Let's Go On An Adventure!

I ran across a social media post about the Kokanee Salmon Migration happening at Porcupine Reservoir.  I thought to myself, "Oh, I bet my brother, Ryan, and my parents would enjoy seeing the fish.  And that neighbor of mine, my boys' church youth leader, would know right where to go.  (He's taken the boys before for an activity).  So I send a text asking him for directions and tips of exactly where to go.  He gave me a short description and drops an exact location pin.  

I got everyone on board to go.  Dad volunteers to drive.  We were all excited and ready to go a little after 9am.  With the exact location in the GPS, off we go on our little adventure.  I agreed with Dad when he  commented on how I must really know the area since I've lived in Logan for 14 years.  Over an hour later, we arrive at our destination.  We were super disappointed when we saw that the access road was closed.  

Remembering we had just passed a ranger station, we turned around and asked the ranger on duty about the Kokanee Salmon Run.  He looked at us with a confused look on his face.  He had no idea what we were talking about.  "I've never heard of Kokanee Salmon.  Sorry."  

My "mom brain" finally woke up and put the puzzle pieces together.  We were at Pineview Reservoir, not Porcupine Reservoir!  The location pin my neighbor sent me was to the wrong reservoir!  Oh man!  Now we have to figure out what we want to do... still drive to Porcupine Reservoir, explore the Pineview Reservoir, or just go home.  We chose to reroute ourselves to Porcupine Reservoir.  

So, off we go to the right location, or so we thought.  The GPS took us on a nice paved road up in the mountains.  We were enjoying the scenery, when all of a sudden, the GPS tells us to turn left.  Dad was about to turn left until Mom says, "NO WAY.  That's one sketchy looking dirt road.  The paved road has to get us there.  Even if it takes longer, let's just stay on the paved road."  The name of the paved road was Ogden River Scenic Highway 39.

Dad obeyed.  As we rode on, the GPS kept directing us to turn on any other sketchy dirt roads we passed.  For the first few roads we passed, we found it funny.  Soon after that, our GPS instructed us to turn right.  If we would have turned right, we would've driven off a cliff!  After awhile, we realized that we were in for a very long ride.  

We saw so many random things on this long ride.  We saw black cows eating gravel on the side of the road next to an "icy road" sign.  (In case you were wondering, there was no ice).  Everything looked extra dry, especially the grass.  Those poor, deprived cows, they'd rather eat gravel than dried up grass.  One cow didn't make it though.  He was laying on his back, so bloated, and had his legs straight up in the air.  We didn't have any signs warning us of cows, but we did see spray painted "road signs"  warning us of "slow sheep on road."  Those supposed sheep must have been partying it up on the backside of those random sand dunes because we didn't spot one sheep.        

The paved road led us through the middle of nowhere.  After what seemed like an eternity, we noticed telephone poles... a sure sign that we were approaching civilization.  We made a pit stop at the oldest, most rundown gas station I've ever seen.  That pit stop was so dingy and had the most empty convenient store ever.  Atleast there were two restrooms (each with a door that locked from the outside and were conviently guarded by a humungous elk head on the wall).   The sign across the street told us we were in Woodruff, Utah, just 79 miles from Logan (home).  Another tiny town we sped by was Randolph, Utah... population 496.  You'd think that the residents of Randolph could think of a better name for their one and only restaurant, but no, Crawford's Trough sounds classy enough for them.  And in case their name doesn't give you a hint of what their establishment offers, Crawford's Trough's slogan is on their big 'ole sign: "It's a place to eat and drink."  We journeyed on.  The road lead to us driving part way around Bear Lake, which is close to the Wyoming and Idaho borders!  

In the end, I had to have a friend pick up Julia from school.  We arrived home just 5 hours after our departure.  And after all of that, we didn't even get to see the Kokanee Salmon!  But what an adventure we had!