The Cactus Trip Diaries

It’s happened before and will no doubt happen again – there are days on a trip that everybody feels drained and today was such a day.

Things started well enough as we returned to the area behind the Super 8 in Green River (S2524) where last night Cliff and Angie had finally found four Scleros. We soon found them again and I now have their picture with GPS coordinates embedded. A walk around the area showed us a few more, but all small, in full bud, waiting to open if only there was some water for the final push. Buds show that some will be typically parvs, but there was also a plant that was clearly going to have a creamy coloured flower. I wonder how reliable flower colour is for Scleros – we know that for Parodia and for Lobivia, it seems that in some populations any colour goes and it’s not a reason for erecting different taxa. [Note to self – check out mention of different flower colours in same location for Scleros when I get home].

The 191 from Green River to Price was a boring road but things cheered up a bit, scenery wise,  as we turned into the Ashley National Forest. We stopped at mile 257 (S2533) and mile 271 (S2534) and although we enjoyed stretching our legs, we did not find any cacti. The weather continued to threaten and the temperature dropped to 65F. After Roosevelt, still along the 191 everything seemed too agriculturally developed or urbanised for speculative cactus stops along the road.

We soon found accommodation and after down loading the few images of the day got our rain gear to go out to dinner, only one block away. We started by ordering beers and the young waiter was embarrassed to have to ask us for our ID. Angie and I had brought my passport – safer in our pockets than in the hotel room or in the car, but Cliff had no ID and despite his 61 years of age was refused alcohol. He stormed out in disgust, Angie & I followed. Cliff said that the whole affair had put him off his food, so Angie & I went out again, and found another restaurant. This one did steaks, but did not serve alcohol. Alain; beware, Utah is just relaxing some of its drink legislation and some places still stick very close to the letter of the law. Steak and lemonade is not my idea of a great dinner. Tomorrow we move on to Colorado.

Tonight there are weather warnings concerning strong storms that can bring a variety of delights, so we’ll see how we’ll feel about cactus hunting in all-weather gear tomorrow. Last year, in May, Ian reported that the temperature dropped down to -2 C when they got to Vernal. Wikipedia reports that Vernal is the coldest town in Utah. Remind me why we came here? Oh, yes, cacti!