June 2001

Good grief, another month has zipped by!!! But it was a very productive and interesting month. Guess that's why it seemed to have rushed by.

We started the month camping near a lake and ended it the same way. However, after using the term "lake" the similarities end. The first of June saw us in an alpine environment of Fishlake National Forest (NF). Now, Fish Lake, in Fish Lake NF, is as well-known to residents of Utah as Finger Lakes are to New Yorkers and the reason became clear early on. It was formed when a block of the earth's crust slipped downward, further carved by a glacier, and than filled by the glacier's melting ice. High up in the Mytoge Mountains, Fish Lake is shaped something like a giant thumb print. One side of the lake has spruce and fir trees reaching down to the water's edge. The other side's shoreline alternates between shimmering aspen and patches of sagebrush. The night's are very cool (flannel night- gown time for Suzi) and the day comfortably warm. Most of the campers are there for the fishing. They arrive in rigs made up of a pick-up truck through plush motorhomes and some older travel trailers towing rowboats with a tiny motor. Imagine this 21 square mile lake of crystal blue water reflecting puffy white clouds and stately conifers, its surface rippled by a gentle breeze and dotted by patient anglers hoping for fish large enough to take back to camp for dinner and above an even more hopeful seagull looking for an easy meal. Yes, that's right, Fish Lake has a resident population of seagulls along with a small flock of pelicans! Lovely.

The month's end found us camped next to Starvation Lake - not as well-known nor in as green a setting. (How can you have a lake with no trees growing on its banks?) This lake is enormous and shaped like a huge blob. You could put several Fish Lakes in it. The only trees to be seen along its shores are shoulder high junipers and a few cottonwoods where a stream feeds the lake. Folks come with their slick power boats and jet-skis to play. One favorite pastime is riding in an inner tub device behind a boat as it screams across the choppy lake surface. The sound of powerful motors is heard from "can-see-to-can't-see." There must be fish in Starvation Lake but no one is interested. And it is little wonder! The nights may be comfortably warm but the days just plain old HOT! Most of the time there is a breeze which ranges from gentle shirt flapping to something fierce enough to rock the trailer to and fro. The worst part of the whole thing is Tory's activities are severely restricted. She isn't permitted on the beach so cannot go swimming. And there are warnings everywhere about rattlesnakes, so no walks in the brush. She just lays around the trailer (or in the truck while we survey) and pants in a pathetic manner.

Well, Tory's fun may be limited during our stay here but not ours. Although we have work to do in the Ashley National Forest, we will be celebrating July 4th in Duchense and Roosevelt, Utah. The weekend will find us attending a Ute Pow-Wow and fireworks nearby. We'll report back our adventures next month.

After being on the road for about two months, we are back into discussions of great importance. Example? What do you call a bunch of locusts/grasshoppers crossing the roadway? Flock, herd, or hoard? And why do they walk rather than hop or fly? AND where did they all come from? According to local news media this year's population of Mormon crickets (that's what they are called) is the largest in eleven years. Well, we are doing our part to reduce their numbers by cutting a path through their blanket thick migration across various Forest Service roadways. (Fred says they sound like popping popcorn when Kermit Jr. runs over them; Suzi has sworn off.)

Along with such intellectually challenging discussions, we now have our "trucker's tans" back. The freckles on Fred's left side have all joined and Suzi's right side is cocoa colored. We do look rather strange - one side the same color as the poultry in a grocery's meat department and the other side appears ready for a Coppertone ad.

Kermit Jr developed an annoying thumping sound in the rear when driving over those bumpy Forest Service roads last month. With that concern and a fairly long list of necessities that could only be found in a large town we decided to spend some time in Provo, Utah. Got our necessities, had Jr. checked out (no problems), and confirmed we are truly small town people. And Utah has some great small towns. Imagine living in a town where most of the houses have big old shade trees in the front yard. There is a paddock on one side with a couple of horses or maybe a few head of cattle. The other side has a vegetable garden equal to the size of the house and front yard and everything looks healthy and abundant. And in back is an orchard of mixed fruit trees. We have seen variations of this theme all over the state. And unlike the enormous, dare we say pretension, houses seen in the big cities, the small towns' houses are older and have a quaint beauty to them. Yeah, give us small towns any day. Man, have we changed!

But the month hasn't been all fun, lazing around, and making shapes out of clouds. We did manage to finish our research on the Dixie, Fishlake, and Uinta National Forests. Plus, Suzi got a series of ten articles published on the web. Check out the Web site below and let us know what you think of Suzi's writing and Fred's photography. July, we hope, will see us completing the Ashley in Utah, including Flaming Gorge which has a portion in Wyoming, and the Caribou National Forest in Idaho. We're moving right along. The summer is going by so fast but doesn't an old saying state: "Time passes quickly when you are having fun."? Guess we are proving that to be true.

Suzi's articles: http://www.gorp.com/gorp/activity/camping/dow_intro.htm. (No longer there.)

Suzi and Fred