Day Five

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With a few hours of sleep I got a good and early start. Leaving Las Vegas at 5:00 am the only Vegas I got to see on this trip on both arrival and departure was in its glory with the lights on.

Dirk stayed behind to sleep off his night on the town and would catch up with me later in the day. As I was loading up the bike I struck up conversation with the night security guard. She had lived in Vegas for many years but had not taken the opportunity to travel outside to see the beauty that is so close to this town. She said she had heard about it but just never found the time to go see. What a pity to be so close to all this but not see what others travel thousands of miles to enjoy. Once I was loaded up she wished me well and sent me off with a stern warning to be careful!

We had ridden down from Utah in the dark so I didn’t have the opportunity to see the scenery. My expectation was just a flat desert landscape but I was pleasantly surprised. It is a very scenic drive with the horizon on each point of the compass punctuated with various ranges of jagged peaks.

As the highway passed through Mesquite, Nevada and crossed into Arizona, the climb to the Utah mountains began. At Littlefield, Arizona the road crosses the Virgin River and then runs along its banks. A few miles on up the wide valley turns into a narrow canyon with sheer walls of rock rising hundreds of feet up into the air along the path this seemingly dainty river cut into the rocks over the millions of years it would have taken. It is an invigorating morning romp up eleven curvy miles. Unfortunately, the speed limit was 55 so, though I got to lean through the corners, I didn’t get to lean deep.

So far it was a good start to the day. I stopped in St. George, Utah for breakfast at Cracker Barrel and ate my usual travel breakfast of two eggs over easy, hash browns and sausage patties with wheat toast. As I was taking care of the bill at the register one of the waitresses walked up to me and gave me a piece of paper with a name and phone number. She said that it was the number of the waitress I greeted as I walked out and she wanted me to call her. That is the first time that has ever happened to me and, not sure what to do, I took the paper, smiled and said thank you. It was an interesting experience to say the least and I wondered how often she gave out her number to passing strangers. I was both flattered and weirded out.

The mountain towering over St. George (and, unnamed on my map) was shrouded in clouds. I thought it was Zion National Park and I didn’t want to get up in there with all those clouds because I wanted to take lots of photos and that is kind of hard when you are trying snap shots while keeping the rain off the camera. So, I moved the bike over to the side so that I could work on the windshield support that had broken the previous day. I thought it would take about an hour if I removed the body panels but then I remembered having replaced it in the past without doing that. It took only a couple of minutes to remove the windshield and get access to the part. And then, it wouldn’t budge. In my haste to replace it the last time it was broken I failed to grease it and it being aluminum and the shaft being steel reactive corrosion between the two had fused them together. I tried banging it out with the screw driver I had but that only hurt my hand. I decided for more heft and found a good sized rock in the construction site next door. I gave it a couple of good whacks but instead of the shaft coming loose the support bracket broke. Now I had two broken parts .... the initial one of which I had a spare and a bigger one that I am not even sure is stocked but I am certain has to be ordered. Now I was majorly pissed off!! It was a pain in the neck to drive the last three hundred miles yesterday and the first hundred or so today with all that wind noise but now I faced the prospect of several days and THOUSANDS of miles with lots of wind and no music because I couldn’t hear the radio. Here, all you readers with bikes that have neither windshield nor faring will think “You are a wuss, a sissy, and a cry baby!”

I put the bike back together and got going. I stopped to gas up and the pay-at-the-pump would not take my card and I had to go inside to complete the transaction. I had had problems with the card the previous day and had to make two calls to my credit card company to assure them it was me using the card. I was annoyed by it yesterday because I had taken the time to call them prior to the trip and let them know what I would be doing and where I would be going and they had assured me then and on both calls yesterday that I would not have any issues with the card. And, here I was, AGAIN dinking around with the card that is supposed to be a convenience but was turning out to be more of a pain.

Like the mountain above St. George, I had a cloud about my head. I was in a red-hot fuming rage as I got back on the freeway for the few miles before my turn off to head to Zion National Park. A couple of miles up the road I noticed that the cloud shrouded mountain lay to the west and the skies to the east, in the direction of Zion was actually rather more clear. Okay, so the morning wasn’t going to be a complete bust. On turning off the freeway I was rewarded with a number of nice views of the landscape above Toquerville and La Verkin. After I passed through La Verkin a sign indicated that the dirt road to which it was pointed led to the “La Verkin Scenic Overlook”. I thought it would be worth a look since I was there and I was rewarded by beautiful views of the surrounding mountains and, of course, the grand metropolis of La Verkin. The rage lifted and my mood improved from red-hot fuming rage to just a simmering rage. Enough so that I amused myself with the name of the town below which is named for the river that flows through it .....”La Verkin River? Silly name! Vot happen if the river is not Verking?” .... okay, it is a groaner but, given my mood at the time it was enough to make me smile.

My first view off the freeway near Toquerville, Utah

The La Verkin River valley on the approach to Toquerville, Utah

The grand metropols of La Verkin, Utah and the mountains beyond

Some more of the sights above La Verkin

Loads of mountains from here to the horizon

In Arizona they call them Butte's and in Colorado they call them Mesa's but I don't know what they call them in Utah. Whatever it is they are impressive. The photo does not provide good apreciation of the scale!!

The veiw east towards Zion from the La Verkin overlook

Looking at the peaks in Zion from just outside Virgin, Utah

This and the following few photo are of the views on the way up to and back from the Kolob Reservoir.

On to the next town, Virgin, Utah, also named for the river on the banks of which it sits. That is an interesting name for a river that flows into Lake Mead down by sin city! Anyway, I had read about a road up to Kolob Reservoir that provides views of Zion National Park from above. I saw the sign in Virgin and turned left to begin the climb up. I was not disappointed!! I the road wound its way past amazing rock formations and each turn revealed an even more beautiful landscape the sour mood that had been brought on that morning lifted and was replaced with wonderment at the amazing beauty of what lay around me.

As I approached the summit of the climb it started to snow. No heavy snow but flurries. Having come this far up the road I was determined to get to the scenic overlook so I could see Zion from above. It turns out that I had to ride two and a half miles on a dirt road to get to the view point so I turned onto it and bumped along dodging mud puddles and bouncing over washboards. I am SURE this was the intended use of this bike. I heard a rattle that had not been there before and I thought, what now?!?!?! I hoped it was the unsecured side of the windshield and it turned out to be so and with that confirmation I put it out of my mind and soldiered on. It was rather cloudy when I got to the overlook so the view was a bit disappointing but I snapped a couple of pictures and headed to the Kolob reservoir. It turned out to be nothing that seemed in any way special to me. Had I been a trout fisherman I could have caught one or two but that is not the case. I turned and headed back down to Virgin.

This plackard explains what you are supposed to be able to see in the photo below.

As you can see it was quite overcast. I am high up enough that there is no foliage on the deciduous trees.

A US Geological Survey marker. The record of it's existance, exact location in lattitude, longitude and altitude above sea level can be found in the Library of Congress.

I liked this shot of the bike through the trees.

I liked this lake up on a plateau just below the Kolob Reservoir. This was the nice part of the road I took to the scenic overlook.

As is always the case when you drive through mountainous areas, though the views ahead are beautiful there is a whole different view behind you that is probably equally beautiful and it turned out to be the case here. Also, the clouds were parting fast and the deep blue desert sky was determined to make an appearance.

I took my time going down, taking a lot of photos along the way and in Virgin I turned east to go to Zion. There is a shuttle bus that takes visitors deep into the park but that was a one and a half hour tour, something to be left for another time since I had burned so much daylight riding up to the Kolob reservoir and I had a bunch of miles to cover before sundown.

This and the following photos show the beauty of the views on the descent from the Kolob Reservoir.

Here I liked the contrast of rock, forest and sky

Mountains as far as you can see!

The blue sky fought a hard and successful fight to make an appearance!

This is a shot of the mountain above St. George. Like my mood, the clouds that had previously clouded its summit cleared as the morning wore on.

I love this view of the peaks looking east into Zion

Here is a little tighter shot of the same

As I have said before, I am a sucker for rock formations

This is the entrance to a ranch near Zion. Just beautiful!

Zion offered a stunning ride through deep-red-colored rocks and sheer cliffs. The road wound along the edge of the cliffs and I putted up in first gear, stopping to let others by as I soaked in the amazing beauty of the place. If you are into this stuff like me you will enjoy the photos below that tell the story of this amazing park.

This is the western end of the road leading up the sides of the Virgin River valley.

As you climb you are rewarded with views of cliffs .......

......... that get more rewarding with each turn. This is an arch carved by nature.

Crazy layers of rock

And more crazy layers!

When I got through the park I stopped in Mt. Carmel to top up the tank for the last one hundred plus miles left to ride. The sun was well on its way along the latter part of its journey across the sky so I had to get hopping. A few miles north of Mt. Carmel I pulled over to take a picture and then got back on the road. I accelerated hard to get ahead of a minivan before the climbing lane ended and I made it ...... thank goodness for this wonderful motor!! As I rounded the corner at the top of this climb the steering all of a sudden got heavy and the bike started to wander in the lane. With the speed limit at 65 and having just passed that van I was somewhere north of 80 mph and leaned over a bit. I carefully rolled off the throttle, brought the bike back upright and moved over to the right of the lane to the visible consternation of the minivan driver who had already seemed a little miffed not to have made it to the corner before me.

When I stopped I looked down and I confirmed that I had a flat!!! Well, time to find out how that tire repair kit works. I pulled the bike off the road and got to work. I read the instructions a couple of times and with half a dozen bits to use to get the job done and no benefit of a blow-by-blow picture series I wanted to make sure I got it right the first time. I found the hole in the tire and go it plugged up. The instructions said to use only one canister of CO2 and check for more holes before filling the tire to riding pressure. Good thing too because it turns out that there were two holes in the tire!!! I got both holes plugged and used three more canisters to fill the tire. To anyone who rides on tubeless tires I highly recommend the “Pocket Tire Plugger!!!” Just as I was finishing up Dirk caught up to me.

I explained what happened and told him to go on and ride ahead because I would be taking it easy on the damaged tire as I didn’t know if it could take the abuse I am wont to mete out on tires as I toss that big bike around mountain roads. We had about 100 miles to travel on the storied route 12 and I wanted at least one of us to ride it at the max.

But, he refused to do that and insisted he would ride with me to make sure I was okay. I got back on the road but my dash flashed a warning, an exclamation mark in a red triangle and the words “Warning Brake Failure!”

I rode about a mile to the next place I could safely pull off and turned off the bike. Dirk pulled up next to me and I told him that the bike indicated a brake failure. This bike has a CAN-Bus rather than a normal wiring harness system. I has learned, just before the trip that CAN means controlled area network. What that means is that everything is connected to a singe wire and instructions are passed back and forth between the controllers like in a mini-Internet, a little controlled network. Knowing that I hoped that it was just a minor miscommunication between controllers and all I would have to do was cycle it through a restart cycle. I turned the bike off, pulled out the key, waited a couple of seconds, reinserted the key and gave it a go. The warning came up again but after a couple of seconds the red triangle turned to orange and then turned off. PHEW!!!!

We got going and turned onto route 12. In the last few miles I had tested the tire up to 80 mph and it seemed fine so I decided that I could still have some fun on this road I had come so far to ride. First we went through Red Canyon, stopping to take photos and then went to the Bryce Canyon gate but decided not to go in because we were fast running out of daylight.

This is the view you get when you first turn on route 12 near Bryce Canyon.

Hmmm ...... this might be why they call it Red Canyon. The colors in the desert always amaze me! Along route 12 they varied from this deep red, to salmon, to pastel pink, to white and the green plants all against the backdrop of a deep, deep blue sky.

Color contrasts along route 12

Back on route 12 we ramped things up a little ..... well, okay more than a little. Dirk rode up ahead and would turn around to re-enjoy the immediately passed corners when I stopped to take pictures of something that caught my eye. The tire was holding up well so I too tossed the bike about quite a bit. This is an absolutely stunning road to ride with many huge changes in elevation, numerous river valleys with tight turns on the descent and climbs in and out of them. I scraped a foot peg on one of the corners so I guess I was on rather the imprudent end of the taking-it-easy-on-the-tire scale!

The photos below tell only part of the story of the views from this road!

Does someone look happy to be riding the mountains.

This is an "action shot" of me running into the picture frame

Then Dirk got his butt off his bike and snapped this more sedate picture of an also-grinning me

More landscape along route 12

You can see how the vegetation changes by the mile.

This was a pink mountain sticking up over the green hills

This photo is a little washed out but it shows one of the many valleys we crossed on route 12. The rides down into and up out of them were spectacutlar.

We stopped in Escalante for Dirk to fill up and then determined that we had to haul butt in order to make it to Torrey, our destination for the day before dark. We rode hard and fast up and over another mountain that is unnamed on my map and we got high enough that the temperature dropped to 40 F!! Over the top we continued our torrid pace on the descent and were surprised by mountain goats and deer when rounding a number of corners. We made it down the other side just as it got dark and as I got checked in Dirk went up the road to the one restaurant. The lady at the front desk was kind enough to call up and ask them to keep the grill open for two more travelers.

We sat down for a good dinner and then picked up some beer before settling in for the night.

It was a day of frustrations with the tire and the windshield but it was also a day of amazing beauty. I hoped the tire would hold up for the rest of the trip and also that I had seen the last of any problems that could beset us on the road!! Thoroughly exhausted I rolled into my bed and was out like a light while Dirk took the time to do his laundry.

Tired and happy as the sun goes down. We still had a bit of a way to go so we had to pick up the pace a bit after this which only served to widen our grins.