Date: Mon, 2 Sept 1996 Subject: The Saga of a Steel Magnolia in Utah

Hi All,

MY TRUCK IS FINE!!!!! Thanks to every one who wrote back and talked 'truck' with me. And as the song says, 'On The Road Again.' We are back in business again.

Well, last week was relatively quiet. The haze cleared out of the valley and we were able to appreciate the view again.

Weather still clear and dry. Did I tell you that it rained last week? Three whole drops hit the ground. Katherine misses the rain and wishes that she were back in Atlanta to experience the fall monsoon season. I offered to fly her back home and she got real quiet, then she started muttering things about 'over her dead body' and such. Kids, there's no pleasing them.

We went into Salt Lake City Wednesday evening to visit a rockhound meeting. It was also a good excuse to make sure that the truck was really okay, so I made it a speed run (grin). The evening program was interesting because it featured a slide show concerning a river in China that cuts through a diamond bearing area. I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure out how I was going to get visit central China without screwing up my security clearances. Still puzzling......

Saturday was taken up by the usual weekend chores.

('The Saga of The Boneless Adventurers Traveling The Dirt Road From Hell' or 'Raggedy Ann Rides Again' begins here.)

Sunday arrived bright and clear with a definite bite in the air. It was actually cold for a while. We loaded the truck for a day trip and headed north, again. The object of the trip was Blacksmith Fork Canyon and a debris field that was supposed to have quartz crystals in it. (See page 70, 'A Collector's Guide to Rock, Mineral, & Fossil Localities of Utah')

We got on I-15 north and drove for only 20+ miles. Katherine spotted the column of smoke across the valley before I did. The mountains were burning across the valley in several locations and the huge column of smoke was awesome. Desolation is the best word to describe what we felt at knowing that more land was being scorched as we watched. I have never seen any thing like it in my life and hope to never see it again.

Blacksmith Fork Canyon is only about 70 miles north of Layton. The drive took us north and then east over the mountains, through Cache Valley, and up into the next set of mountains. About 13 miles past Hyrum, we turned onto a gravel road that lead back into the canyon for about 7 miles to where we were going. Now this was an interesting road, there wasn't much gravel, but there were a lot of rocks. At one point in the past five years, someone with grading equipment passed through the area. They missed this canyon entirely. Our average speed was about seven miles per hour. The road/washboard had a yaw and pitch motion that would have done a roller coaster proud. It started out as a two lane road and rapidly narrowed down to a lane and a half. I offered to let Katherine drive and she rapidly declined. Her excuse was that she didn't want to let go of the door frame, and besides the road was carved out of the hillside and there was a considerable drop in some places. I thought she would have done fine. She said that she could get fond of whip-lash if we went any farther.

Around five miles into the canyon we came to a fence with a big sign telling you that the road beyond that point was not maintained for through traffic. I had to stop and laugh because it was funny. The road wasn't maintained at all as far as I could tell. When we stopped, we noticed a beautiful spring leaping out of the cliff across the road. It fell about 15 feet over the rocks before creating a small creek. This is where you must have a HCV (high clearance vehicle) to go any farther, you should have one now. We went into 4x4 mode and crossed the ditch/road/gully and went on in search of the debris field. Forward speed is now three miles per hour, if you are lucky.

Another two miles go by and we have not seen the piles of debris that we are looking for. There is a mine up in the mountains that provides these nice piles of debris for amateur rock hounds to play in, if you can find them. We didn't see a single glittery any thing. Forward we went. Another couple of miles go by and the road has degenerated into two ruts in the dirt and the vegetation is so close that it brushes all sides (sides and top) of the truck. That's what they call a brushless carwash out here. Interesting. Well, we decided that it was time to locate a wide spot (creek bottom/meadow) to turn around in and go back. We might have missed something at this great speed. Well, we eventually found a place to turn around in. Now, I could have turned earlier, but Katherine didn't want any more adventure. I can turn any thing given a half inch clearance. The last time any one called me on that was the summer of '85 up in Rome, Georgia. I was driving an M-1 tank and having a ball. They were supposed to have had the M-1A's waiting for us but they shipped them out so that Chuck Norris could use them in his movie. Phooey! Well now, they let a group of us designers have at the tanks, but only for the day and they really wanted them back. More phooey! I didn't kill too many trees, or other related life forms, and my chaperone/keeper laughed himself silly. We had a great time. Back to the story. Katherine and I headed back down the canyon, bumpety, bump, bump, bump. Since I was on the other side, Katherine was seeing that side of the road for the first time. I had been watching the road and totally missed the dead/decomposed/yucky remains of a horse. We decided to not stop and sped up to four miles an hour on our way out of the canyon.

By now, we have decided that the directions that we had been following were a bit off, and we were hungry. We started looking for a place to stop after we got mostly out. The spot that we picked was really nice except for the wasps and yellow jackets that arrived to share our lunch. It was a short tail gate pic nic.

We went on our way back to paved road and experienced culture shock. After doing 3-5 mph for so many hours, it was a shock to actually travel on pavement making reasonable speed without getting motion sickness, or vibrating the truck into it's component parts.

By the time we got back to I-15, the valley was filled with smoke and you could not see the other side. All that was visible was a wall of shimmering smoke. Sad.

We got back home covered in dirt and happy. It was a nice ride, but it would have been better it we could have found some sparklies. Katherine did pick up a piece of slate that looks like a club. I thought that you weren't supposed to leave home without duck tape, but she said that every truck needed a designer club. Well, since Tbear threw my gun in Lake Lanier, I guess that having a club is as good as anything to carry around. Maybe I should put my hatchet in the back of the truck now.

Oh well. See ya later. Take care and write when you can.

Jan Noble, steel_magnolia@mindspring.com

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