Monk's Mistress Clothed in Bubble Wrap....

Michael and I drove out of Grantsville UT., heading south on 36, crossing over the range through Eureka. The cutoff from Grantsville to 36 was riddled with potholes large enough to take a bike down or do tire damage. Michael, riding in front would wave a leg off the bike to point it out for me when he passed one - first on the left, then on the right. Pretty soon it was like he was doing some sort of dance with no foot peg usage - the potholes were everywhere. He asked me later if this helped me see the potholes… I said.. not really, they are pretty big, and I can see them anyway. He asked why I didn’t say anything earlier… I said.. Because it was amusing to watch you do that.

There is a sweet little canyon that connects you from Goshen to Mona without having to be on I-15. I have looked for it in the past, but always seem to miss it. Take Center Street in Goshen for this hidden jewel. Short – but nice.  We continued down though Salina connected to I-70 and crossed the second range. We did this because the elevation here was only 7800 feet, much less than Soldier Summit, and given the snow the day before, we wanted to minimize the risk of running into frost on the road at higher elevations. Once we hit Green River the winds picked up, and about 20 miles outside of Moab, the winds were pushing us all over the road. I literally had my left arm locked at the elbow holding the handlebars, with a pretty good bend in my right arm to keep the bike in the lane. Michael was riding with a new helmet for Arai that did not have a wind guard at the bottom of the helmet. I watched him struggle with the wind trying to yank his helmet to the left most of the time.

Michael's helmet

We rolled into Moab with Alaska beer packed in bubble wrap all intact- our gift to Neal and Jen.

We had dinner with Neal, Jen, Jake and Amy at Buck’s Grill where we dined on buffalo meatloaf and polenta lasagna and talked about trip plans. We retired at the Sunflower B and B, a nice little place that is comfortable and cozy and run by a local Mormon family.  They can really cook up a wonderful home cooked breakfast from scratch (Martha Stewart style). Try the lemon scones! The only bad thing I can say about the place is that the Mormon’s don’t know how to make coffee.

Midnight Sun Brewery - Monk's Mistress made it all the way to Moab in the saddle bags

A Series of Unfortunate Events...

but still a grand experience.

We landed in Utah for an adventure of a different sort. In moving my website to the next level, I wanted to get quality film and photo shots. In addition, professional branding for a logo is on the list. The film/photo shots was arranged to take place in colorful red rock canyons near Moab, Utah.

The idea was to have to professionals (Neal Herbert and Shakey Jake) follow us around by jeep for 3 days generating raw material we can use later for video bumpers. From there we are heading over to Torrey, Utah for dinner at Cafe Diablo's again,and of course, the required stop at Hells Backbone Grill.

We headed out of Moab as planned, but it seemed like we were riddled with a series of small issues that escalated to an overheating motorcycle. We called the trip after 2 days and came back to Moab.

We are currently scrambling to fix the bike issues. While waiting for parts, we are going to go hiking in Canyonlands, and tonight I will write an updated blog with all the details.

Our little crew of 4 traveling Southern Utah.