Road Trip 2010: Day 64: Brigham City, UT

See photo UPDATE below.

We intended to go birding at the Bear River National Wildlife Refuge Wednesday morning, but the darn auto loop road is closed to the public. The county is working on the road leading to the loop and has shut down portions of the road until at least September 15th. If memory serves, there are several bridges in that stretch and they are probably rebuilding one or more of them.

The refuge is running some guided tours via vans. They enter the auto loop from a different, usually closed to the public, road. I chose to pass on sitting in a van for three hours with folks I didn’t know and none of whom had any camera equipment. Some of them seemed to be quite avid birders, however. I overheard one couple sign up not just for Wednesday’s tour, but Thursday’s and Friday’s as well.

To play the role of the Fox in the old sour grapes fable…. The winds kicked up after dark last night and they continued to howl all night and throughout the morning right on into Wednesday afternoon. Sustained winds of 30 mph or so were the norm and gusts up in the 40 mph range and beyond were frequent. The smaller birds were pretty much hunkered down under those conditions.

Bear River National Wildlife Refuge Visitors' Center

Bench on the sides of the Wasatch Mountains.

The line seen on the sides of the mountains ringing the Great Salt Lake Basin indicate the actual water level of ancient Lake Bonneville. This was certainly an inland sea!

Looking south from the Bear River NWR parking lot
toward the Great Salt Lake.

We did spend some time at the refuge’s visitors’ center and on the short walking trail that loops around it. We also got to watch a short (30 minute) video about the refuge that will make one fine program for our Audubon chapter. (Yes, we did buy a copy just for that purpose.) Afterward, we got some banking and grocery shopping done. This afternoon, if the internet connection still bites, we’ll probably just relax around the campground and hit the pool again.

UPDATE Photo insert:

View from the KOA swimming pool.

Part of the range of mountains on the eastern side of the basin. Taken late in the afternoon when the sun was well on its descent in the west.

[End UPDATE]

We’re ready for the final leg of our summer journey. Thursday night we’ll stay somewhere near Rawlins, WY and Friday through Monday nights we’ll be at the KOA just south of Colorado Springs.

[As you may have noticed, I found a way to get online today. The campground has at least three LANs and while my trailer may be parked where one is supposed to rule (the west side of camp) I can also access the east side and another generic Brigham City KOA network. It was the latter that allowed me to stay on line long enough to post this and upload the photos for the last two days.]