We decided to ride out along the river west of town on the river's south side. It turned out to be spectacular, of course, but that was the norm, and a bit uninspiring. Bruce wanted to ride anything with a difficult 'D' marking on the map. Tom's back, my wrist, and Ian's good sense, put a kibash on that. We settle for tamer trails.
One place out there, there was a left turn that went through a gate. A sign said that there was a charge of a couple bucks per vehicle to go forth to attack a trail with a bunch of Double Ds on it. Nope not us.
We drove along the river some 25 miles, ending up at 'Chicken's Corner'. No big deal,it was only awesome. We could see directly across the river to Deadhorse point. Deadhorse point was a State park about 2000 feet above us.
We could see a bit of an edifice on that big block of rock in that upper right hand corner of the above picture.
Must have been a big deal if you were up there looking south at us.
As Tom and I reflected on the meaning of deadhorse point, Ian and Bruce wanted to climb to the top of this cliff/rock. Scheesh kids....
Well, it was about noon, we decided that we still wanted to see the Arches National Park, so we started back. I was trailing as usual, and the boys were keeping up a brisk pace. I expected Tom to slow it up, and claim that he wanted to smell the roses....But, no, he was feeling racy. A blistering pace along those cliff had me swallowing hard a few times as some of the cliff dropoffs flashed by, as we passed many of the tight switch backs on the way out. Exhilarating actually, since we had no incidents....but not too bright either. Ah, what the hell, 'you only live once', or 'luck beats good' is appropriate here......but still that emergency room at the hospital isn't busy for no reason.
On the way to town we stopped for a bit of 'Tomfoolery'. If you want to get someone to do something silly we found out that you only have to suggest it to Bruce. Ha.
Soaked he was, after a couple runs through there to get the picture just right. Now don't get me wrong, Bruce is no idiot. His business does a couple million dollars worth of electrical contracting each year....but he's up for most anything, when there's some challenge to it. Like, for instance, the pool tournament that I damn near got us into the other night at the watering hole.....but that's another story.
I'm sure I could have led Bruce way astray, if I'd had more time with him when he was growing up. It wouldn't have helped him with his contracting business,...but he might have won a Baja race or two. LOL
The Arches National park is a 20 mile square piece of real estate that is unique from what we had seen before. By the time we had something to eat, and got out there we only had a couple hours of daylight left.
There is a lot of red cliffs that are somehow different from the others, and there are a dozen or more natural arches to see. Most require some walking to get close....and we only had time to see one up close. The rest would be from a distances as we drove by.
Tom walked out to this one while the rest of us went to 'Delicate Arch'. On the one mile walk he passed through this gap.
And another arch seen from the road.....
Here was my follie....The 'Delicate Arch'
This was supposedly the best arch in the park. It's actually on Utah's license plate. It's over a mile and a half out there and back with a 500 foot rise in altitude.
I had foolishly said to Bruce and Ian, "Yeah, I'll walk up there with you". Tom was smarter, and knew his back wasn't up for it. So off the three of us went at a pretty good pace. I don't know what I was thinking right then, but shortly I was thinking that if I survive this, I would be more careful of what my big mouth was saying in the future.
After a 100 yrds of the hill, I was blowing hard. The boys let me rest. Then off again. I was surprised at what just a couple minutes of rest would do. And all in all I only had to rest about 5 or 6 times. Then 45 minutes later we rounded that last turn and there it was. Very inspiring.
There must have been 25 or more folks up there. Many in worse condition than I was. I got a picture to prove that I'd been there.
I was feeling pretty sassy, too.
We talked to many of the folks up there. Most of us felt a kinship for those that made it that far. The couple talking to Bruce, in the photo that I'm in, were riding a rental XL650R. She was from Spain. She was also going to be max cold when she rode back to town in those shorts.
The sun was going down and we left. On the way down the hill we were passed by a young gal who said 'hi' while going by. A bit of conversation flourished...where are you from and where are you camped and such. Turns out that this gal was traveling alone, and camping out of her Toyota pickup with a shell.
She hadn't picked a camp for the night yet, so we invited her to spend the night with us as a guest, to save a few buck. She turned out to be utterly delightful. She was in her early 20 and already graduated as a bugologist with a masters degree, and was traveling all over hell like this.
The only picture that we have of her is in the arch picture above with the two girls in it. She is the blond on the right.
She spent the evening at the campfire with us, and caused a pleasant change to our usual evening's conversation. She had been all over Baja, that made her a hit with me. I was pretty easy though. She said that her stuff was in LA Ca at her folks place, and the rest was in her Pickup. Very plucky girl, I admired her. I suppose my Lolita complex is showing. :)
It was a great last evening in Moab.
We arose early, loaded the bikes, said goodbys (to Brenda, as well), vowed to get together somewhere next year, and started the 13hr, 730 mile drive to Los Angeles.
I hate the end of a trip...........still, it really only signified the beginning of another, and reminded me to get busy planing for the future.
Funny story.........
A funny story, while on the ride home.........I-70 meets I-15 in Ut. It is a long stretch without gas. We passed a guy pushing his Harley over the top of a 6000ft summit on I-15 just south of the junction. I know there is no gas for at least 15 miles as I'm planning to get gas at the next opportunity, and I know where it is.
I tell Tom, (who's driving) to pull over and let's see what is really wrong with this guy. We have to walk back 100 yards to the guy, and Tom carried the gallon of gas that we had, just in case.
The guys says, as we approach, that he thinks he's out of gas, and that if that is gas in the can that Tom is carrying, that he will trade for it by granting us any three wishes..... He says that he was hoping that there was a station at the bottom of the hill. The guy was 50+ years old and really blowing when we got to him.
Anyway, another 5 minutes and his Harley was making loud, happy noises again. He was tickled to death, and wanted to pay or something.
I told him about being saved, while riding my motorcycle from Maine to San Diego, from a flat tire incident the month before out in Brenham, Tx, and that his bill was paid in advance by a couple of Texans from the 'Southern Cruisers' motorcycle list.
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