DAY FOUR: JEROME, ID TO LOGAN, UT

Well, a good subject would be how the weather people get it so wrong – so often.

But we aren’t gonna do that.

The storm that blew in was incredibly large and covered most of the state of Idaho and Montana, and would be lingering for at least three days. I had no desire to ride three days in the rain, so I had to pull the plug on Glacier this year, and head out a bit more south to escape as much of this system as I could.

Looking at the map for interesting routes, I decided to head down to Utah via routes that looked super interesting.

And in fast changing mountain weather, I knew they would be.

The weather looked promising as I left the storms of Twin Falls and headed southeast.

I chose Logan, UT because there was a section of 89 I had not ridden before, and I wanted to get it under my bike while I had the chance. More on that road later… it was amazing.

I found a road that went through a protected grasslands area because it looked cool, and Google showed it as a very awesome route.

But it was closed after 34 miles of riding – with a storm at my back.

I had to turn around and ride straight into the damn storm… although I was very lucky to miss the really tough weather. I could see what I missed by the huge puddles in the road, and streams running on both sides of the little two laner.

The place where I got gas was now unaccessible to my motorcycle… there was so much water, I couldn’t see the gravel lot.

Good thing I got gas going into the road… it would have been very hard to negotiate that gravel and dirt under two inches of water.

The skies were turning very interesting with entire cloud formations “falling” to the ground with incredible amounts of rain.

I knew I had to get to Logan as quick as possible because the forecast was for the storm to intensify in the Utah area.

And that meant freeways… sigh.

I made it to Logan and had a wonderful BnB experience.
(NOTE: I will list the AirBnB’s I stayed in that were really unique and wonderful… you may need that info some day).

It’s always disappointing when your plans go awry, but I have always tried to find another path as quickly as possible.

I hate red lights and traffic jams, so I will always try to find an alternate route.

(This drives my wife crazy sometimes, but I hate being stuck because other people decided to do the same thing they always do.)

This turned into a very eventful afternoon when I was caught unawares by a blinding hail storm. Within 20 or so seconds visibility dropped to almost zero. I pulled off behind a set of tail lights and turned my blinkers on. A guy in a pickup behind me offered a seat so I hopped in and we talked about – the weather.

Since at the moment the weather was possibly a very scary thing.

It started to clear and I got out and back on the – now very wet – bike.

We started out slow and as the rain eased up I was able to get to Logan, UT with mostly dry clothes.

At this point i had already put on my rain pants, so I was mostly dry… mostly.

The clouds behind me sorta looked like this.

And they meant business.

I ended up on some incredible little rural roads, often the only vehicle for miles.

That was really fun.