End of road marks an uneventful journey

Editor's note: Columnist Lee Benson is bicycling the length of Utah along U.S. 89, a k a State Street, starting at the Arizona-Utah line and ending at the Idaho-Utah line. His columns will chronicle what he sees, hears and avoids along the way.

BEAR LAKE — "UH, EXCUSE ME," I called out to the man with a paint brush in his hand. "Is your cabin in Idaho or Utah?"

"The cabin's in Idaho," he said, "but the driveway's in Utah."

I had arrived at the end of the line.

It turns out that Craig Ludwig's family cabin straddles the Utah-Idaho border, with 200 feet in either state. He has an Idaho address — No. 18 Highway 89, Fish Haven, Idaho — because the house part of the property is in Idaho, but the driveway that leads to the lake is in Utah.

I asked him if it would be all right if I walked my bicycle to the lake for the ceremonial dip of the front tire in the water, signaling the end of my Highway 89 bike trip. Not only would it be all right, he said, but he sent his two sons, Parker and William, with me.

Since it got the boys out of the painting project, at least briefly, they were more than happy to be part of the solemn moment.

"Well, that's it," I said as I rolled the front tire into Bear Lake. Eight days earlier, in an equally uneventful moment, I'd rolled my back tire into the waters of Lake Powell at Lone Rock Beach on the Utah-Arizona line, next to a mom and son playing smashball on the sand.

The entire journey, for that matter, was largely uneventful, and I mean that in a good way. Along the length of 89 — the Utah portion of the road is officially 503.3 miles, although I took a side trip here and there and ended up riding a little more than 600 miles — I had no unpleasant incidents. No one threw anything at me, no one swerved at me or tried to run me off the road. I only had a handful of "diesel blasts" and horns honking. No dogs chased me, although there were several who wanted off their chains real badly.

Usually, only the bad news about road biking gets publicized.

The truth is, as far as my experience is concerned, most drivers go out of the way to give you some room, most highways have decent shoulders (I'd estimate 95 percent of 89 had shoulders of 3 feet or wider), and most people go overboard on the courteous, friendly side.

Ironically, the coldest reception I got was in a bike shop.