Date: July 4                                           Weather: Mountain cloudburst

 Place: Salt Lake City                           From  Vernal, Utah        

Via: Dangerous, wet slippery clay mountain trails.

Impressions:  At Vernal, we were told they had one of the worst tornadoes known last week. We sure have luck in missing things. We noticed many cyclone cellars and caves built on the sides of the rock wall on the way.

This has been the queerest 4th we have ever experienced. The weather has been wonderful until today which has been rainy all day. The poor farmers  & cowboys in the small towns were sure disappointed and so were we as we hoped to reach Salt Lake City for the celebrations, but the roads were so slippery it was impossible for the most time to go faster than 10 or 15 miles an hour. We had a steep mountain trail with narrow curves to drive on. The clay when wet on the roads is just like soap. We sleighed from one side of the road to the other within two or three inches of the deep canyons and gulleys. We were caught in a terrible cloud burst. Sheets of water and large hail stones poured down. We stopped as we could see nothng. but all of a sudden we discovered we were sitting in a rushing river. All the water was washing down from the sides of the mountain in great torrents. It was washing out the road beneath us so we made for the top of the mountain. Cars were stuck all over. Two having plunged off the side. At one of the mountain fueling stations they had captured a mountain lion which I thought were extinct.