On the Way to Salt Lake City
June 4-8, 2009
After finishing my term as church
moderator on June 1, we started packing the Roadtrek and left home on
June 4. This time we took along a weather radio to monitor NOAA weather
reports in case the weather looked threatening. Our first night out was
in a small town about 50 miles west of Des Moines. The weather didn't
look good so I turned on the weather radio and discovered that a
tornado was on the ground about 30 or 40 miles south of our location,
but it was tracking to the northeast and would miss us. This particular
radio can be set to receive county-specific information and sound an
alarm if the NOAA issues a warning for our county, so I programmed it
accordingly. During the night it went off with a warning of severe
thunderstorms in our county, but it turned out that they weren't
very close. I decided I would rather sleep than worry about things I
can't do anything about, so I pulled the plug on the radio and slept
soundly through the night. So much for that idea!
In Wyoming we saw a lot of antelope along the interstate. This is the
first time I have been able to get a picture of them; they are very shy
and run away as soon as you stop to take their picture. Having a new
camera with a 300 mm lens helped this time.
Needing some rest from all the driving, we turned off the interstate
and headed south to the Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area. The
reservoir is formed by a dam on the Green River. We camped the first
night at the northern end of the reservoir, but it was pretty bleak
there, so the next day we went further south and found a beautiful
canyon with a nice campsite along side a rushing stream. Driving around
we found this overlook with a great view of the Flaming Gorge
reservoir. Now we could see why it was called Flaming Gorge.