North from Rangely

I headed northwest from Rangely, across the river and up through the sand hills and oil fields.  Once again, the oil field infrastructure was painted to match the surrounding earth tones, but little could be done to camouflage the scraped earth of the service roads and containment berms.  I wondered if the flinty sand which seemed to make up the berms would be able to contain a spill, or if the material was too porous.  I surmised that the engineering of the berms was adequate, and that they had plenty of sensors installed to give them early warning if the worst were to occur.  I also noted, however, that the air was overly scented with the odor of crude oil.  As in Texas and Arkansas, the smell of oil must be the smell of money, and if so, there was plenty of money around.

I rode on up to Dinosaur on Highway 40, where I turned west again and back into Utah, a route I rode eastbound on day three of this trip.  This time I was headed to Vernal to ride north, which I did on Highway 191.  I wanted to ride to Flaming Gorge, and take off around the western side of the park, to stay on the road less travelled.  It is a beautiful highway, through forest and plains alike.  I could see that there was some weather building up ahead of me to the northwest.  As I rode closer to the Gorge, I climbed higher into the mountains where the weather seemed to be hung up on the peaks.  At the junction, I took 44 west, even higher into the mountains, and headed directly for those nasty looking black clouds.

The highway was mostly in the forest, rich smelling pine, with many forest service roads leading off to various camps and such.  I ran across one group having some trouble getting an Airstream trailer backed around and headed the other direction, but they seemed to have it in hand, if a little awkward. The rain squall in which they found themselves, and which I too endured, probably wasn't helping them.  I rode in and out of squalls all the way up until the road broke out on a mountain side, and down below and behind me to the east was Flaming Gorge.

I pulled into a road to a lookout to take some pictures.  It is a beautiful body of water in a lovely location, as the photos I stopped to take show.  As I took these photos, the thunder rumbled, and the wind started kicking up.

The wind was getting serious in a gusty sort of way, and I decided, based on past experience, that I wanted to get down and out of the wind, and away from the source of all that thunder.  I could see the lightening through the clouds, and there was quite a bit and it was getting closer.

So I shut down the camera, got to the bike, geared up, and headed for the highway.  The road back to the highway was sheltered from the wind on the right by a ridge.  Being aware that I would have to come out of the lee of the ridge to turn left back on the highway, and that the ridge obscured my view of any traffic coming from the right as well, I was very cautious as I approached the stop sign to make my turn.  Sure enough, as nature would have it, just as I broke out of the lee of the ridge, an extra large gust hurled itself into the me, the bike, and whatever was behind us, and down I went.  This is what it looked like.

The road was cambered downhill as well.  Whoops!  This is a mighty effort to lift a 600 pound bike uphill against the wind.  Fortunately, an old cowboy with an old cowgirl stopped, and I got the bike upright with a stone under the kickstand to keep it that way.  The really nice people who stopped to help were not sure of my sanity, and commented on it, but I was relieved they had stopped to help.  After they left, I reloaded the panniers, and off I went.  A little the worse for wear, but still in great shape.

I rode on down hill to Manila, where I stopped to get gas and a snack, and chatted up a Deputy Sheriff.  He advised that since it looked like rain, it was probably going to rain, and I would be well advised to suit up for rain.  I demurred.

Out of Utah I rode, into Wyoming, up to Green River, where I had a dickens of a time staying off I-80.  I wanted to get northbound on 372, which I was finally able to do, with a few 360s and such.  It was once again a pleasant ride through rolling hills and grasslands, through the Seedskadee National Wildlife Refuge, to the intersection with Highway 189.

Just before I got to 189, I pulled off at a wide spot to stretch my legs and walk about.  There I chanced upon the most amazing sight: a pair of white lace panties and matching bra.  Now these were very fine looking undergarments, but they were of the larger sizes.  Not really going to fit a size 2 body, if you catch my drift.  Or a size 18 come to think of it.  They were just laying there in the gravel, next to some knee high bushes, about 20 yards from the roadway.  In fact, you could see about three miles in every direction from that spot.  So how in the world did they get left there?  I mean, there wasn't even a honky-tonk bar anywhere near.  Or empty beer bottles.  Another mystery of the American West.

I headed on up to Marbleton and got a room.