Colorado Cruiser: Utah National Parks Ride

This is going to be a slow day but a hot one. We're just going from Torrey to Moab which is only 180 miles, but we have to go North to I-70 before coming back down to Moab. That whole area is hot hot hot.

We were slow getting out because I was still trying to use the Days Inn's pathetic wireless to upload my pics for the last 2 days. I ate breakfast and listened to the hotel staff gripe about being griped at while I sat there. I also had to throw my riding jacket in the dryer because it hadn't drip dried very much over night.

We got packed and out before 9:00 though and because we'd gassed and bought gatorade the night before we just hopped on the bikes and went.

In fact, we went a bit too quick because we weren't 1 mile down the road before I heard Kyle on the 2 way radio saying "The ice chest just tipped over". I had put bungies on one side of the ice chest but I'd never gotten to hooking up the other side. Do you have any idea what happens to gatorade bottles when they hit the highway at 50 miles an hour? Mostly they start spinning end for end and the caps pop off. Of the 6 bottles in the chest, only 2 survived, and none of the ice.

We stuck our 2 lone bottles in the chest, carefully strapped the ice chest onto my bike, and headed for Capitol Reef National Park.

We took a few pictures then continued East trying to beat the heat, we wouldn't succeed.

The highway bisects Capitol Reef. It follows a stream through a series of canyons for about 20 miles and then eventually dumps you on a pretty desolate looking plain. Another 30 miles and you're in Hanksville which is just a wide spot in the road with a few gas stations and hotels. We gassed up then replaced our gatorades and Ice. There were 3 old men standing by their vehicles in the shade of the gas station talking. 2 trucks and a quad. They'd chat for a few minutes about this or than, then just stand there for 10 minutes. Then chat again and stand there. I wasn't sure if they were waiting for us to leave or just didn't want to go do their work, or just had no work. I had seen something similar in Kanab where 5 guys were sitting inside the station talking with the owner. Maybe that's just entertainment in small towns,see who's at the gas station. We were drinking gatorade and eating beef jerky which the old guys discussed and decided that both were probably good things and would keep us going.

We bought an 8 pound bag of ice but we can only use a couple pounds in this ice chest, so when I went to throw the rest away, one of the men asked if he could have it. That gave them another topic for 5 minutes about what a great find that was and just what he could use the ice for. I'm glad we could be of service.

The ride North from Hanksville has got to be one of the worst motorcycle rides I've ever done. Not that the roads are bad, or the cars are stupid, or traffic is heavy or anything, it's just soooooooo boring. Practically straight road the whole way, nothing to see, and hot. I'll bet its even hot in January. We took a calculated risk and actually rode about 5 miles over the speed limit through some of it. Of course the cars around us were going 15 to 20 miles over so we got passed several times.

After 5 hours of driving we finally arrived at I-70 and turned East. It was a short 20 miles to Green River where we stopped for gas and gatorade. We also dunked our bandannas in the ice water again.

30 more miles of I-70 to Crescent Junction. We turned south off the Freeway towards Moab. After only 7 miles we hit more road construction. We stopped in a line and waited 15 minutes until traffic coming the other way started past. It was allot of traffic so I figured we had a huge single lane road ahead of us. When traffic did start we were single lane for almost 10 miles. We were way back in the pack so we were actually lucky that we only had 15 minutes. I'm sure the people at the head were there nearly 1/2 hour. Sitting on hot motorcycles on a hot road with the hot sun beating down on you isn't very fun.

We got through the construction and made it to Moab with any further inconvenience. We went straight to our hotel to check in and get cooled off. After an hour rest we headed into town to find some lunch. I listed several types of food and we decided on pizza. I knew of a pizza buffet so we headed there. We ate and ate and ate. Tanner said he's probably done eating for the rest of the trip. But he was still able to breathe so that's good.

We walked around the shops for a while but didn't really feel like buying anything. Kyle and Tanner found swords in every shop we went to, what's up with that?

We rode back to the hotel and rested for a few hours while I wrote the day 4 and day 5 reports. I still can't believe just how much we did on day 4. I took almost 300 pictures, uploaded 170, and used probably 40 in the report. That was a long, cool, hot, neat, delicious, beautiful, wonderful day. I liked it.

Tanner decided not to wait till Saturday to head home, so he rested a while then took of South for Blanding. He'll stay with the same Aunt Kyle and I stayed with Sunday Night, then get up at 4:00 and head for Phoenix. He hopes to be home before it gets hot. I told him that there is no way he can make it to Phoenix before May since it's already July. His alternate plan is to either hang out in Flagstaff till 6:00, or go down to Camp Verde with cousins and ride into the valley after dark.

Riding around Utah in the 90s has convinced me beyond any margin of doubt that I do NOT want to ride in Phoenix in the summer in the 110s.

At 6:00 Tanner called to say that he had arrived safely in Blanding.

At 7:00 Kyle and I thought it might just possibly be cool enough to ride out to Dead Horse Point State Park. Our mistake. It was still swealtering. We gassed up and bought some waters, then headed back North. The ride to Dead Horse was 35 miles long. Once we got back into the canyons it cooled off a bit because the streams were evaporating leaving cool spots, and when we climbed to the top of the mesa it got comfortable.

We got to Dead Horse about 40 minutes before sunset so we tried for a while to get some pictures. There was a haze in the air which must be from that fire we saw yesterday. We walked around and talked. Just enjoyed the evening.

The sky was almost completely clear and it became obvious to both of us that we weren't going to see a spectacular sunset, just a nice orange glow. Neither of us felt like riding back down in pitch black so we headed out with the sun about 3 fingers above the horizon. As the sun truly set I stopped with Kyle between me and the sunset, then tried to frame the sun behind him. I think the pictures turned out ok.

We rode down with it getting darker and darker, but by the time we were back in Moab there was still just a bit of glow.

We hadn't eaten yet but I didn't feel like fighting through town trying to find a place still open and/or not packed. So we stopped at the Denny's by our hotel.

Now its time to get to sleep so we can see some of Arches in the morning before the predicted 108 degrees hits us.

8:45 and ready to roll