The scenery was very impressive as I rode by the Capital Reef National Park. I had heard a lot about it but I decided to skip it and continue as I knew I had a long ways to go for the day.
There were several places where the monster rain storm from the previous day had caused the normally dry creekbeds to overflow the road. It was now a silt film with a few rocks but I could tell it was a lot of water when it flowed.
Here are a few pics from the early morning ride.
After about an hour I arrived in Hanksville, UT and took a look at my map and GPS. There didn't seem to be much at all in the way of towns or major highways ahead of me so I decided to grab some breakfast at a small restaurant and RV park there.
I chatted with a couple of the waitresses and asked if they had gotten any of the rain that had rolled through the day before. OMG yes, they exclaimed. It was a beautiful (if hot) day until it started getting dark and stormy out. One of the women was leaving the restaurant about 3 pm and got on her 4 wheeler (they are everywhere out there) and rode about half a mile down the highway to her place (a trailer park was the only thing I saw coming into town). When she got across the street it started raining, then pouring down hard. She said by the time she got to the post office (couple hundred yards) she was soaked and could barely see the edge of the road in front of her. Then a huge v-shaped bolt of lightening hit the ground a hundred feet in front of her. She made it home but she was cold, wet, and scared to death.
They also said the state highway patrol had closed the highway (24, that I had just ridden across on) for the high water over the road. Whew, I really dodged a big one!
BTW, that little place in Hanksville served one of the best breakfast platters I had on the entire trip. I'll have to go look up the name of the place later. Ok, it's later and I looked it up - it was the Red Rock Steak House. Highly recommended!
So then I turned south on highway 95. Here are a few pics along that highway. The terrain was constantly changing but was always beautiful but stark and bone dry. Sometimes I could see for many miles and look at the large mountains and sharp colorful cliffs that made up this country.
The drive south on 95 was nice but after an hour or so it was much the same and started getting warmer (90s). The flat open terrain began to turn into a valley and got deeper and more winding. I didn't realize where I was until I came to a scenic overlook. Then I had to stop and take a few more pictures. Wow! I hadn't paid attention to the map and of course the GPS doesn't show you terrain so I didn't expect this all of a sudden.
This was the beginning or the northernmost tip of Lake Powell. Here is a map view of my route through there.
Here is a closer view on the map of the scenic overlook. The overlook was on a short drive off of the highway which you can see below (little white dot). I want to point out that waaaay off in the distance is a bridge crossing the river, which you really can barely see. I drew a line with an arrow showing where I was looking when I took the picture so you can try to correlate the picture with the terrain map. Also, a little while later after winding around a few more miles, I took a picture as I crossed that bridge looking back up to the overlook. I don't know if that works for you but I thought it was neat....
I think if you click on the picture below to view it larger you may be able to just make out the faint lines of the bridge across the river. It's kind of lost in the reflection of the cliffs behind it.
Anyway, here is a picture of the bridge as I approached it.
And now the picture from the bridge looking back up toward the overlook (shot to my right, or west). There is nothing I can see that indicates just where the overlook is, this is just the view of the cliffs and terrain around me when I took the pictures before. You gotta admit - that is one scenic valley!
And here is a shot to my left, looking up the canyon from the bridge.
And finally, just for the heckuvit, here is a shot behind me after I crossed the bridge.
There, wasn't that fun?? Well, you should have been there!
So then I motored down the highway some more, along the ridge of cliffs for many miles. Here is a neat shot of the road and the bike I took holding the camera down low.
Then, just to experiment a little more, I held the camera up over my head and took this picture looking down. This was my little world view for 8 to 10 hours a day for 15 days!
This next little chapter is also very interesting. I knew I wanted to do this little side ride long before I left but I really didn't know if I would have the time, the weather (maybe too hot), or the gas to do it. But when I got there everything seemed to line up ok so I decided to go for it.
The "it" was the decision to take a detour off of highway 95 and go south 60 miles or so to Mexican Hat on highway 261 going south.
Here is what the highway looked like for 30 miles or so. Pretty flat, lot of scrub brush or scrub trees (whatever they are), fairly straight road - pretty boring and hot.
Until I came upon a sign that said "Warning: 10% grade - 5 mph - Pavement Ends"! What the hell?!!
Of course I knew what was coming up - that's why I came this way!
This was the Moki Dugway!
1100 feet straight down! What a view! All dirt and no guardrail! Great!
See the cars down below?
THIS is what you drive down! Very steep, hairpin corners, with very vertical drops and a VERY distracting view along the way.
Here is a view from the bottom looking back up the 1100 foot face of the cliffs. Amazing! So THIS is why I took that 30 mile detour that I had planned for months ago...
If you want to follow along here is a link to the area on Google Maps. You can see the fairly straight highway to the south and then it goes over that cliff or ridge just a little north of the "B" symbol. Zoom in on that and you can see the zigs and zags of the switchbacks descending down the cliffs.
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Now, there was one other little stop I had to make. A place that a few people had told me about over the years. I had to find the little road off of this highway that went for a a few miles over to a funny name state park.
I didn't take any pictures on the way in there, but once I arrived all it was was a little parking lot with some restrooms and a covered pavilion. There were a few people there milling about and taking pictures - and by this time it was HOT! It was in the upper 90's which, again, when I was moving wasn't too bad, but when I stopped the sun really beat down.
So anyway, here is what I came for - the view of the valley of the San Juan River.
Awesome view!
Here is are 3 photos stitched together to make a panarama.
This just doesn't do it justice! If it seems a little confusing what you are looking at are 2 loops in the river, carved into a steep canyon. Here is a closeup map of the terrain if that helps.
What an awesome place that was! But it was time to ride on, and I was hot and dry. I was drinking constantly from my camelback and now I had to worry about gas. I was sitting on about 175 miles on my tank and was expecting a low fuel light any time. I thought there would be a gas station at the intersection of the highways but Murphy's Law always prevails when you need something - there was nothing there but a stop sign.
I checked my GPS and searched for fuel places and it said there was a gas station in Bluff about 21 miles away. That would put me almost at 200 miles which was doable but a bit of a stretch.
So I motored on and took a few more pics.
This was an interesting view.
I remember thinking to myself "I have got to look at that in Google Maps and see what that looks like. What a strange long series of bumps or notches along a long ridge that disappears off into the distance looking north. So I did look it up in Google Maps. Here is what it looks like. I took the picture just about where the little white dot is, looking to the northeast at that ridge.
In case you were wondering, I did make it into Bluff. I had 206.6 miles on the tank and it took 4.6 gallons - I think that was the longest run on a tank on my trip. That means I had about .4 gallons left and at about 44 mpg I would have run out in another 17 miles or so. I sure don't want to do that very often.
As a quick aside, I thought I might have some maintenance problems or maybe run out of gas on my trip, so I read a lot in various riding forums about safety equipment and preparations. One tip I read said to pack one of those small pocket umbrellas - but not for rain. If you have to stop and call for assistance alongside the road and wait for hours in the blazing hot sun you use the umbrella to keep the sun off of you. So I had one with me just in case...
From Bluff it was about 55 miles across the barren desert of southeastern Utah into Colorado. Here is a picture at the intersection of highways 160 and 491 in Colorado of Chimney Rock.
I was tempted to go down to Four Corners (the only place in the entire US where 4 states come together to a point) but some of the guys at the rally said it was under construction and also had so many Indian vendors there that is was just trashy and you really couldn't see anything. So I didn't go.
I continued along highway 491 into Cortez and was relieved to get into some lush, green country. I had been traveling through arid desert country for 2 or 3 days and it was nice to see some farm fields and green trees.
From Cortez it was about 45 miles to Durango and time to get some gas and take a break. It was hot but not too bad (mid 90s then, about 2 pm). So I stopped in a gas station and got gas, a power bar, a Gatoraid, and checked my cell phone and found I had Sprint service so I caught up on a few emails.
I got done about 3 pm and decided I had enough time to ride some more. I had only gone about 315 miles at that point. One of the goals on my trip was to ride the "Million Dollar Highway" which was 550 north from Durango. It was supposed to be very scenic.
I looked at my map and checked my GPS for timing and saw I could be in Ouray, CO in about 70 miles or a little over an hour. So I took off northbound for some more adventure.
Well, I found some adventure alright. About 20 miles or so north of Durango I could see the sky getting dark in front of me. A little further and climbing up in altitude I could begin to see the fingers of rain falling out of the dark clouds ahead. And it was getting cooler.
So I pulled off to the side and put on my rain gear. I put on my rain liner that goes under my mesh jacket, my overalls pants, and my Gerbing leather gloves that aren't waterproof but I had covered them with mink oil to help them repel water.
So after a few more miles I got up to 8 or 9000 feet and it started raining and then pouring down. The temperature fell into the 40s. The road started getting narrower and twisty and the traffic increased as everyone's speed dropped to 40 then 30 then 20.
Somewhere toward the top of the pass there was construction and we had to wait for one-way traffic. So I sat in the rain for 10 or 15 minutes and waited. Well, I don't think I had ever just sat in the rain before, but apparently the rain pooled in my lap and then ran through my zipper because I started feeling wet in my drawers. My gloves had also soaked through. Now I really started feeling the mid-40s temps! I got cold!
As we descended down the narrow highway the traffic was bumper-to-bumper in the pouring cold rain, and then I started seeing rocks in the road from the cliffs. I missed a few of them but one, about the size of a large softball with rough edges, I couldn't swerve enough in the rain and just caught it with my rear tire.
So for the next hour or so I had that to worry about - if my rear tire went flat there was no place to pull off the road, and while I had a tire repair kit with me I had never done a repair in the rain, and I was in no mood to deal with it anyhow. It just plain sucked.
Finally i arrived in Ouray which is a great looking town, very kitschy and touristy, and they have a KOA there, but it was still raining and quite cold there and there was no way I was setting up a tent in the cold rain. And I thought a hotel room would be way too expensive in a place like that, so I decided to keep going.
It was another 36 miles up to Montrose and I could see a break in the skies ahead. The road was also descending out of the high altitude pass so the rain quit and it warmed just a bit. It seemed like forever but I finally arrived in Montrose.
Looking at a map afterward I see that it is only 107 miles from Durango to Montrose, but it was the most harrowing and miserable 3 hours of my motorcycling life.
I pulled into a local motel and checked in and then unloaded the bike and proceeded to spread all my wet get all over the room. I took a long hot shower to warm up and then dry off. Then I walked across the street to a nice Mexican restaurant ("Il Jimador") and had a beer and a nice meal.
So the total for the day was about 420 miles. Man, did I sleep good that night.
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