I made a little road trip this week. Really more of a long errand, but it felt like a visit to a foreign country. I drove to Roosevelt to pick up a $1,650 irrigation headgate from a supplier out there. That’s for the hardware; installation is on top of that. The State is trying to get a better grip on what is actually being used for irrigation, and as a result, I’m installing 3 of these this summer. But what’s ten grand among friends?
This one is being split with a neighbor. There was considerable debate on the appropriate size. The neighbor, who has an excavation business and has installed a lot of these, was certain that an 18” was plenty big. I’ve had a lifetime of mucking them out when a beaver decides to clog them up, which is a real thing in my business. I thought the extra $300 to get a somewhat clog-proof 24” was money well spent. We are replacing a contraption made of railroad ties and 2×12 planks, so there was no real guide on size.
We resolved it in the manner that most engineering decisions are made. Rock-paper-scissors, with the winner choosing the size. It was healthy to get out of our local bubble and venture into the real world. When I travel, it’s generally to other places as disconnected from reality as we are.
First off, I was stunned by the prosperity evident on the farms and ranches. They are lower, and still irrigating. The hay seemed to be growing fast enough to see it happen from the truck. They are framing for purposes other than maintaining Greenbelt property tax status. Nothing like the right climate, water, and soil to make for good farm country. After a bit, it also occurred to me that having an oil well on the property probably alters the economics of farming significantly. In fact, looking from fence-line to fence-line, it was pretty obvious which ranchers owned the mineral rights and which were trying to make a living raising hay. Soil is everything in farming, especially the soil several thousand feet down.
Roosevelt is a nice little town with a nostalgic downtown with regular stores selling things that regular people actually need, with a lot of really ugly industrial stuff spread out in either direction from town. There’s no way to make the industrial facilities pretty, but I have to give them credit for trying. There are big pots of petunias packed all along the main drag, whether in front of historic storefronts or places that were repairing drilling rigs. It made a big difference, and proves that it doesn’t cost a whole lot to care. I didn’t make it to Vernal on this trip, but they have done the flower thing for decades. It really adds appeal to the place, especially in front of the iconic pink dinosaur at the entrance to town. Kamas is trying a bit of that this year, with only the Sinclair dinosaur. I think it is a volunteer effort and pretty as the planters are, there aren’t enough to make a Roosevelt-sized splash.
You can’t make a road trip without eating at the local hot-spot and reading the local paper. The big news in Roosevelt this week seemed familiar—they want more pickleball courts. Other than that, the front pages of the local paper and ours might have been from different planets. There were only a couple of real estate ads. My guess is that nobody in Roosevelt gathers around the crystal-filled propane fire pit in their back yard to discuss the price of their house over brie and chardonnay. Nobody seems to be moving in or out. Or eating brie. If there is growth, it’s happening at a pace that didn’t seem to be chaffing.
Nobody cares if you ride an e-bike on the trails around Altamont or Duchesne. There don’t appear to be epic battles over short term rentals or violations of the taste provisions of the CC&Rs. The Arts & Culture District appears to be a completely acceptable County Fair. People were involved in making a living, and didn’t seem to be paying much attention to what their neighbors were up to. There was a sense of functioning stability, with nobody rocking the boat. You could go away for a whole month and come home to things looking exactly as you left them.
Every time I make that drive, I’m surprised by how quickly the landscape changes from the mountains around here to the rock cliffs and mesas that begin to show just east of Wolf Creek Pass. It’s an entirely different geology by Duchesne. Much of it pretty in its own way, but definitely the high desert.
I made a bit of an excursion of the trip, taking a detour through Boneta and Altamont before looping back to Tabiona for the trip home. Interesting country, though there were no antique tractors for sale. There was an old combine in Talmage that was worth a stop.