This was quite the day and I’m writing this from the next morning as I just didn’t have it in me to do it last night so I hope I remember everything.
First off, I was relying on the dashcam to get lots of photos. That's a marginal idea because getting the video clips from the SIM card in the camera to this blog is complicated. I have a card reader that plugs into my iPad and the best way seems to be to grab all the videos for the day and drag them to the iPad. From there I can watch each video and do screen shots. However, because of the way I had to mount the camera the videos are inverted, something I can edit, but just another layer of stuff to deal with that isn’t directly about riding…......
So, I am trying to come up with a workflow that is easiest and in the meantime, days like today might be short on photos.
Here’s some morning shots of our campsite that I shot with my phone.
Anyway, we hit the road about 8am and rode back the several miles of washboard to Hwy 191 and headed south. We went through Moab. That was an experience. It is a massive tourist thing in the middle of beautiful scenery. Hotels, RV parks, food joints, gift shops, and lots of people driving jeeps. We didn’t stop until a few miles out of town when I wanted to hit a rest stop for the usual reasons plus I wanted to put my earplugs in and turn on the dash cam.
I had to make a left turn into the rest stop and maybe, only maybe, I cut it close with an oncoming vehicle. Bill stopped for it and told me later that the guy in that vehicle road raged and was flipping me off and flipping Bill off too. Whatever. Here’s the rest stop photos.
We got back on the road and went through some beautiful red rock-lined canyons on some nice curvy roads. (If I have a photos they will be on the dashcam which I’ll go back and try to add in later.)
At some point, we got off Hwy 191 to head to Winslow, AZ. This was Bill’s request and I’ve wanted to stop on a famous corner there myself but I’ll blame the exercise that my bike’s suspension got on him. The road there had lots of pot holes and, at speed, what amounted to washboard for miles and miles. The scenery was mostly wide open spaces with that high desert look.
We did have some interesting encounters. About 10:30 we encountered a herd of wild horses crossing the highway. Then there were a herd (?) of sheep crossing the highway, without a minder. After that, some dolt pulled onto the highway to go opposite us and he was in our lane. Evasive maneuvers were required.
In Blanding I needed to pull off to switch the charging cables on my electronics (my Cardo unit was running low) and we pulled into the parking lot of the college. About the time we were ready to go a guy from the college came out and wanted to know what we were doing there. High security, I guess.
As we approached Winslow their wind came up and there were thunderheads all around. I was leading and hoped we could shoot the gap between them but I was also concerned about the continual lightning strikes we were witnessing.
We forged on, got rained on, and got into Winslow with high winds.
Here is what we wanted to see:
If you don’t understand, it’s because you are too young, too old, or not a fan of the band, the Eagles.
We stopped for gas and another photo before getting on the I-40 to head east. We made it about 5 miles before we got off to don our rain gear. That was a good move as we went in and out of rain for a while.
We had no idea where we were going except we were looking for a place to camp. In Snow Low (I think that was it) the campground was full. I used Google maps to direct us to the next one which turned out to be closed. The one after that was on a reservation and was supposed to be on a lake. We missed the turn at first and had to go back and the dirt road went past an abandoned van and a huge mud hole before it ended at a downed tree.
The whole area looked sketchy so we decided to tuned around and head out. Just as were getting going a pack of rez dogs came out of the woods barking. The lead dog chased Bill but gave it up as we got back to the entrance.
I looked on the map and decided that we should take Hwy 260 back toward Hwy 191 and check on some campsites along the way. The navigator voice got confused and sent us 10 miles the wrong way before telling us to turn around. We got to Hwy 260 and it was a beautiful ride. Heavy forest and a curvy road.
It was getting late and the sun had just about gone down so the opportunity to encounter wildlife was high. Around one curve we went past a group of a dozen elk that had just crossed the road. Up ahead another one was standing alongside the highway, watching us go by. We got to Hwy 373 and turned south and followed that to the Benny Creek campground, a forest service site that turned out to exactly what we were looking for.
We quickly got the tents set up and then got dinner going. Bill made us a campfire.
It was a 516 mile day.
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