We continued through the fertile Cache Valley, past the old barn with Dr Pierce's advertisment, past farmers' fields thick with autumn crops of corn, past the turnoff to the Mormon community of Wellsville (no doubt there are happy purchasers of Dr. Piece's tonics), and into the town of Logan, at the lower entrance to Logan Canyon.

The town, founded a few years ago in 1859, and named for Ephraim Logan, a trapper of some repute, boasts a beautiful downtown, with a wide main boulevard and a splendid brick tabernacle, whcih graces the center of Logan, and is where much church activity is conducted.

The imposing Temple, predating by some years the temple in Salt Lake City, sits astride a nearby terrace, its gleaming towers towers at either end of the structure lit at night, visible for miles 'round; it is a temple built with the labor of 25,000 earnestly toiling Mormons.

Beyond Logan, we traveled up into Logan Canyon, past the intellectual center of the town, Utah State, its many edifices spread out on a hill above the city. Beyond the college, we followed the course of the Logan River through the canyon, rich with the geology of ancient times: rough flows of lava, rock towers rising most precipitously like stern battlements, then, in its upper reaches, the canyon opening into a broad valley. All the while colorful aspen and maple, as well as oaks and pines, grew in profusion.

At the top of the mountain, we reached a way station and a view down into Bear Valley, dominated by the enormous Bear Lake. While greatly reduced in numbers, great ursines still do roam these mountains and valleys, and I have even glimped, on a prior trip, amoose on the slopes east of the high point on which we now found ourselves.

Soon enough, we began our descent down a winding road to the edge of the lake, and turning north, made our way along the west shore, past old houses and a rich farmland, crossing into Idaho and joining a section of the old Oregon Trail, from whence so many settlers made their arduous way toward Oregon and California in their covered wagons.