Tripness Day 21: Friday, August 8, 1997 Baker, NV (Great Basin NP) to Montpelier, ID  
 
 

Route	To	Mileage	Day Cum.	Attractions
	(Baker, NV)
NV 488 E	Baker, NV	6	6
NV 487 N	(Baker, NV)	5	11
US 6 E/US 50 E	Delta, UT	95	106
US 6 E	Santaquin, UT	70	176
I-15 N	Salt Lake City, UT	65	241	University of Utah
I-15 N	Farmington, UT	14	255
US 89 N	South Ogden, UT	12	267
UT 203 N, etc.	Ogden, UT	4	271	Historic 25th Street walking tour
UT 104 W	Wilson, UT	2	273
I-15 N	(Brigham City, UT)	19	292
UT 13 W	Corinne, UT	3	295
UT 83 W	Lampo Junction, UT	20	315
Box Elder Cty. 504 W	Promontory, UT	6	321	Golden Spike National Historical Site
Box Elder Cty. 504 E	Lampo Junction, UT	6	327
UT 83 W	Thiokol, UT	3	330
Faust Valley Rd E	Bothwell, UT	11	341
UT 102 E	(Garland, UT)	6	347
UT 30 E	Logan, UT	20	367	Utah State University
US 89 N	Montpelier, ID	70	437	Bear Lake
US 89 N	(Montpelier, ID)	2	439	Montpelier KOA

 
    We had just gotten into the car when we noticed a group of three elk standing in the road right in front of us.  We stayed and watched them for a while, and although we couldn’t get them to pose for the perfect picture, it was still pretty neat.  Leaving the park, we drove a road even lonelier than yesterday’s, across nearly 100 miles of Great Basin nothingness to the nearest town of Delta, Utah, where we stopped for gas; we were over 18 miles into Utah before we saw another car.  From Delta, we took Rte. 6 through more sparsely populated mining country, through Silver City and yet another Eureka, to join I-15 North at Santaquin.  From Spanish Forks to Salt Lake, we retraced Tripness I territory, once again reluctantly skipping Timpanogos Cave for lack of time.  The highways to Salt Lake City were under extensive construction to prepare them for the 2002 Winter Olympics, with several major exits, including I-80 W and one to downtown, closed for extended periods.  Miraculously, it didn’t slow us down much, and we pulled into the city about 10:30.  We tried a few parking spaces before finding one we could get into, then headed for the sparkling new visitor center.  They had a gorgeous blue Winter Olympics fuzzy, but it was out of our price range, so we picked up some info and a postcard and went on our way.
    We walked by Temple Square and fondly recalled Sisters Pett and Lyou, then headed up to the Capitol for old time’s sake.  It was a grand and beautiful as we remembered it, though the “UTAH” planting was in pretty sorry shape.  We actually went inside this time, and we saw the great rotunda decorated with murals of Utah’s Mormon, fur trading, and mining pioneer history, as well as a small basement museum with a giant relief map of the state.  We also made a point to use the Capitol bathrooms—the ladies’ had a plush, well-appointed lounge with sofas and antique mirrors; the men’s just had stalls.
    Next we headed east to the University of Utah, first climbing the hill through the stylish neighborhood above the university for a close look at the “U” on the hillside, and an excellent view of the city below.  At the university, we parked in visitor parking, picked up a map, and went out to stroll the campus.  At first, it seemed like the entire campus was straight out of late 50’s architectural hell, with nothing but a nice fountain to recommend it.  Eventually, though, we found President’s Circle, an older and prettier area ringed with old buildings.  The Park Administration Building, named for the New York physician who reopened the school in 1869 (it was founded in 1850 but had shut down two years later due to lack of funds), headed up the circle opposite University Avenue.  Four other grand old buildings stood symmetrically, two on each side; on closer inspection, the four were in fact identical.  The remainder of the campus was devoted mainly to business and engineering, and was hardly impressive.  Plenty of green space, and a nice view of the city below, but really nothing else to put it near the top of the list of Tripness campuses.
    We left the “U” and cut across town to I-15 North; from there we hopped on 89 to 203 and took it to Ogden, fourth largest city in Utah.  Without the benefit of a decent city map, we skirted all the way around downtown, stopping to drive through Taco Bell for lunch, and only incidentally found the main business district.  We parked at Union Station, which housed the visitor center and four museums.  Lacking the requisite 2 hours of museum time, we instead did a walking tour of the historic main drag, which in Ogden’s case happened to be 25th Street.  We saw many Victorian storefronts, some of which featured antiques from the days of the Union Pacific Railroad, on which Ogden was a major stop.  In fact, its influence is still felt in that Ogden is the only major city in Utah that is not predominantly Mormon.  Further down the street at the intersection with Washington, we saw the Art Deco Municipal Building (matched in its grandeur only by the high school we had passed on the way in), the Neo-Classical Masonic Temple, and the Italian Renaissance Revival Bigelow (now Radisson) Hotel.
    Next, we headed up 15 past Brigham City to 13, to 83 West, to... 30 miles out into the middle of nowhere?  No, it was actually Promontory Point, Utah, where the Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads met on May 10, 1869, an event now commemorated at the Golden Spike National Historical Site.  Though the Golden Spike that joined the two great railroads is in fact at Stanford (Leland Stanford was president of the CPRR at the time), a lot of history remains at the site.  The stretch of railroad, though not the original ties, still stands, and replicas of the original locomotives, the wood-burning Jupiter of the CPRR and coal-burning 119 of the UPRR, re-enact the historic meeting on the original track.  It was fun to see the re-enactment and read about the history; all in all, definitely worth the trip, especially with a Golden Eagle Pass to defray the $7.00 admission fee.
    Leaving Promontory, we drove around the scarily technological installation of Thiokol, an aerospace giant with massive government contracts to build rockets for research and defense.  Once past the rocket displays, forbidding security gates, and “Safety First” billboards directed at its employees, we passed through prime agricultural land near the town of Bothwell, then picked up 102 and eventually 30 to Logan, where we turned onto 89 North for its ascent through Logan Canyon.
    First, though, was the obligatory stop at Utah State University, which happened to be conveniently located right off 89 in Logan.  Most of the campus was closed for construction, but we managed to find the Art Deco Family Life Building, the centrally located Victorian administration building, and, most importantly, the “A”, where, since 1916, one can become a True Aggie by getting a kiss at midnight on the night of a full moon.  Since it was getting late, though, and the rest of the campus looked pretty lame, we kept our visit necessarily short.
    Through Logan Canyon, traffic was slow due to construction and many one-lane passages, but the scenic beauty more than made up for the delays as we climbed to picturesque mountain vistas through the Canyon’s forested walls.  A while later, we reached large, stunningly blue Bear Lake, and followed it past the state line to Idaho.  Past the lake in Paris, one of southeastern Idaho’s Mormon towns, we looked at the sandstone tabernacle, designed by one of Brigham Young’s sons and constructed by local craftsmen from 1884-1889.
    Finally, we passed through Montpelier, a resting place for Mormon pioneers on the Oregon Trail, and continued 2 miles east on 89 to our campground, the Montpelier KOA.  As the site was tiny, cramped, and expensive, I felt I had to go swimming to get our money’s worth.  Even at 82°, though, the water seemed cold, and outside temps in the low 60s didn’t help.  We returned to our site and made spaghetti and tomato sauce, and then, sitting at our table beside a babbling brook, our site didn’t seem so bad.  The sink for washing dishes was definitely a bonus, but by then it was too late to shower, so we went to bed, setting our alarm a half-hour early to leave time for a morning shower instead.