Today we are in Salina, UT. We dodged storms all the way across NV today and into UT. Once it rained for about 2 minutes, but I could see it wasn't going to amount to much so I didn't bother stopping for rain gear. We met a couple of Hds at a gas stop up the road a bit. They were riding about 10 minutes behind us and got drenched multiple times. Guess we were lucky. I recall seeing a lot of rain but every time we approached the storm, the road curved away from it. We stopped a bit early today since the time changed and we lost an hour. Besides it's laundry day.
Tonight we are in a Best Western that had advertised internet access, but when I got to front desk, I saw a sigh that described their access and it included a CD and card that they furnished. Since I run Linux I was pretty sure that wouldn't work for me. I cranked up the computer with the wireless card and surprise! It connected without a problem.
The ride today was very much like yesterday, with valleys between two ranges. When we got into Utah, we saw a giant salt flat to the south of the road. I would liked to have gotten a picture, but that was one of the places we were squeezing between storms and I didn't want to get wet. Besides the turnoffs on this road are loose gravel and slope away from the road. That makes for tricky stopping when your right foot is somewhat lower than your left and the footing is not too substantial. I'm not tall enough to put my right foot down without fear of dropping the bike on its right side. We'll have to do without some pictures.
The computer slid off the bed the other day and the keyboard got jammed. It was difficult to press and release the space bar and control keys on the bottom row (alt, ctrl, etc.). I pried on the space bar a bit and loosened them up and also fixed a problem I've been having with the shift key. Previously when I'd press the shift key, it wouldn't always give me and upper case shift. Now it works fine. Guess I'll have to remember that trick. I had to replace this keyboard a while back and the new one never worked quite right, until now.
Riding has been comfortable the last couple of days with the morning temps in the low 60s and afternoons peaking around 100. It never stays over 100 for very long however. We sure do like the cool collars. We carry a gallon of water and a bag of ice in the cooler. We have 4 cool collars, two of which are in the cooler and the other two around our necks. We swap them frequently when the temperatures get toasty.
The only wildlife we've seen recently are ground squirrels as they run across the road in front of us.
We've been on 50 all day. We're thinking of heading off to the Arches NP and then south to perhaps pick up the petrified forest. Looks like a lot of rain on the weather channel throughout this region but we've ridden in rain before and been real lucky this trip.
States and provinces we've travelled in: Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Utah. Nineteen so far. We're not out to set any records however.
I stopped trying to record the highest gas prices.
The pictures from now on will be on http://cruisinglife.org/summer2005/
Jim.