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We left very early the next morning after a good night's sleep
near the canyon just outside Tooele, south west of Salt Lake
City.
Great scenery and cute little villages, it was pretty hot by
now. We rode through a small town called Gunnison and I made
Ronnie stop and turn around. I had seen a truck painted like
Mater from the movie Cars. (The photo is on display at my work,
I work with children, they were very impressed I had seen Mater
and asked me lots of questions: did Mater talk? Was it the real
Mater? Mum: Antoinet has seen Mater!)
We found a beautiful campground in Torrey, not far from Capitol
Reef national park. They asked $24 for a campsite but $28 for a
very small cabin. Every afternoon there are clouds rolling in
and it gets pretty hot and humid. Sometimes it can bucket down
with rain so we decided to book one of the cute cabins. There is
only a small table, a chair and a double bed in there. You have
to use your own linen but it was a great little house for us for
the next 2 nights.
We explored beautiful Torrey and went for a ride through the
national park, absolutely stunning; amazing scenery and nature.
There was a great Mexican restaurant not far from the campsite,
we were going to have a meal there. I had a shower before we
went and had to wait in the shower block for about 15 minutes,
it was pouring down with rain and strong winds with a big
thunderstorm. This is normal at this time of year in these
States, every afternoon you can see the clouds coming in.
The following morning we rode to Bryce Canyon, not as famous as
the Grand Canyon but some people think Bryce is much nicer. It
was beautiful, strange rock formations in the most amazing
colours. Lots of lookouts to go to and admire the views.
The rear tyre was pretty flat again
and Ronnie decided to fit the inner tube we had been carrying
around for the last week. We met a guy called John from New York
city. We had a great laugh with him, he was pretty mechanical
minded and thought it was great to see Ronnie fitting the new
inner tube himself at a rest area.
John said you will never see a American Harley rider or any
other motorbike rider do this. They don’t even know how to do
it. Ronnie threw the old tube in the bin and John had another
laugh, he said that the rangers would be very puzzled in the
morning when emptying the bin. They probably take it to a
laboratory to get checked out, they won’t have a clue what it
is!
We definitely had a good laugh with John and were thankful for
his help assisting us to get the rear wheel back in.
We took the road towards Arizona, it was 110 degrees Fahrenheit
by now, about 44 degrees. We stopped in a town called Kanab and
I really wanted to crash somewhere in a motel. I don’t cope very
well in this kind of heat. We checked out the visitor centre and
I put my shirt under the cold water tap and put it back on.
Ronnie said we really should try and get another 75 miles
further into Page and crash there for the night, otherwise we
had to do a huge amount of kilometres the next morning. With
nothing to see and another hot day coming. He was right so off
we went, those 75 miles were to longest ever. Nothing to see but
dirt and highway, no shade anywhere.
So good to finally arrive in Page, Arizona, and turn the air
conditioning on in the motel room we found. Cold shower and cold
beers from the supermarket across the road. We left the air
conditioning on all night, something we’ve never done before.
It was still very hot in the middle of the night. I woke up at
5.00 am, it was getting light already and I quickly went to the
supermarket for some supplies, a lot of shops are open 24 hours
a day but this one opened at 5.00 am. Ronnie had the bike packed
up already and we left 45 minutes later.
We went to see Monument Valley, something on my wish list ever
since we planned this trip. Everyone knows Monument Valley from
the western movies but it’s breathtaking to see it with your own
eyes. If you are ever going there, make sure you come in from
the north though, even more spectacular.
Back into Utah and that same day we rode into Colorado. Got
supplies in Durango and kept going north and found a great spot
in San Juan national forest. It started to pour down with rain
again, only for about 30 minutes though.