SATURDAY 5/23/15 NORTH OGDEN UTAH
We got up early to walk this morning since the wind and rain had stopped. We walked past a little camper that must have come last night. The camping “tent” like structure was on top of the van, and there was a ladder for them to climb in to the roof! We then walked over to Green River State Park — the campground was completely full— there actually were some spots with water and electric. The golf course was very pretty and green— no one golfing at 6:30 am. The only other area of the state park is a boat ramp — a sign said that people can boat 200 miles on the Green River. The water is a brownish green color, and there are lots of trees, bushes, and grass growing around it.
We ate and cleaned up (we had the best water pressure in the shower that we have ever, ever had in an RV park!), then went to the John Wesley Powell Museum — it was supposed to be open at 8 am according to the flyer I picked up, but the door said 9 am. We drove around town for awhile, searching for the Rock Shop Criss told me to look for, but it was not to be found. We walked around the outside of the museum for awhile— they had some informative boards, and there was a good view of the “Book Rocks” across the river — they looked sort of like open books. The museum was pretty nice— we always enjoy when they have a film, and they did have a 20 minute historical re-enactment of the Powell’s expedition. Powell was an interesting man — very educated— a geology professor at Illinois Wesleyan University. He was wounded in the Civil War— shot in the arm, and had a below elbow amputation. Yet he wanted to explore the Green River, starting in Wyoming with 4 boats that he had shipped in from Chicago (3 made of strong oak, and 1 made of light pine) in 1869— the railroad had just made it to Utah. He hired strong men to come with him. One boat was lost in the rapids, but the men were saved. Later 3 men wanted to quit the expedition — they left to hike out from the river, and are thought to have been killed by Indians. Powell and his remaining men made it thru the Grand Canyon, proving that the Green River connected to the Colorado River. The museum had some wooden sculptures portraying the explorers. It is hard to imagine those explorers in wooden boats, braving the rapids.
It started sprinkling again as we got ready to take off around 10AM. We had decided to head for Ogden today — we thought about boon docking in a Walmart parking lot there, but last night, I was checking stuff on the internet and found a website for Passport America. For $44 a year, you can get half price on selected campgrounds. We found one in Ogden called Wasatch View Estates for the half price rate of $15, so decided to go for it. I called the guy at the park before we left— he said they had had so much rain that he just had one site left that would fit our rig, so we reserved it. The highway from Green River to Salt Lake City starts as desolation — Larry saw a sign that said missiles from WSMR are shot to this area! Then we had several mountain passes to go up and down. It poured quite a bit of the trip — got all the bugs washed off the RV, but our tow car CRV looks pretty muddified. We got to the RV park around 3:30pm and got into a nice big spot easily. The proprietor, Len, was nice— we told him that we had just joined Passport America on line last night, and he just said “I believe you”— didn’t even take our number! He also said he had turned down 3 other campers who called for reservations, since we had reserved our spot. We asked about Methodist churches for tomorrow— he said there is actually a church service in the park at 10 AM. He snickered that the Methodist church nearby was “rainbow” , then said there was another nearby church that caters to “homosexual weddings”(!!) Anyhow, we plan to go to the Methodist church, since they have a 9 AM service. After he helped us park, he even gave us a “God bless you”!! When we walked thru the park later, we could see a lot of deep muddy ruts in some of the other sites.
I checked the Trip Advisor site on the internet that I use a lot when we travel. One of the recommendations was the “Old 25th Street Historical Area” of Ogden. So we drove over there — Larry saw a parking spot about 4 blocks before, so decided to grab it, tho as we walked the 1/2 mile, there were actually plenty of spots. There were a lot of art galleries, bars, eateries, and some shops -- tho they all closed at 5 pm — several had signs that they were closed for the Memorial Day Weekend — surprised me. We walked to the historic Union Train Station — this is near where the Golden Spike was put in, connecting the railroad tracks from the east and the west. Apparently, 25th St was full of bars and brothels in the late 1800’s. We walked to the Union Station — there was a museum there, but it was about to close, so we just looked around. There was another area of old railroad cars and engines. One car had carried the Olympic Torch Relay for the SLC Olympics in 2002. We stopped at a bread store on the way back to the car. I asked for some nice crusty bread that we could dip since I was cooking tortellini tonight. We got some delicious parmesan bread, then the lady asked if we liked rye bread— we said yes, and she said she would give us a loaf for free since they also were closing for the holiday weekend!
Back at the RV I just kept messing around till Larry said that it was 7:30 and when was I going to make supper?! This far north, it is so light out, that it does not seem like suppertime. Right now it is 8:10 pm and the sun is still pretty high up in the sky. I suspect our biologic time clocks are going to get really messed up as we go farther north! Tomorrow, we plan to drive to Nampa ID — 314 miles.
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