June 17 2025 Day Twelve

June 17, 2025 – Salt Lake City Utah – Day 12

 

Right now, I’m sitting in the hostel bar out on the rooftop having a drink and starting this story while I wait for Nicholas to come and pick me up for dinner tonight. I’ve started doing my packing for my last night on the road, at least for a week where I’ll feel a lot more comfortable and be able to relax and really feel like I’m on vacation. Sure, I’ve been riding around visiting all these states, national parks and other interesting destinations but there’s a bit of work packing, unpacking, figuring out where I’m going where I’m going to stay and what have I forgotten. I was thinking about that on my ride today to the Bonneville Speedway how once I get to Portland I’ll be back into society and something a bit more laid back. Don’t get me wrong, I love travelling this way but sometimes feel disconnected and away.

 

So, there are now 4 of us in the hostel room and although it is a 6-bed mixed room, my roommates are Dalton, Baltimore, Robert, Washington DC and the new guy that I finally got to meet is Garrett from the UK. He’s been in the states traveling for quite a while and is making his way to the East coast before he has to head home in August. I haven’t had a chance to visit with him as much as Dalton and Robert, but we’ll see, maybe later tonight. The sleeping wasn’t bad at all; I was comfortable and was out a few times and got to sleep in since I really didn’t have anything going on today. I did wonder about dealing with the bathroom door right across from my bed and getting it closed to take a piss cuz it’s a barndoor type that sticks and doesn’t glide that easy, but I went for it and no problems, I guess I worried about nothing. 

 

Today I decided to take a trip to the Bonneville speedway on the salt flats some 123 miles away and wanted to see what it is 19 years later. Well, nothing has changed and this time I didn’t take a trip too far out on the salt to find the mile markers, one I didn’t have as much time to get back and ready for dinner and the other, maybe a little nervous after having read things to watch out for on the salt, and I’d have to give the bike a bath when done. I did see a biker coming in from out where the races are and he did say there wasn’t anything going on out there and he had to use his compass to figure out his way back cuz no GPS out there and you can’t see the entrance which is just a small sign. I guess I’m not missing anything and years ago when I was here there were actually people out there doing races and time trials. Oh, the guy on the bike was from Belgium and I did meet a couple from Germany who were kind enough to take my picture, and I took a few for them. A really nice couple and they were telling me they just came from San Francisco and are traveling the west coast this year so have other places to still visit. They said they make a trip to the states every year and love visiting the states. They did tell me they got married in 1994 at Disney Land. 

 

Now I’m back at Slackwater’ to see how many sour beers I can have tonight, not as many as last night cuz it’s already 9:30 and this place closes at 10. I just got back from having a nice dinner with Nicholas who I use to work with and had me stay at his place a couple of years ago and he did tell me the reason no offer on a place to stay this year was because they had company from the Philippines visiting and they weren’t sure how late they would be staying. Well, the way it turned out would have worked cuz Nicholas’ wife left Monday and the couple staying when them left the same time. I guess it would’ve been a little overlap, but things are pretty nice at the hostel. 

 

Nicholas’ first choice for dinner tonight was a Mongolian grill, but they are closed until July that he took me to a Vegan place he likes. Yep, he’s vegetarian so no meat for me, but the tacos I had were pretty good, they had jack fruit which is apparently a substitute for meat. I had a great time visiting with him and hopefully on my next trip thru, maybe I’ll get to see Tamara and John who I use to work with at Well’s. I finally got a hold of Tamara thru LinkedIn and John gave me a number that he thought might work so I got an email from her that she wasn’t able to join us. I worked with her before Nicholas and John, and I remember her and our QA specialist from San Francisco in town for the winter carnival in downtown St Paul that we took them to. 

 

Not a whole lot to report today and I did get my packing started for my last leg of travel back to reality tomorrow until I get to do it all over again in a week to head home and pack for my east coast trip. Right now, my GoPro is giving me problems and doesn’t seem to want to charge and once it does start charging seems to turn on and off so not holding a charge. I was disappointed not having it work for my trip out to the salt flats, but I’m hoping to get something out of for tomorrows trip along the Hood River toward Portland. The GoPro is old enough and has had so many upgrades since that it just might be time to look into a new one and I probably need one of those 360 cameras to capture everything around me while on the bike. I’ll have to look into that sooner than later and I can imagine one problem is being able to store the content. Yep, digital photography and videos are great the problem is having enough and finding enough storage to store it all. I remember the service I signed up for 19 years ago worked great for sharing my photos while on the road and even though they offered lifetime storage, that changed soon after they realized how much storage I may need and wanted to start charging for it. Sure, I might be wasting some money now paying Apple for 2T storage at $10 a month, but I think I still have room to grow. 

 

So I’m a little behind with my posts and let’s see if I can get some done before heading back to the hostel to get a good night sleep before tomorrow’s big ride. The biggest of the trip at over 750 miles.