Day 23: Navajo bread is better than meteor craters

22 May 2011


We ended up riding from Natural Bridges National Monument in Utah to Meteor Crater in Arizona. Again, Utah was absolutely awe inspiring.


Looking at the map, there appeared to be a knot in the road that we were going to be travelling on. Well, it turns out that the knot was a steep gravel road filled with switch backs and sheer drop offs on one side. I must say that it was quite an experience on a motorcycle with normal tires.


Heading towards the border of Utah and Arizona, we came across Monument Valley. It was really neat, but only a little better than the rest of Utah that we've been driving through. When we found out you have to pay to actually ride through Monument Valley, we decided to skip it and keep on going.


Once we crossed into Arizona, we stopped by a Navajo restaurant for lunch. We were just going to order something plain until we saw sandwiches that used Navajo fry-bread as the sandwich bread. I got a steak sandwich. Oh goodness it was delicious.


After a long day of riding, we finally reached Meteor Crater. Both of us were really sore and tired from the horribly maintained roads we were just on combined with the strong cross winds of the area. We were also astonished that the crater had a $15 entrance fee. It's just a hole in the ground. Reluctantly we paid and entered their almost amusement park-like setup. It was incredibly lack luster, but we did see Billy Connolly there. He was filming some sort of documentary.

Being so tired, we decided not to drive the extra 40 miles or so to our designated campsite. Meteor Crater had a rather nice campground right there and we took advantage of it. The tree situation was abysmal though, so we each used one tree and then used our bikes as the other anchor point like we practiced before the trip started. The winds were probably about 30mph and it made setting up the hammocks really annoying. They acted like giant sails.

Day 22: Utah brings the sun

21 May 2011


Our first stop when we woke up in Moab was to check out some dinosaur tracks and petroglyps down the road. They were a mix of dinosaurs, but the most prominent tracks were from an Allosaurus. It strangely didn't seem as big as I thought.


I don't think that I want to stay in a place known for housing robbers.


We filled up at a gas station built into a mountain. It was beyond awesome. Even the hallway to the restroom was exposed mountain stone.


So much straight nothingness.




We started to ride through the Canyonlands area and ended up riding through Glenn Canyon. This place was awe inspiring. The twisty road in the bottom of the canyon was the ice cream, and the views when we came out to the top was the cherry.


My bike passed a major milestone in the Canyonlands area.


We ended up getting to Natural Bridges National Monument. The campsite was full so we went to an overflow area that they had set up. There were no water spigots or anything, but it was away from almost everybody else and it was beautiful. The only other people there were an old couple and their former French foreign exchange student who was visiting. Also, apparently free range cows wandered amongst the trees in the area as we saw cow patties and heard mooing just meters away when we were in our hammocks. I tried my hand at night photography again as the area is supposed to be one of the best, but I ran out of batteries in my camera. I guess it can't do a two hour exposure.

Day 21: The Southwest rain continues

20 May 2011


We were again knowingly going to be riding through some cold and wet weather. From yesterday's experience, I realized that even with rain pants, the bottoms of my jeans got wet by soaking up moisture from my boots. I solved that by rolling up my jeans underneath my rain pants. I think that it's a good look.


Durango turned out to be pretty nice. It was a quaint little town nestled amongst a bunch of green mountains. Although Colorado had even worse gas than New Mexico. They had 85 octane!


We started riding towards Mesa Verde, and along the way we encountered rain, snow, sleet and hail.


Getting a little hungry, and also needing to warm up, we pulled off into the town of Mancos CO. Upon first sights, it was not very good. But we then found this little cafe, which turned out to be a really hopping place. We managed to grab a seat at the last available table. Then, two other bikers come into the place. We offered them our free seats to share some stories. It turns out that they were from Holland, and had rented Harleys to tour around the 4-corners states. Like us, they did not expect the cold that we were experiencing. They also shared with us that they had come down from Silverton CO; a town on our original route. They encountered several inches of snow accumulation and had to follow a plow.


Mesa Verde is actually really high up. Who knew? The ride up there was a magnificent twisty road. Upon arrival, we discovered that there are actually several different sites but only one was available as a self-guided tour. The self-guided location was actually pretty good, and surprisingly interactive. It seems that the sections that they had to heavily restore were available to the public to play around with. From the top of Mesa Verde, we were able to overlook the lowlands below. It appeared that there was a rather large rain storm down there, but that it was passing quickly. By the time we got down from the Mesa, we hoped it would be gone.


We were riding through some spotted showers until we closed in on New Mexico. Then we saw some of the darkest clouds ever to have formed. The picture doesn't do them justice. It was weird to look behind us and see blue skies and fluffy white clouds. In front of us looked like a scene from a Ghostbusters movie. The impending storm that we rode through was not fun. Aside from getting beaten down by drenching rain, I had to pull over twice because of water getting into my fuel.


Oh look, a rainbow.


Those snow covered mountains covered by clouds in the distance are the ones that we were originally going to ride though.


The change over to Utah was fantastic. A few miles in, we turned a bend and everything started turning red and becoming dramatic. The rain subsided and the sun started to come out.




I really didn't know what to expect from Moab, but was pleasantly surprised. It was like an outdoor adventurers playground. I think most of the people there were tourists, but it was great seeing so many offroading trucks and other things just driving around town. It had a similar feel to Durango, just red and a little more in your face. Our campsite luckily had trees, but also had sheer red cliffs. As I went to bed, I could look out my hammock and see that sheer cliff with an indescribable number of stars silhouetting it.





At the campsite we met a man who retired, sold everything and now wanders around the country in his Wrangler with a trailer and his daschund. He was very nice and even let us throw our hammocks up in his section so we didn't have to pay for our own. Previously he had also toured around on motorcycles, but now did the travelling in luxury. He even had plants and a garden gnome set up.