Day 4 - Zion National Park

Zion is a diverse park that hosts a rich display of huge rock formations, as you enter the park, with one of the main highlights being a slot canyon hike called 'The Narrows'. The rock formation display a vast array of colors as the many mineral layers are in full view. While driving through the canyon you will come across numerous mountain tunnels, the longest of which is over a mile long. Watch out though, due to the limited height in the tunnel, some RVs may not make it through, or at least the 2-way road will be restricted to one-way to allow the larger vehicles pass through.

Headed into 'The Narrows' prepare to get wet as at least 70% of the trail is in the river. Typically river depths will range from ankle high to chest deep. Today the water temperature was 62 degrees, so after the initial shock of hitting waste deep water, we had no problem adjusting to the temp. We were fortunate to be able to take this hike as the weather this week as included intermittent rain. Threat of rain in this area would make the hike a no-go, due to the high risk of flash floods. Flash floods are a big threat when hiking a slot canyon as any rain water coming from up stream will quickly pick up depth and speed bringing with it literally tons of debris. So if you are stuck in the canyon and a flash flood is coming, hopefully you can hit higher ground since outrunning it is impossible.

While in the canyon be prepared to see lush vegetation, sheer rock cliffs, an array of colorful rock. But I hope you don't feel clostrophobic because the slot canyon can get pretty tight.

I'll leave you with a few more pictures to enjoy as I prepare to show you what has bee my favorite park, to date, Bryce

See you tomorrow.

Back to Civilization

It’s been a few days since I’ve been able to provide a trip update but it’s not for lack of activity. I’ve had a very busy three days with, unfortunately, no means to access the Internet in order to post to my blog.

While in Southern Utah I visited Arches, Zion and Bryce. With over 1200 shots from the three parks, there’s no easy way to share them all with you. Therefore I’ll just pick a few shots from each park, trying to pick ones that best represent the characteristics of each.

Since I will now spend a few days getting some R&R with the family in Northern Utah, I’ll introduce each park on separate posts so that I don’t flood you with “TMI” all at once. That being said let me start with Arches National Park in Moab, UT.

Day 3 - Arches, as the name suggests, is known for the many natural arches that are formed by the erosion of the sandstone that is the basis for much of the park. Perhaps the most notable arch is Landscape Arch, which is a massive arch that is so thin that it is almost hard to imagine that it remains standing.

Many other arches also exist in the park, each of different size and configuration. As the arches age and erosion continues to take its toll, the park is continually changing as older arches collapse and new arches are formed. It's an amazing evolution that in its own way reflects the frailty of our own existence.

One other interesting aspect of the park is its red rock structures, again formed out of a mixture of clay and sandstone. These shapes can vary from complex conical shapes to huge mountains of red rock, each of which are impressive in their own way.

A final aspect of any Utah park is it's wildlife. Most prevalent are the Yak (according to me) but really an antelope (according to my wife), deer, squirrels and of course, lizards.

Made it to Grand Junction - Thanks to Gyroscopes

It's 10:15p CST and I've been in Grand Junction, CO for about an hour. It was definitely a hard day of riding, primarily due to the strong canyon winds that pounded me most of the afternoon as I wound down the snake like stretch of I-70 that cuts through most of Colorado's finest ski resorts. Thank goodness a motorcycle has two gyroscopes that keep it upright when you're leaning into a curve while an unexpected gust hits.


The day started with a wonderful breakfast at Stacey's Restaurant in Junction City Kansas. This place was a classic piece of americana. With it's clientel, primarily made up of local construction workers, farmers and soliders from the nearby base. While I was eating my biscuits and gravy, feeling like the obvious out of towner. I watched as the local sheriff, a friendly, yet somewhat homely looking young woman, would stop by each table and sit down with the locals as if to catch up on the daily gossip. You could sense that these were hard working, no nonsense people who lived for their daily rendezvous.

With my belly full and very satisfied, it was back to I-70W to finish the drive through Kansas. A lot of people think that Kansas is flat, but actually it is made up of many rolling hills. I would best describe it like the giant slide at the fair. On its western border the elevation is over 3500' and it tapers down to around 650' in the east. Then throughout the whole state from west to east there's one hill after another. Just outside of Ellsworth there's a 10 mile stretch where there are hundreds of giant wind turbines. I can see why they picked this area as the wind was significantly higher here. After 6 more hours on the Kansas interstate, I was definitely ready for some different scenery; and that's exactly what I got. After climbing through the high plains of Colorado before I new it I was looking at mountains. Here's just a few shots.
After a long day of riding I finally reached the exit for Grand Junction. As luck would have it the sun was casting a beautiful pink shade on the surrounding mountains. Even though there was almost no shoulder on which to park, I said "screw it" and parked the best I could right on the exit ramp. I quickly pulled out my camera, took a seat on the nearby hill and did my best to stabilize the camera, as the light was getting very low. Low an behold I was able to capture this shot (and a few more). This made my day as it is a glimpse of what's to come. I can't wait until tomorrow!

Day 2 - Route to Grand Junction

It's 7:00 CST and I'm anxious to get on the road. The route looks like this; a 400 mile haul through Kansas, then the climb begins. I' m feeling good, however my eyes are a bit tired and my face is a little burnt from yesterdays wind and afternoon sun. So I've put in my eye drops, lathered on the sunscreen and lip balm and I'm ready to go. I'll find a little breakfast, call my wife and hit the road hard. I'd like to miss rush hour in Denver if at all possible...

Next report from Grand Junction, Colorado!

Day One

It's 12:30 CST and I'm calling it a day. I've logged 820 miles today. I still feel pretty good; just a slightly kinked neck but nothing my favorite massage therapest, Annissa, can't take care of upon my return (have mercy) :)

Today, in some ways, was one of the harder parts of the trip because the road is pretty much flat, and consists of farm land. The first major step was hitting the Ohio/Indiana boarder. At this point I really felt that I was on my way and not just on the typical weekend ride. The weather was great. Cool in the morning, but warming into the 80's when I hit St. Louis. I could have bypassed St. Louis, but for some reason I wanted to pass by the arch, even though I've seen it many times before. Maybe not the smartest move since I hit rush hour and it took about 90mins for me to get through the core of the city. Regardless, I got saw the arch (sorry for the poor picture, it was hard to get a good shot at 75 mph in traffic. My next adventure was to find some barbeque for dinner. Well that didn't work either thanks to many road changes in KC that confused my GPS (by the way, when are the GPS manufacturers going to implement a "ghetto avoidance" feature?).

Finally I'm in Junction City, KS, which is the midpoint of my trip. I'm staying at the Econolodge, which by the way is the best hotel in the area??? Actually it's not bad for $44 + Tax. It appears to be clean and it has a bed, and that's where I'm headed now.

See you tomorrow on Day Two. I'll probably stop in Grand Junction, CO, just short of Moab, UT

It's GO Time!

Ok, so the backpack idea didn't work out so well. The backpack was too thin for it's height and on my test ride I couldn't stablize it to my satisfaction. So I've moved everything to my motorcycle luggage. Luckily everything fit well.

I tried to keep the morning routine pretty normal, although it was hard not to feel rushed. So I dropped caleb off for his last day at school (he painted his hair pink to celebrate the day), had a long tearful hug and kiss with my wife, took a wiff of my favorite backyard bush (it smells like a gardenia), did a few last minute chores and now I'm ready to hit the road. The weather radar looks good, across the country, so perhaps I've lucked out. It's almost 9:00a est. I'll try to report in later tonight.

Time to roll!

PS Misty, I'll see you in a couple of days. Love You!

Final Preparations

So it's the afternoon before departure day. As you can see Black Beauty is 90% packed and looking good. It's raining right now, which is probably what I'll see when I leave in the morning.



Usually for a long distance trip I would use my motorcycle luggage which is made for the bike, but since I will be doing quite a bit of hiking in Utah, I decided to just load up my backpack and side bags with essentials like: Three cameras, numerous lenses, flash, two tripods, computer, hiking clothes and boots, laptop, phone, GPS, chargers and other "stuff".

The trip starts with the odometer at 47599. It will read well over 50000 when I return; but the next step is to take a test ride to see how she rolls. Since I have a massage appointment this evening, for a little personal tune-up, this will be a good test of the stability of the load. As you can see in the latest picture, I've now covered the backpack with a rain cover. Since I'll most likely be starting out in the rain, tomorrow and I'll definitely be getting wet tonight.

Well, it's time for that test run. Wish me luck!


PS Thanks for the well wishes from those who will be following my trip...