Park City, Utah

I slept poorly last night, the first time on my roadtrip. And when I did finally awake, around 7am, the sky was overcast. The monsoonal clouds that had been forecasted had arrived, and I had forgotten about them when planning my day's itinerary.

The dark grey clouds had surrounded the Salt Lake City area, and rain was coming down in the higher peaks. No need now to rush up to an alpine trailhead. Despite the dark clouds, it was 74F at 7:30am.

But Sadie had to go. And she had to go NOW. Barely in the town's center she began whimpering loudly and more forcefully than I've ever seen her. As soon as I parked the van near the Temple Square, she ran outside the van and left a bodacious turd across from the LDS administration building. Knowing that the LDS church heavily surveilles its property (and also because I had my "mutt mitts" with me), I scooped up the warm glob and walked toward the Temple Square with a bag of dog shit in my hand. Thank goodness for the city-supplied trash bin nearby!

A parking meter maid drove by and chalked my rear left tire. She wanted to make sure I wasn't going to excede my two-hour limit. I had no intention to.

There was hardly anyone in the streets this morning. I walked the same course I walked last night, past the Lion House and Beehive House of Brigham Young, wondering what kind of man he really was. He had many enemies that I know of (especially those frontiersmen who were in the area who refused to convert to the cult's philosophy), but who REALLY were the people who built the ornate homes of this strange leader? And did all of Brigham's 16 wives live in that house with all of Brigham's 57 children? He certainly was busy populating the town with "Youngins!"

And how much of the required tithings Mormom members are forced to pay each year ("for the growth of the kingdom of God here on the earth, "Malachi 3:10) goes into the Temple Square upkeep? LDS leaders are a secretive bunch and do not publish the monies they forcefully collect from every Mormon. No doubt elders, all men of course, live very well off.

A block east of the Beehive, Sadie had to go again. And this time she squatted in the small patch of grass in front of the Utah Republican Party. Again, I cleaned up her mess but this time with the goal of getting out of the area. If dogs have political opinions, she certainly expressed them this morning.

The clouds were now dropping their rains around me, but the valley was dry. We climbed the easy .8 mile up Ensign Peak, a trail accessable north of Capital Hill in a ritzy neighborhood, with a nice view of the city and Salt Lake on a clear day. Today, though, the dark clouds dominated the horizon.

A group of kids were leaving the summit as we approached.

"We appreciate you having your well-behaved dog on a leash!" said one couple as we descended. "Two other people were up here earlier with their unleashed dogs. You are a good dog-owner!" said the woman. Well, in the city I will always have Sadie on her leash, but on a remote trail I'm more prone to let her wander, as that keeps me from falling down trails. The pressure Sadie puts on the leash pulls me forward and sometimes I fall. I do, however, obey leash laws when they are posted. Dogs can be a real nuisance.

Now that plans to hike up a peak had been scattered, I opted for plan B: drive to Park City via I-80 and walk around the Olympic Village. The Village with the slalom jump was four miles from the actual ski resort town of Park Village (and appearing smaller than expected) I didn't stay long to walk around. An event was taking place at the Village that demanded $10 admission.

The resort town of Park City was nice, nesteled high up a canyon. Homes were well-maintained as they hug the hillsides. As a former mining town this new resort town caters to the elite, as many of Utah's mountain towns seem to, and I didn't walk around much here. Parking was .50 cents for 30 minutes as the rain drizzled down. The wind had picked up, too. People around me were dressed in their finest and here I was in a cotton t-shirt, jeans shorts and my Teva water sandals. The homes were nicely decked out, the streets were level, yet other than fine dining and shopping there wasn't much to do here. A short drive up and over to Guardsman Pass only showed more construction on the other side of the mountain and a road badly in need of repavement.

I was sitting in the van in the parking lot when the parking maid came by checking dashboards of parked cars for the valid parking ticket. Mine had expired ten minutes earlier, so I drove off. Cities in Utah are serious about their parking meters!

I took a state road back toward USHwy189. A Park City police car was ahead of me, driving 30 in a 35 mile zone. What was going on? Yet before I knew it, he was behind me and had me pulled over, visibly in a sour mood. I was dumbfounded.

"Ma'am, can you tell me why youmwere tailgating me?" he asked kurtly. The cop was short, stocky with a reddish mustache.
"Sir, you were going 30 in a 35!"
"I was going 33. Two miles under. I was looking for somebody! Give me your driver's license!" I handed him my license, he walked back to his car, and I fumbled through my glove compartment to find my other documents, both registration and insurance. He asked for neither. Had I been Latina or African, I am sure he would have given me a finger full body cavity search. And who was he really looking for other than out-of-state drivers to pull over and harrass?

He stomped back to my van. "I will give you a warning this time. I could have you cited for tailgating a law enforcement officer. That's a $120 fine!" And before I could get my senses together, he stomped off muttering "You're welcome!" as if I had to thank him for his kind and considerate treatment of me.

The Park City Police website states that the core values of its officers are * RESPECT* COMMUNICATION* FUN and HUMOR* HONESTY and INTEGRITY* QUALITY and EXCELLENCE but I certainly did not get any of those today from the redheaded cop that chortled me. Maybe those core values only apply to the town's residents.

And how do the cops treat real criminals? I don't want to know!

This cop had me disgusted now, and all I wanted to do now was leave Utah and get back to better regions. Montana or Idaho were out of the question. Oh, how I miss Montana already. I drove south on USHwy 189, stopped briefly at Bridal Veil FAlls north of Provo, then drove through Provo but didn't stop because my memories of that town were of a prudish Mormon college campus.

New, elaborate homes have sprung up along Foothills Drive since my memories of this town of the late 1980s. One mansion overlooking the Valley off Oak Ridge Drive had a white female goat tied to a mailbox pole on a six-foot chain-link. The critter baawed and struggled with the chain, trying to get away. There was neither food nor shelter for the poor animal and no one was around that seemed to care for its welfare. I had had my share of pretentious people and just wanted to leave the Salt Lake area.

The rain was coming hard now, and Mount Timpanogos, the one mountain I had always wanted to climb, was not to be. Climbing him may never happen now as it's too far a drive from southern Arizona. And today's weather had been so precarious, starting out drizzly, then windy, then stormy, with brief outbreaks of sunshine before the next volley of rain arrived.

I continued my drive on USHwy 89, then turned on USHwy6 toward Price when I got south of Provo. The mountains slowly declined in size, and juniper trees now were dominating the hillsides. A few miles out of Provo going east the soil turned more reddish, and 30 miles east the soil started looking like the red rocks of southern Utah. I had entered a geologic transition zone.

But my mood was still dampened and fatigue set in again. Why am I so tired lately? I pulled over at one turn-off to rest for 30 minutes and to let my brakes cool down again. My body was aching due to lack of exercise. Price, UT was my destination for the night. The town never seemed to get any closer.

I finally made it to the small mining town by 7:30pm and stopped at Grogg, the Pinnacle Brewing Company (although the beer is no longer brewed on premise; Uinta Brewery now makes the beer sold at this place.) The interiour reminded me of a German Gasthaus: farming equipment was tacked to the walls and food was served on premise. This was clearly a popular place. Food was good--I had a veggie pizza--and the ambiance was what I had been missing in places like Park City. People come to the Grogg to meet their neighbors and chat over a meal.

Joe sat next to me and started chatting with me. He was sitting at the counter waiting for his wife Jean to finish her shift. Origianlly from Eton, OK he moved here to town because of his wife. Still dressed in stained welder clothes, he made his living welding and breaking rock open for area contractors.

"I've lived in this area for a long time and I've never learned what all these pretty rocks are around here." he admitted.

It turns out that this part of central Utah has quite a bit of prehistoric archeaology to explore. weather permitting, I may drive along the 70-mile "Nine Mile Canyon" tomorrow morning. It will take me out of my way from Moab, but with an early start I should have little problem.

Storms and wind continued to rage as I left the place at 8:30. Dust clouds swept through town in an eerie instant. Lightning lit up the northern sky. I was obviously not going to get anywhere further tonight.