Rocky Raab, Utah Roadway Trivia question

[TreeDoc]

I just made that trek up I-15 to I-70 on our route to Colorado and back. With you being a Utahan I figger'd you might know something about this.

The Freeway road signs leading towards Salt Lake City are marked with their highway number over what looks like a little beehive. Some "beehives" have little circles on the top and mny others don't. My buddy and I want to know what that little figure is.....a beehive? Do we need to know a special handshake to garner this information.

I found this Pic on the 'net.

[Rocky Raab]

Utah's nickname is "The Beehive State" so you are correct. Those are beehives.

The early settlers were somewhat gaga about bees (I suspect 'Ol Brigham had a hel...I mean a HECKuva sweet tooth!). He (they) so admired the work ethics of the honeybee that they made the State motto "Industry" not after big brick and mortar factories, as some assume, but after the indefatiguable industriousness of the bee.

Utah at one time had more bee colonies than any other state, but as the orchards became subdivisions, that long ago lost its truth. But we're still the beehive state!

[TreeDoc]

A beehive, huh? Geeez...and I thought it was gonna be a story something like a Temple for some Grand Poobah and it was marking only the roads that led to Bee Mecca. I guess I let my imagination run a little to wild on that long drive.

Hey, a couple interesting things about Utah......on my way through we stopped in the growing metropolis of Salina, UT population of 5 I think. I gave the little chicky at the counter $60 bucks cash for gas, pumped $40, used their restroom and split. An hour down the road I realized my misfortune and felt worse than my buddy who left a hell of a lot more on the table in Mesquite, NV where we stayed the night before. I called via cell phone which I must admit is terribly spotty in that part of the world, and only got an answering machine with a non identifying greeting. I left a message anyway.

Enroute back through that area, I stopped in to say hi, almost a week later mind you. I saw the same little chicky at the counter and I explained my plight to which she whipped open the till and fetched up a crisp $20 and layed it in my deer blood stained hands! Yeah! I'm up $20 bucks on my buddy and the tables in Mesquite are several hours away! Honest folk there in Salina, UT. Had that been California, some Apu Nehasapeemapetalon would have told me to "pound sand". My partner suggested we try this at every other station we passed. Bad Idea.

Also, it was near dusk and just north of Beaver, UT on the west side of the I-15 I saw more Deer in the fields than I have in my entire life. We attempted to count them in groups. We were foiled somewhere in the hundreds. I swore it was a farm, the Deer were huge to boot. Next year we're puttin in for tags in that neighborhood. I'm sure we'll be done in about 10 minutes!

Btw, that twenty I got back in Salina went towards the $6 breakfast buffet at the Oasis Hotel / Casino. I don't gamble but I did get a nice shower and some much needed sleep while my partner came in late, broke, and had a headache when he woke up!

[Rocky Raab]

Hard to beat Mesquite for a layover. $21 a night during the week and cheap buffets, too. The Oasis is the best of the lot, also. The Virgin River is the next best, but three of the five resort/casinos are owned by the same outfit.

It's almost impossible to get a tag for that part of Utah. Seems like every single hunter puts it as their first choice in the tag drawing. We've gone to an all-draw system simply because they couldn't control the over-the-counter sales for southern Utah. You can still get an over-the-counter tag after the draw, but only for areas with next to no deer (naturally).

Poaching would be a snap, though, huh?