Day 9

Day 9 started out very well considering where we were. From day 8's post you can see our lovely home for the night. It was actually pretty comfortable and we all slept fairly well. There was electricity so we could load the blog for the last two days along with some pretty good pictures from the road.
We also had a nice spot to hitch the bikes.

While packing up we spoke with a camping neighbor and he informed us we had a late night visitor to the cabin. He said a fox came up to the door and actually stood up with his front paws on the door. I think I may have heard that but I thought it was a cat. Oh well. Wonder what he wanted?
Our first stop of the day was the Antlers Inn and Restaurant.

 This is a new building on an old foundation, built to recreate some of the luxury of the old west. The scheme works quite well. The food is probably the best we've had so far.
We left the restaurant feeling well satisfied.
The plan today was to make it to Lyman Wyoming to the KOA there.We know this one from the last trip out west. It's a nice, comfortable, clean place to stay.  So, that's where we headed.
Now, those of you out there who know Jim, know that he will, on occasion, his mind. Today was no different. We had a planned route all ready to go, but after talking to a guy who "knew the area" Jim decided to take us north on tr. 318 through Colorado to Utah and pick up Utah 191 there. Rt. 318 was a really nice ride. Neat views, good roads right on up to the Utah border.  We went from this;

 To this, instantly.

Our speed went from 60mph to about 10 mph, and we still had at least 25 miles to go. Forward that is, we had about 70 miles to the nearest optional route.
And then it started raining. Not a lot, just enough to be really annoying.





The road went from gravel to dirt and back again several times. It also teased us with a couple of miles of blacktop that would disappear just as suddenly as it arrived.

This is a picture of some scenery from the road we took today.

The above photo was taken from near the top of a new section of  black topped road. This is a view of some of the road we have already traveled. Most of the road pictured  here is gravel.

The road may have been hard, but the views were tremendous. There was never a boring sight.

Doug took this picture near the end of our trial this afternoon.

After reaching the real black top road, we headed on towards Flaming Gorge. We followed 191 to the Flaming Gorge Dam and crossed the dam.

We then continued up rt. 44 through the Flaming Gorge park. We took a brief detour through Sheeps Creek Canyon. This is a beautiful side trip from rt. 44. The road is not the best. It starts out black top, then turns to gravel/dirt and back again several times. In the first 6 miles!
The scenery however is worth the road headaches. In Sheeps Creek you are literally driving up a narrow canyon with very steep and high walls.
The walls are sometimes close enough it seems you can reach out and touch them. You can;t of course, otherwise the wall might reach out and touch you. That might not be too good. But they are really close.
After our tour through Sheeps Creek Canyon, it was on to Lymon WY for the night. The scenery on rt 414 up to Lymon is terrific! We've seen it before, but it was different this time, we were headed north, not south. Makes a ton of difference.

This be home for the night. Might as well put this in here, tonight the cooking was done by.......Doug! We had a nice fire and a leisurely dinner of brats hot dogs, and Pam and Sandy got to take a break from all the "womens" chores. 

mileage for today 370 mi.  Total so far  2562.9

Tomorrow, Jackson Hole. Till then.......