Trucks
By Bryce Nielson
Well, the Bear Lake Valley has experienced another overly
hot and dry summer. The rain never came
so few experiences were washed out.
Visitors to Bear Lake continued to arrive at record numbers enjoying
themselves with good weather and minimal wind.
It seemed like the side by sides (UTV) were everywhere. These trends are becoming common place, like
it or not.
To me, what I will remember the summer of 2018 will be TRUCKS. Because we live on the big curve in Bridgerland. We have seen countless trucks, most with two,
yellow trailers, come and go to the Valley this summer. It started with the repaving of SR 30 from
the Rest Area to the Wyoming line. Between
hauling hot asphalt on the way down and grindings on the way back, these trucks
made the round trip between Brigham City and here countless times. I often wondered how bored the drivers must
have been seeing the same thing over and over.
The only fun they had was kicking in the Jake brake as the made the
curve rattling all the windows in my house and disrupting our mornings on the
deck. You could expect to see them in Logan Canyon slowing us down on the way
up. As that project wound down, the
rebuild of the east side Cisco Beach road got underway. Tons of material were hauled from Logan to
Bear Lake. As fall arrived, the asphalt
hauling started in earnest, many times, long before daylight. As I write this piece, they continue to pass
wearing out the highway.
All of us who live here remember the long waits on SR 30 and
the impassable road on the east side. We
also remember the lines of vehicles following yellow double trailer trucks in
Logan Canyon. Luckily, our memories are
short when it comes to highway construction.
Who can remember all to the delays and stop lights when they rebuilt the
upper Logan Canyon road? What did the
old road look like from the rest stop to Garden City. In fact, who can remember what SR 30 looked
like a year ago? The inconvenience of
construction is well worth the improved and safer roads we all travel.
Recently the community was completely shocked when the semi
plowed into Pugstones resulting in a death and the destruction of the store. I watched as Darin and Keri have put their
lives into building a quality, sporting goods store. It was a great addition to the community not
only with merchandise, a blog and contests and a place to learn about Bear
Lake. Shaylyn was always smiling making
the customers feel at home. There wasn’t
a store like it around Bear Lake. Now to
have it gone in seconds is incomprehensible. I know they will survive and
rebuild their lives. They are strong
individuals and the have the support of everyone. What can be done to prevent this in the
future is unclear. After the dust
settles and the investigations are complete, only then can actions be taken to
try to avoid this in the future.
