Day 18: Helper to Springville

Yesterday Afternoon.

Me: Do the trains run all night?

Motel Owner: No, they shouldn't do.

1AM: TOOOOOOOOOOT

2AM: TOOOOOOOOOOT

3AM: TOOOOOOOOOOT

We had breakfast at the Balance Rock Eatery & Pub.  We'd had lunch there at the very start of the trip.  The food is great, but the music choices are... not.

All fed with potatoes and egg we drove down the end of the town to walk around the Western Mining & Railroad Museum.  We figured it was a tiny little one-room museum, but it was huge and we spent about ninety minutes looking around.  Everything in the museum was donated locally.

For the final two nights we're going to stay in the same hotel that we first stayed in on our first night.  

The evening was spent trying to get our luggage packed and down to the right weight.  The plan - currently - is the pay for an extra bag.

Day 17: Green River to Helper

We left our hotel.  Can you see it dwarfed by the mountains?

We drove into the main part of the town.  Green river - population 900 (though it feels less).  Lot of buildings and signs to photograph.

More importantly, however, was the coffee shop.  We'd brought a typewriter with us to use as a prop to photograph with writer Jules in the Albuquerque desert.  We knew it was too heavy to take back, but it had a name.  Qwerty.  You can just dump something when it has a name.  Because it was used in Albuquerque Jules had changed the name to Albuqwerty.  It couldn't come back with us, but couldn't just be dumped.  We knew we had to find someone to give it to.

The coffee shop in Green River was perfect.

Goodbye, Albuqwerty - we hope you'll be happy in your new home.

Green River had so many midges they've had to install their own protection system.

An amble up to the hotel via a cool 50's type diner and Walmart (Living the American Dream) we arrived at the hotel.  Well, it's... Out of the back window, it's nice. See how delightful it is?

But, the front.  A railway track with massive trains with very loud horns.

We took a walk to the end of town which has a great old gas station.  Picked up some milk and back to the room for a coffee with something other than "half and half" in it.

Day 2: Springville to Moab

We may have been in bed early but alas - jetlag - for me.  I woke up at 1:30am and could I get back to sleep?  No.  Not at all.

I read until it wasn't too stupidly early to leave and we had breakfast and set off for Moab.  I'd read there was a ghost town en-route in a place called Soldier Summit.  On the way to the Ghost Town we passed an iron archway to Mill Fork Cemetery so we did a completely safe u-turn and went to have a look.

To get the cemetery you walked over a bridge, which this morning was coated with a thick frost.  The cemetery was pretty small (I looked it up on a website and the official internment count is just seventeen graves, though the findagrave website lists 46).  

You can read the story of the cemetery over www.thedeadhistory.com.  If you want the short version - A mother and daughter fleeing a town with an outbreak of Scarlet Fever didn't know they were infected and so infected most of Mill Fork.  Further tragedies ensue.

Leaving the cemetery behind we got to the "ghost town" in Soldier Summit.  All that was left behind were signs saying; "Private Property" and some brick outlines of buildings.  I suspect they've mostly been cleared away for some new rebuilding work.

We both very much wanted a coffee so we pulled into the nearest town.  This turned into a nice hour walking around Helper.  Surrounded by mountains it was a nice find and after a late (bigger) breakfast we had a wander around.  

Tiredness was starting to creep in and Moab was still hours away so we plugged on through.  Stunning mountainous scenery made the journey go pretty fast with Jane clicking her camera through the window.

Moab doesn't feel like an overly tiny town but if you look it up on Google Maps you can see it's really in the middle of nothing.

It's most unlike us on a road trip, but we're actually in the same hotel for three nights running so we walked across the road and grabbed food for the fridge.  Job done we wandered over to the Moab Brewery for a beer.  We both wisely plumped for "Dead Horse".  For an ale it was pretty nice.

Back to the hotel by 7:30pm (yes, lightweights) and an early night.