Gremlin's Tall Stories

Dave is up at some ungodly time like 4.30am. I find out later it was to take pretty pictures of the hills in the dawn light… who cares, my bed was a pretty picture to me. I’d had a restless night, waking constantly, but slept better during the early morning hours.

At 6.45am the alarm rings, I’m already awake for the 3rd or 4th time. Kevin is downstairs already, packing the van when I hand him my bag. As is now par for the course, I head back to bed. Kevin also comes back up and leaves later around 8am, when everyone had left just after 7am. They wanted to get on the road early to avoid the heat that would be coming later.

I set my alarm a couple of times, finally deciding I need to get up at 9am to catch the complimentary breakfast which ends at 9.30am. The main area is pretty busy, but I get a seat at a table with a mother and daughter from Chicago. We chat a bit, Mum is not too keen on the fast paced stuff, preferring to take her time, while her daughter is looking at hang gliding etc. I describe it as running off a mountain… unfortunately this does the opposite of getting the mum interested in hang gliding…

After breakfast (they were out of pastries *sniff*) I muck around, watching TV, organising some pictures and finishing a blog from last night, when the battery in the laptop ran out of juice. Shortly after 11am I’m ready to leave the Inn and head for the edge of town and the last gas station.

Today will be about 300 miles, which I can do on one tank, but I prefer to fill as late as possible. I find the station, they have no problems with a $100 bill and I’m on the open road by 11.45am. I was laughing to myself at the rest having started at 7am… it was cloudy, rain threatening, and the temperature was in the low to mid-twenties. So much for the heat then.

I re-traced our previous day’s route briefly for 12 miles, before turning west onto 133. The road was mostly open, with a few good pieces, all with a lower speed limit, which is really getting to me now. McClure Pass was over 8000 feet. I’d passed a large group of bikers at the bottom of the pass, and during the pass the rain started falling. Despite stopping a few times for pictures I never saw the group again. The road was wet, but I was still adding 5-10mph to the limit and having no problem maintaining it, except for the tightest switchbacks.

The Conti Trail Attacks are definitely handling better than before, having been scrubbed a little, but the shimmy remains at low speed, which is very annoying. Still, they were stable in the wet, with no slips, which is at least something.

Passing Somerset, it was a tiny town, right on the highway, with only a couple of metres between the road and the front fence of each property. The small towns surrounding Somerset seemed to exist for the coal mining, and one of the plants had a long train of multiple carriages being loaded from a feeder. The rain was at least easing a little, allowing the road and I to dry out a bit.

Joining 92, before reaching Delta I planned to turn north on 65, but Karen had other ideas and led me along a back road to join up with 65, cutting out the junction. It was nice, but semi-residential. 65 was a stunning road, the northern half being brilliant. Passing through Grand Mesa National Park had lakes in abundance despite being reasonably high up. Beyond that, I caught up to a slow moving truck with a queue of cars stuck behind it. Working my way to the front when traffic and terrain allowed, it turned out luck was on my side.

We had to pass through a Canyon, and the truck meant the road was all mine until almost the very end, when I caught up to a ute that wasn’t even doing the speed limit itself. Predictably, the speed limit was 35 or 45mph, but I rode the canyon between 50 and 60mph. Rolling off slightly into the corner, rolling on out of the corner, rinse and repeat for dozens of the same corners, one after another, the road in reasonably good condition. I got onto I-70 with a very large grin on my face.

Shortly after getting onto I-70, I passed through Grand Junction, and because I’d entered Grand Junction into the GPS as a waypoint it took me to the centre of town. Dammit… still, I grabbed a photo of another over-sized SUV in the process and saw how sprawled out an American town could be. There were a lot of miles to cover on I-70 before exiting at Cisco but to my relief the Interstate went to 75mph. After passing the state border into Utah there were still 40 odd miles to knock off and the wind was quite strong. I took a break in a rest area, finishing my sub from the previous night and having some water.

Back on the road, Utah was different to Colorado. It is very sparse, sometimes rolling with Canyons often visible, or passing by them. It was also very exposed, so I ended up riding leaning to the right, getting brief reprieves when passing trucks. I was doing 80mph and still being passed by most traffic, so figuring it was safe, upped my speed to 85mph, which is about 135kph. It certainly gets you places faster than in NZ. Taking pictures at 80mph is quite difficult with one hand however… a pillion would be useful for that. Another thing to bear in mind is that in these vast lands, the police use aircraft to find speeding vehicles, then a trooper is dispatched to intercept. Ken was picked up a day or two ago using that exact method.

Exiting the Interstate at the correct intersection, I’m struck by the complete lack of… well… anything. There was scrub, sand, no cars, buildings or people. Services were non-existent for 60+ miles. The middle of nowhere and onto Highway 128. Duly, the 55mph and subsequent 45mph speed limits were mostly ignored as there was very little of anything around. It made the road fantastic, rolling, up and down over little hills, but also some surprises in the form of corners right after crests. All good fun and the rain, while threatening bad things to come, stayed away initially.

Highway 128 got better and better, the end of it passing through a canyon, complete with red earth, winding one lane each road and the scenery was absolutely spectacular. I tried a couple of side roads, one ended in private property, the other said it was closed, and no access to bikes, ATVs etc. The only downside was that I was finally well and truly caught in the rain, getting drenched, the rain so hard it was bouncing off the road. Once again, the Trail Attacks did a good job.

I arrived around 5.20pm, with it still raining. Jan commented to me that in all the years they had been in Utah they had never seen any rain… well, there was plenty of it now. I chat to some of the guys, before finding some brochures as I want to do an ATV tour tomorrow. I fail to locate any of the businesses, but find they all pretty much offer the same thing for the same price.

I head to a Mexican place up the road for dinner, with Gary and Wendy and Dave and Donella. They have huge Margaritas and the dinner is delicious. I try capturing the gorgeous sunset with mixed success. Sometimes you just can’t convey the sight via the lens. An adventure business across the road from the Mexican food doesn’t offer ATVs, but more walking down the road locates one. It’s closed, but not surprising since it’s Sunday evening. I’ll go tomorrow morning to see if I can get on an ATV tour.

On the way back to the motel… it rains. This Utah being so dry thing is looking more and more like an elaborate lie to me. I spend the evening writing blogs and watching Ice Road Truckers.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/HRNxShJiwvpPf35R8