A third of the trip done, and tomorrow we’ll be through a third of the states. We mainly headed south through Utah to get close to Colorado for the ghost down drive tomorrow. Mormon country.
We stopped off in Lehi. “Lehi (/ˈliːhaɪ/ LEE-hy) is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States. It is named after Lehi, a prophet in the Book of Mormon. The population was 75,907 at the 2020 census, up from 47,407 in 2010. The rapid growth in Lehi is due, in part, to the rapid development of the tech industry region known as Silicon Slopes. The center of population of Utah is located in Lehi.” — Wikipedia
Through a large interstate which had at some point (I think) nine lanes of traffic, we drove to Helper without having booked a hotel but we’d been there before and knew there was one hotel (and despite it not being that great, it was cheap and would do.) As luck would have it someone had cancelled and they had a room free. A small room and a big glade fresh thing plugged in made for a lot of smell in a small room. Because we’d checked in so early (1:30pm) it was like a day off, so we walked around the town. Helper is a small town in front of a large mountain.
A walk around the mining museum. There was talk of Butch Cassidy; “Here, in narrow Price Canyon a few miles from Helper, Cassidy and his gang stole the payroll simply by shoving a revolver into the gut of the paymaster, who forked over the loot.” (ref: https://www.utah.com)
After the museum we popped to a bar for a beer. It turned out it was a private club (the door sign wasn’t as clean on the way in). The guy, James, sold us a beer anyway and told us about the club. It was essentially a chapter similar to the Freemasons. They raise money for a children’s charity. Members of the clubs are known as Clampers. James used to work in the mine. He kindly gave us a book and in the back it answers; “What is a Clampter? The short answer is a Clamper is a Member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus.”
