Picto Diary - 01 to 07 June 2023 - Doug Smith, TA Travel Plaza Citizen Driver of the Year 2023
Above: Sheep Creek, Flaming Gorge Reservoir, Daggett County, UT. 01 June 2023
Out and about on the Duc... with His Highness (CanAm), Mont (HD), and Peterbilt (HD). The Commodore (Slingshot) followed later after image taken. Half hour of light rain to get to this point. Lunch at Brownings in Manila, UT. Blustery with some rain through Echo and benign conditions thereafter back to Park City. This has been an annual ride tradition for ten or fifteen years. I expected more snow along the route, US 191 from Vernal to Manila, but snow was virtually gone from the roadside. 370 miles round trip from Park City.
Above: Wasatch Bagel, Park City, UT. 02 June 2023.
LSDM. Guest visitor was Joey Lukrich, "LSDM Scion," a high achiever athletically (Football Team captain) and academically (top student in finance) at Drake University. LSDM loves its high achieving scions. Hat tip (squared): 'Cake.
Above: TA Travel Plaza Tooele, UT. 02 June 2023
Peterbilt accepts TA Citizen Driver of the Year award for 2023. TA, with 270 travel plaza locations in the US, named its TA Tooele Travel Plaza after Peterbilt and affixed a plaque, honoring Peterbilt, to its travel plaza structure. Peterbilt is a board member of Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA). OOIDA was represented at the ceremony by a signature eighteen-wheeler driven by Sam, from Joplin, MO. Freddie poses in front of the big rig. The ceremony was attended by friends and family. Half the attendees, it seemed, were grandchildren of Peterbilt and Lynette. Jenny Taylor, Utah Gold Star Mother, was there with her seven children. From LSDM, in addition to Mwah (sic) and TIMDT, 'Cake and Maui were also present. Truck drivers do far more for the country than they are given credit for. Truck drivers are resourceful, hardworking and grounded (no pun intended). And, truck drivers know how to do stuff. I want to be around a truck driver when the mud hits the fan. That's why I am often seen sucking up to Peterbilt. Mucho congratulations, Peterbilt, for this much deserved award. You are an apex credit to your family, your profession, your church, state and nation.
Above: Whispering Elms RV Park. Baker, Nevada. 02 June 2023.
It's hard to believe that these two creatures are members of the same species.
Above: Sugar and Salt Restaurant. Baker, Nevada. 02 June 2023.
Freddie basically is OK with me. But numero uno for Freddie, by a long shot, is TIMDT. Funny, that's the way it is with most people we know as well.
Above: Great Basin National Park, Baker, NV. 03 June 2023.
Wheeler Peak, 12K plus feet elevation, in both images. Second image is from Archeological Park, site of a Fremont Indian village. The Fremont People left the Great Basin about 1300 AD, after living there from 700 AD, due to drought. We came this way to go to Gandy Hot Springs. Locals informed us that the road to the springs was pretty muddy, so we bagged the trip. We'll try later in the year. It pays to get local input before going off into the backcountry.
Above: Target logo. 04 June 2023. Target is in the soup. Numerous of its customers began to boycott the store when it began promoting a transgender line of clothing for Pride Week. The boycott has held for the last six weeks, and Target has lost some $15 billion in equity value. When I was a director of Target Bank ten to fifteen years ago, I was singularly impressed with the high-quality talent Target had at the corporate level. Unusual to me at the time, however, was that most of the Target corporate people I met were sourced from the upper Midwest and from schools located in that area, e.g., University of Wisconsin, University of Michigan etc., all bastions of liberal thought. Target's corporate staff seemed to live in a bubble of cultural progressivism, endemic to the upper Midwest. I'm wondering now if the self-enforced leftist insularity of the Target business culture contributed to the company's seeming alienation of many of its loyal customers.
Above: Pine Valley, Dixie National Forest. 05 June 2023.
Freddie and TIMDT amongst the Ponderosa Pines.
