Utah Roadtrip: From North to South Central

Once we got past the sprawl of motels, fast food, and chain stores to the center of Logan, we found ourselves in a pretty little town with a viable downtown area.  It is the type place that would be nice to call home if it were a little further south.  As we angled our way back toward the interstate, we passed through other small towns, some with a decidedly Western flavor, wide valleys full of green fields of crops signs advertising fresh raspberries, beautiful lakes, horses, and cows as we traveled down to the Salt Lake Valley once again.  We accessed I 15 at Brigham City and moved south passing much of the territory that we had already covered.

By a little after one with the temp at 95 degrees, we were covering new territory south of Provo with wide expanses of crops in irrigated fields.  Ocassionally we were seeing orchards, horses, cows, and beehives.  All of a sudden we were amazed to see acre after acre of purple flowers.  We were passing the Young Living Lavender Farm! I have tried for years to grow
lavender and get it to bloom and here was acres of it!

About midafternoon we left the interstate and angled down to Salina, Utah where we had reservations for the night.  Since we were running ahead of schedule, we stopped at the visitor's center (a little tiny building with two seniors about our age) and got some advice on what to do the rest of the afternoon.  They suggested two sites:  Fremont Indian State Park and Museum and Cove Fort Historic Site.  They even told us about an excellent Mexican restaurant to try for dinner.

We got on I 70 and zipped the forty miles to Fremont Indian State Park where we learned that the Fremont Indians lived in the valleys along what is now I 70.  The Fremont Indians were agricultarists who lived in this area between 400 A.D. and 1300.   They ware thought to have been influenced by the Anasazi who introduced corn and pottery.  The Fremonts are known specifically for the art panels they created on the rocks which are visible to this day.  Many artifacts from their lives were discovered when construction of the interstate highway began.  The artifacts are on display in the museum and the art can be seen from various points in the park.

It is amazing that they could do the painting and the carving high up on the rocks with no modern conveniences!

 

After we left the museum, we drove down the road to Cove Fort, a historic site where the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints built a fort in 1867 which served as a way station, trading post, post office, telegraph office, and home to Ira Hinkley and his family.  We were greeted by Revo Robb who does volunteer work with he husband and 23 other couples at the site.  After the railways came in, there was no longer a need for the site, and the church sold it.  Nearly a hundred years later, the Hinkley family bought the site and donated it to the church to be restored and maintained as a historic site.  The fort is built of black volcanic rock and dark limestone.  The walls are a hundred feet long and eighteen feet high and are very thick.  The original doors made of pine and cedar are at the entrances of the fort.  The glass in the windows was made to match the one pane that had survived. There are twelve rooms in the fort which served many purposes. 

When we have better access to stronger wifi, I want Klep to write about all the things he learned when he toured the garden, barn, and outbuildings.

 

After we came back to Salina, we had supper at El Mexicano Restaurant where I had the best chilie rollenos that I had had in forty years.  It did not disappoint.  Tomorrow we resume our National Part Tour with Capital Reef National Park.