Cows, a long and lonely road, and a castle

On Monday, July 20, we got ready to get on the road.  It was cloudy, a 5-layer kind of day, but no heated gear for me.  We were heading into some high elevation with about 9,000-foot in elevation passes. 

But first, we had a mission.  Rock Springs had cows.  The cows were like those three-dimensional cutouts, and decorated by a variety of businesses.  Once we saw them, we discovered them all over, in pairs, a single one, a whole herd of them. 

This cow was sporting a hard hat, reminding me of when I worked, on occasion, I had to wear one.  But mine was red and had my name on it.  It now resides at my house.

Everybody loves a cash cow.  Many of them had cow bells ... pretty cool.

My favorite was the Wendy's hamburger joint cow.  I loved the red pig tails and tail, and the bloomers were the best.

We were told they were made in honor of the high school rodeo.  Cool.  We took photos.  Who knows, there might not be anything else for blog fodder for the day.  Some days are rather limited.
 

But there was wildlife in town ... rabbits.  They seem to be all over the places we've traveled.  Little cotton ball tails.  They're so cute although I'm sure the people who have them around their homes are not as thrilled with them.

We ran across on I-80 for a while toward Green River, Wyoming, as we were going to come down the west side of Flaming Gorge.  We'd been told this side is not as pretty as the east side except for Red Canyon.  We thought it all quite pretty, although I had to agree that Red Canyon was spectacular.

The view to my left had a wood fence and the gorgeous red tones.  The reds cannot quite be captured.

The view to my right had more red hill side and part of the Flaming Gorge Reservoir.  This area, 1,875 acres, was originally purchased in 1958 as critical elk habitat.  As many as 650 elk may winter here to escape heavier snow at other locations.

During the day, we had some sprinkles but avoided the big rain.  I was in denial.  If I didn’t have to put on rain gear or some type of gear, it wasn’t raining. 

Another hazard out here is tumbleweeds.  This one came at me from the side and I didn't see it until it was there.  It whacked me in the knee, leaving a welt and a black and blue mark, and ended up tangled in my engine guard.  We stopped so I could remove it as I wasn't interested in it catching fire and bursting into flames.  I didn't want to go out in a blaze of glory!!!

We saw some interesting things, but some maybe not so good.  We saw a hay truck’s load tumbled and jumbled all off to the side and down into the ditch of the road.  We didn’t see the truck but it came off some truck.  There were vehicles and trucks stopped to help pick it up.

Our wildlife viewing for the day consisted of deer, two big girls, and a black bear sow with two cubs.  The cubs were black but the sow was a golden color, although she had black around her eyes and ears.  It was a beautiful sight to see.  The wildlife makes for a super ride.  As long as it stays off the road.

She was a beautiful girl.

It's not clear but you can see she's brown and her two cubs are black as black.

We had some great riding, ending up in Delta, Utah.  Nice twisty and curvy roads that make a motorcyclist’s heart sing.  Biker Bill had asked why we were staying in Delta, Utah.  Cuz we only wanted to ride that far, and there was a hotel, a Budget that I might ordinarily avoid, but it was actually okay.  And so we walked again and even found a few things to photograph, including a closed coffee shop, and what I believe are the widest streets in a small American town.  You could land a jet on them they’re so wide. 

We found a beautiful park with tons of flowers everywhere.

There was even a little waterfall.  We wandered in the park, walking in grass so thick you left footprints.

This little coffee house is now closed, but it's one we would have frequented for our morning coffee if it had been open.

On Tuesday, July 21, we were still riding geared up as it was cool riding in the morning.  We’re running Highway 50, the Loneliest Road in America.  We have traveled this road before, when we hit it in Kansas and rode it all the way to California.  It is indeed quite lonely, but also quite lovely in a barren way.  Some places are green, and mountainous, and we even saw a doe with two fawns. 

The other fawn had already moved off, but they both still had spots.  They were also quite curious.

Still other parts of this road are flat and appear to be never ending.  You travel along seeing the mountains in the distance, yet you don’t seem to get any closer with miles.  So, I guess you’re on a treadmill to nowhere, until you end up somewhere. 

A long, grey treadmill.

We didn’t see much in the line of wildlife on this section, a few birds.  There were some cows, but not many.  We also didn’t see much road kill.  I liked that part.  So there really isn’t much out there and the road lives up to its name of lonely.  The towns are also quite sparse, so it wouldn’t be a place to be broken down.

We stopped in Eureka, Nevada, for lunch.  There are some beautiful old buildings here.

We mostly avoided the bad weather although we had a few showers and some heavy- wind.  At one point there was a gust of wind that nearly took me off the bike.  Whoa!!!

We ended up in Austin, Nevada, staying at a little B&B that had once been a boarding house.  It was a very nice place, and we enjoyed the stay.  We did our usual walk, going up and down some very steep hills. 

There were interesting things in Austin.

Old trucks are always kind of cool to see and photograph.

Old mine shafts are also of interest.  Jaz likes rusty things.

We saw this jack rabbit.  Look at those ears.  It's huge and totally different from the little cotton tails we'd seen.

The area reminded me in a way of Bisby, Arizona, because of the hills, but it isn’t contained in as small an area as Bisby.  As we walked in town I turned to my right and startled a deer that I could have almost reached out and touched.  We were both startled and she got away before I got a good photo.

Deer butt.

There’s also another place we walked, about a mile away, called Stokes Castle.  It’s a three-story, 50- square-feet around, stone tower built by Anson Phelps Stokes, a mine developer, railroad magnate and banker.  It was completed in 1897 and was to be a summer home for his sons.  However, the Stokes family never spent much time at the tower -- a month in 1897, a few more days later in the year, and some time in the summer of 1898.

We'd been hoping for a good sunset shot but decided we didn't want to be a mile away from home in the dark.

The tower is patterned after a family painting of Italy.  It’s built of hand-hewn native granite and the huge slabs were raised into place by a hand-operated windlass.  The first floor had a kitchen and dining room, the second floor was the living room and the third floor had two bedrooms.  Each room on the first floor had a fireplace, and the upper floors had wooden balconies.

The place still stands, but is pretty beat up.  You can still see the railroad ties that were used to hold the balconies in place years ago as the ties and stone are pretty indestructible.

There was also some other old stuff there that people have not yet destroyed.

Sadly the tower now has a chain link fence around it to help prevent theft and vandalism.  That, of course, does not allow for great photos, but it was still fun to go there and see it.  We walked back down the road and got back to the B&B just before sunset, perfect timing on our part.