. So when in Utah, plan ahead and hit the government distributors. Not to bash it completely, I could see drinking this.. Nevermind I can’t. I guess if you wanna pay about the same for less and don’t want to be that asshole parent at your kid’s baseball game this is what you should drink.
On to the day.  We did our best and failed to stay dry today. Early this morning we did about 13 miles of gravel roads. They were pretty innocent enough only a little mud here and there, and a few hair pins covered in loose rock. Nothing we can’t handle. We were treated to some really beautiful scenery, again I was reminded of Alaska by the size of the mountains and the way the clouds do their thing around them.
We rode through a few small towns after the gravel road into a place called Paradise Valley. Paradise is a bit of a stretch but it was a really nice area.
Then we hit the highway to make our way through Salt Lake City. Holy moly do they drive like shit. People passing us at highway speeds texting, their lane changes we sudden, and their overall speed was whatever they felt like. At one point I said to Kat,  “I’m uncomfortable”  he agreed. We’ve both seen how bad the bay area can be, but this was a different monster. In the bay area if there is a slight bend in the highway or something remotely interesting on the side of the road, you won’t know it till 30 minutes from now because they basically stop. Here it was the opposite, speed up in turns, hey is that an emergency vehicle?  Who cares! We were glad once that was over. Some advice to others, if your on a bike skip the city if you want to live. In a car, at least you’ll survive but I’d skip it anyway.
We saw the “great” salt lake. We tried to figure out what makes it Great and came up with nothing. From here on out will be the big salt lake.
As we left town the rain started. We were heading towards our first National scenic byway but the rain picked up and the road was out. We turned back and headed for highway, we’ve got a movie to make. The rain got worse but the drivers got better. Wet and more tired than I expected we made it to Nephi.

Say it like Will Ferrell, as Robert Goulet.

((send a picture of your drawing to any of the 3 morons. WordPress sucks for this kind of thing))

Well here we are, another day where flexibility counts. Using a combination of weather apps My Radar, Weather Underground (which I’m still having a hard time accepting with it’s stolen name),  and Accuweather we made the best plans we could to avoid the massive weather system that is sitting above us. When I say avoid I really mean get hammered by it as little as possible. We decided to head south and are currently in Utah. It rained about half of the ride today with some light rain in between the real showers. The landscape was pretty but hard to really focus on due to conditions. When it wasn’t raining we were treated to some really pretty mountains surrounded by clouds. It was very similar to the way I’ve seen clouds look around mountains in Alaska.
It was a short day, we both need to do laundry and Kat has some work things to take care of.
Last time we were in Utah on The Trans Am, we were warned about the near beer and told that to get the normal stuff you need to go to a liquor store. The state has crazy alcohol control, kind of similar to the bizarre Pennsylvania laws. This time, it’s Sunday, the liquor stores are closed. Sad face, but looking online people say it’s not that bad. We will give you our honest opinion tomorrow on how the 3.2 near beer is. Allegedly it’s actually closer to 4.0, but I’m no scientologist I’ll let you know what drinking it is like.
If we meet someday ask us about the 3 humongously oversized houses that had their own lake. We had a really good laugh, but not everyone would think it was funny.

The day started with a great road that winded through the Sawtooth mountains and Sawtooth wilderness. People were few and far between which was good because the little road we were on butt right up against massive multicolored rock slides. Rocks were constantly in the road and needed to be dodged. Hitting a random rock while on a turn or even in a straight away can be dangerous. We were once again near the Salmon river, but today we passed it’s headwaters. It was really cool to see where this massive river which has been with us for so many days starts.
My most unexpected moment came when due to rocks in the road I made a corner going pretty slow and noticed what I thought was smoke coming directly out of the rock slide next to me. Prior to seeing this ‘smoke’ I noticed that this particular valley smelt like an out house. Every other valley smells wonderful, what the hell is going on in this valley I thought. As I got closer to the ‘smoke’ I noticed ten feet up water was coming directly out of the rocks and running down to the road. The smoke was steam! The sulfur smell was coming from right here. It was awesome!  The steam hugged the rocks all the way to the road from it’s source and a small steam cloud hung over the small pool at road level. This was my first natural hot spring. There was no where to park to get a better look and if I hadn’t have been going so slow I may not have noticed it. I’ve seen a hot spring before in Chena, Alaska but that was just a hot swimming pool, today I was able to see the actual process and I loved it.
After the Sawtooths we headed towards Sun Valley where the Sundance film thing is. It’s a pretty area, I can see why all the rich bastards have summer or winter houses there. Who cares about that stuff though.
Later we rode through the Craters of the Moon national park. It’s a rocky wasteland that couldn’t have been any fun to cross prior to roads being built. We stopped briefly, but some people can’t seem to figure out the fact that some places (most) are better experienced alone. We call it the IRobot syndrome. People can’t do shit without someone else already being there. Here’s simplified example, sit in an empty theater and regardless where you’ve sat people will sit near you. We encounter this behavior a lot on the road. The people today didn’t even get out of their cars, they just parked next to us (when there was plenty of room far away). It makes me crazy.
After the park, Idaho pancaked and the roads were long and straight. We passed Atomic City, it’s where one of the first nuclear power plants was built. I don’t know the details but I believe it’s been offline for a while. It’s ‘complex’ if you wanna call it that consisted of a few small pinkish buildings about a mile off the main road. The sign was the only indication that this was something awesome at one time. It’s kinda sad I guess.
As the pancake stretched out in front of us all you could see was a whole lot of nothing and a couple of long dead volcanoes. Swampkat noticed something else though, Hermes has GPS on it and Kat said, “Have yoy seen all the roads we’ve passed? They are unmarked on the GPS.”  Somebody is hiding something outside of Idaho Falls.
As I wrap this up I wanted to share a joke Swampkat made on the way into Idaho Falls. He says “Idaho Falls, more line Idaho Flats”. We laughed and then I said, watch the ‘falls’ will probably be man made.