Day 35: No shopping here!

Heber City, Utah

Distance for the day: 84.4 km

Cumulative distance: 7,412.0 km

Top speed: 94 kph

Moving average: 46 kph

Temperature:  24.8 - 35.0

Maintenance day today, starting with laundry at a laundromat where more than half the machines were out of order. But as the reviews said, "way better than that other  sh*t hole". There are only two laundromats in Heber City. My recommendation would be that you don't go out of your way to do laundry here. At least bit was walking g distance for us. Not likely for you.

Even though we were done laundry pretty early, we were ready for a good breakfast. Almost directly between us and the laundromat was Chick's Cafe. Now, with a name like that I was somehow expecting that this was going to be a place catering to chicks, serving espressos, petit fours and croissants. It turns out Chick was the original owner and the place was filled with truckers, people out and about doing their Saturday chores, and farmers in town picking up their weekly supplies. No espressos to be had. We each had an omlette, which comes with toast and hashbrowns except that the hasbrowns aren't shredded potatoes,  they are those potato disc things served at places like Mickey D's, coated and deep fried though at Chick's they crumble them! And pile them high on the plate, making sure you get your money's worth. Typically, most of the restaurant food we have seen here is invariably served with a dumptruck load of carbs and it leaves little to wonder why there is an obesity crisis in the U.S. Unfortunately now, after five weeks of being here, we are part of it. And the place is packed.

Inside Chick's. (Dining room not shown.)

Chick's from the outside.  The reataurant had been in the family since 1954 and i think every generation was working there this morning. It was called something else before that. There was a loft above the restaurant listed on Airbnb.

Nan was nursing her sore posterior. Even though we really didn't ride that far yesterday, our azzes begged to differ as we spent a lot of time on the bike not going  very far, so she stayed planted while I went out for a brief ride up to Park City via a little back road that was filled with 180 degree switchbacks and gaining 1200 metres in elevation. The speed limit on the road was 15 mph. Not just the curves, mind you, the road. But it was only about 35 km to Park City and  besides, there were plenty of motorcycles going up and down doing more than 15 mph.

The view from Guardian Pass, on the way to Salt Lake City.

Those are not ski runs
but cut lines and roads.

I had this big plan that while I was in Park City, I would pick up a couple of items. Park City is right in the middle of three ski resorts that were so close together it was hard to tell where one ended and the next began. From just about any place, you could see all three ski hills at once and at one point, I rode underneath a chairlift. 

There is massive resort development adjacent to the ski hills. Huge condominium complexes with hundreds of rooms which I presume must be catering to wealthy Salt Lake Citizens. I saw a Lamborghini with a ski rack on top. Many of the condos appear to be close enough to the slopes that residents would be able to ski straight to their accommodations. What I found odd, though, was that the mountains are not high. From my bike I could see the top of the runs and the bottom. It looked like a run would take only two or three minutes at most. All that investment hardly seemed worthwhile.

The other thing that I found odd was that there were very few men in Park City. I'm sure that was just my perception but frequently, I saw groups of women, four, six or eight strong walking or hiking without a man in sight. This was not isolated but common.  I wondered if there was some kind of convention in town because Main Street Park City was closed to vehicle traffic and there was no parking anywhere, which kept me from learning the secret of Park City as I couldn't be bothered to sort out the parking situation then walk 5 km to Main Street.

Once back to Heber City, Nan and I went for a splash in the motel pool then scouted out a place for dinner. There was the afore mentioned Chick's right across the street, a drive through hamburger/milkshake spot next to the motel which looked pretty popular and the smell of the greasy burgers cooking was somewhat enticing, the grocery store (bagged salad) 1 km away or The Back 40, which had an interesting menu, about 2 km away. Sadly, booze and bikes don't mix and we were in the mood to have a glass of wine with dinner, so we elected to walk. It was still pretty warm but we did it. The walk was about a half hour and as we approached, we could see from afar that there were a lot of vehicles parked there. We joked that the restaurant was probably closed for a provate function. As we got close, we could see that there were a lot of people waiting outside of the front of the restaurant. This was a little grim, given that we had just made a considerable investment to get there (and would to get home) and there were all these people outside and not in the restaurant. Nonetheless, undaunted, we pushed our way through the throngs of people and got in line at the front. It turns out, a reservation would be helpful. 

Sitting at the bar in The Back 40.

The place is packed. All tables full. But wait! There is a bar with two empty seats and we indicate we are happy to sit at the bar (which is true) so we were immediately seated.

Full to the brim.

Turns out to be a pretty good restaurant - not your average greasy spoon- with some of the menu items not being fried

Nan and I split a first course of tuna something. It was amazing.

Then we both ended up having grilled salmon, which was also very good. And dessert.

Late this afternoon, a group from the Over 70s gang rolled into our motel. Theor ride was from Boulder, Colorado today (about 350 miles.) They didn't appear to be intimidated by us. We heard them carrying on in the room next door until 9:30 tonight!