What started as a "take it easy" day, ended up an epic day. We had hoped to take a short cut to Moab, see Arches and then a leisurely ride to Grand Junction. The shortcut turned out to be a dirt road over a mountain, which my RT refused to go along with, so we took a longer route, Rt 141, which also turned out to be an amazingly beautiful canyon ride. Colorado Aspen and conifers gave way to burnt orange rock, sagebrush and long valleys with towering mesas on either side. Lots of twists and turns and almost no traffic.
We put rain gear on early because we were skirting under a nasty dark cloud all morning and got lightly sprinkled on. Late morning brought 90 degree temps and less threatening skies so off with the gear.
The rain gear is so light and simple it is no biggie to change in and out of it. It can get a bit warm when it stops raining. We both use Frogg Toggs if anyone is interested. Light, cheap, good.
We reached Gateway CO, which seems to be a town built from scratch with modern buildings. Almost like a developer got a bunch of people together and built a community in a beautiful valley surrounded by the redstone mesa's. I am guessing there are locals in Gateway, but there can't be too many from what we saw. Anyway, they picked a beautiful spot
We hit a high pass and suddenly got blasted by wind and big ugly black clouds ahead. So on with the Toggs and over the top. Somewhere in there we passed three cute Bighorn Sheep (they had big horns and they were not white), standing beside the road, grazing and watching traffic go by. Not much traffic to watch since there are very few cars here. We must have just skirted around the storm as we got some sprinkles but not wet, and we got to watch the lightning and hear the thunder after. Pretty awesome flying along next to a big storm. So after getting down off the high plateau and hitting Rt 191 that would take us to Moab, we took off the rain stuff (hot down here), and joined the traffic going north (yuck).
Moab must have gotten trendy since the last time I was here. The first shock was that the hotels are from $150 to $300 a night!! Huh??? And they were not crowded. Price fixing? High Utah fees?? A Motel 6 went for $140. So we decided to go to Grand Junction after seeing Arches National Park. The nice park lady told me, very pleasantly, that my brothers free senor park pass (he has been bragging about for the last week), would not cover me since I was on a separate motorcycle, and that would be $15, thank you very much, and did I know that in three weeks I could buy one (62), but it was too bad I did not get in on the $10 deal, but would have to pay $80. Yes, yes, my brother has explained all of those points many times (per day since we left..), and here is your lousy $15.
We ambled through the whole park, which was not crowded at all, and stopped for a stroll around here and there to take some pictures. A big black crow of some kind, with lots of street smarts was trying to pick open my pack when we got back. Nothing in there but dirty sox buddy. Very bold that one.
When we turned around from Devils Playground to head back for the park entrance, we noticed a big big nasty storm had snuck in behind us. So back on with the rain stuff and this time it poured buckets with lightning and thunder and Dave almost got knocked off the road when some huge gusts rolled in.
We battled our way to the visitor center, which of course was closed and so hung out under the overhang under the bathrooms and watched our bikes get soaked. I think Daves exact words were, "best thing about this is it was free". Bastard..
The thought of paying $140 for a Motel 6 in the pouring rain was too much so we decided to just head north an hour to Green Springs up on the interstate (Rt 70) and saddled up and rode through the rain and cars and trucks. (Yuck).
We found a Comfort Inn west of the Moab turn, checking in and found a tavern down the street that was hopping with people. Good people watching there and real friendly folks, couple Harleys. Off to bed. Tomorrow it looks like we will have to head south east as it is really stormy to the north east. Good night!!!
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