Travels through Provo Canyon, Utah.

Location, Fillmore, UT

Re-reading yesterday’s post, it occurred to me that I talked a lot about the Mountain Men. I admit I have been intrigued by their efforts and feats as recorded in history.

I have read both “Undaunted Courage” by Stephen Ambrose and the abridged version of the “Lewis and Clark Journals” by Bernard DeVoto. Both of these books tell of the hardships and sacrifices of the “Core of Discovery”.

One of the men with Lewis and Clark was John Coulter who on the return trip to St Louis in 1805 asked to be relieved of his duties so he could guide a group of fur trappers back up the Missouri from which he had just returned. Thus began the era of the Mountain Man which continued until about 1835 or so. I recently finished a book called “A Majority of Scoundrels” by Don Berry which pulled together the history of the fur trade in America. It revolved around the Mountain Men who did the trapping and the men who supplied them from St Louis so the men could stay in the mountains and trap.

The exploits of these and all the Mountain Men are hard to comprehend unless you travel to some of the same places they did. Of course, today we can travel in a few hours what took them weeks to accomplish.

I have been lucky to travel and visit many of the places mentioned in the above books and have come to a great appreciation for what these men accomplished.

On our trip back from Wisconsin we drove along the Platte River which Interstate 80 parallels. This route became the road to the west for the fur traders from St Louis and later, the emigrants heading to Oregon and California.

This concludes today’s history lesson.

Last evening we had rain and pea sized hail. It also rained overnight and this morning so I waited until there was a break in the rain to hookup the RV. A quick stop for fuel and we were on our way west in the rain which quit about the time we entered Utah.

Our trek was again on I-80 until we got to the turn for Heber City Utah and the route down Provo Canyon. I have been to Heber City before via Provo Canyon but not pulling an RV. It was ok but there are lots of sharp turns down in the canyon. We exited the canyon in downtown Provo and eventually got to I-15 south. Tonight is the big foot ball game between BYU and Utah in Provo so all the radio stations were predicting dire traffic problems. Of course I-15 is all under construction as usual but we had no problems.

Tonight we are in Fillmore, UT at the KOA. Not our first choice but the other campground was closed. I am not a KOA fan because of their high prices. This RV Park was no different. Full hookups but no cable TV. We do however have lots of over air channels, many in High Definition so that helps.