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By Lynx, on June 24th, 2010 $#%&!! Roadside teardown.. The whole trip till now the bike had been running a touch hot, playing with jettings didnt seem to help any. Hours of Super Slabbing it with huge winds got the temp gauge up to 120C and it was starting to have that crunchy shifting and other overheating symptoms. Complete teardown on the side of the road to figure out WTF is going on..
I’d already redone the carb, replaced the air filters and everything I could think of prior to leaving. Might as well replace that grungy crankcase filter too and see if that does anything.. 350+ miles to go and no time to wait for a cool down, we hopped back on and an hr down the road at 80mph it had cooled down to 90C, MUCH better! REPLACE YOUR GRUNGY CLOGGED CRANKCASE FILTERS!!
The wind was just horrible. At one of the rest areas we stopped at to redo our Visine and take a breather the plate glass door shattered and cracked the surrounding glass in the wall when the wind slammed it shut. Later at dinner (Subway) the radio playing kept having warnings for all of the roads we had just been on, stating 75mph and up wind gusts.
We had reservations for a camping spot at Dead Horse Point State Park and we never made it there. 300 miles of fighting the worst winds we’d been through this trips and constantly having to expect and be ready for a a 75 mph gust from the side at any second that’ll knock you off the road is tiring. Luckily the sections of Interstate we were on were closed to truck traffic from the wind and there was virtually no other traffic, or towns, or gas for 150 miles and we could ride right straight down the center of both lanes. 3 or 4 times we were blown all the way past the rumble strip onto the shoulder by a big gust out of nowhere. It felt like an unexpected tackle from the side. One of those times we very nearly crashed, we were scraping floorboards trying to swerve back onto the road.
Continue reading Hot and Cold
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By Lynx, on June 23rd, 2010 
The other post was getting a bit long so I’m breaking it up. Zion National Park is an oasis of life in an otherwise semi-arid region. One feature that makes this park so remarkable and helped create it is the amount of water here. Everywhere clean spring water drips from walls and flake off bits of stone piece by piece and streams rush through and carve out the canyons. Water is so central to Zion that nowhere in the park to they sell bottled water, if you want water they have fresh spring water on tap at all the drinking fountains to refill your bottles.
With all the water around there’s an explosion wildlife of all shapes and sizes from mountain lions to eagles to deer and mice. Here’s just a few pictures of what we managed to see in our short time hiking in the park.
There is no private cars allowed on the roads up the main canyons the traffic was getting way too bad and with only a few hundred parking spaces for a few thousand cars per day the situation just wasn’t working out. To solve the problems they implemented a pretty good bus system through the park to take you through all of the sites and trail heads. It works very well and we never had to wait, the bus drivers are all very informative and sometimes funny, one of them pointed out the doe and her two fawns to us and slowed down enough for me to snap a picture through the window. He says he loves his job because he gets to watch the babies grow up throughout the year.
Continue reading Zion Wildlife
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By Lynx, on June 22nd, 2010 
My favorite National Park so far this trip would have to be Zion. The steep vermillion cliffs are an outdoor photographers dream and just awe inspiring. Early explorers felt the towering structures and great beauty clearly showed the hand of God at work in these canyons and cliffs. No wonder they came up with names such as Angels Landing, Cathedral Mountain, East and West Temples, and the Three Patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
This was a great place for hiking, most of the hikes close to the bus stops are very easy with little elevation change or much climbing, a welcome change from what we had been doing. The paths are nicely paved and many are wheelchair accessible. They do also have more strenuous trails for the advanced people who don’t have a fear of heights. The trails are rated well in some of the literature we received from easy beginner trails to moderate and very hard. Its more like a ski area except for hiking with the different skill levels clearly marked and signage explaining what to expect. Not at all like some of the trails we went on at Mesa Verde where we were 2 miles into it only to find, we have to climb up THAT? is it quicker to turn back or keep going? 😉
We both loved Zion and hope to be back soon, if only to check out Kolob Reservoir that a local V Star rider mentioned to us and we didn’t have time to see.
Continue reading Zion National Park
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By Lynx, on June 21st, 2010 
We stayed at Zion Ponderosa Ranch, highly recommended if you go this way. This place was a big unexpected surprise. When I was making reservations before we left a week and a half prior everything was sold out in the Federal campgrounds in the park, there was one or two patches of dirt left and they wanted upwards of $40 for them, Ouch! With a bit of searching I found Zion Ponderosa on the North Eastern corner of the park just outside the lesser used entrance and the prices for a spot here were cheap.
We were really blown away by the place. Compared to what we were used to at all our other campgrounds we were only expecting a small dirt plot to throw the tent and a bathroom somewhere close by and maybe if we were lucky a shower. The next day we saw the sold out campgrounds by the visitors center and thats exactly what they were for twice as much. We were a bit shocked to find Zion Ponderosa was more like a resort than a campground, they have lots of cabins from basic to deluxe and have all sorts of activities available from adventure Unimog, Jeep or 4 wheeler tours to horseback riding to rock climbing and miniature golf, etc. etc. The nice girls at the front desk seemed sad that we weren’t going to participate in any of their activities and were leaving first thing in the morning.
We’d only found out the day before that the road through the east entrance to Zion National Park was closed during the day. WTF? Only through sheer luck did our campground happen to be on the same side of the road closure that we were coming from, otherwise I’m not sure what we would have done. I wonder if the construction had anything to do with the prices being so much cheaper than everywhere else.
Continue reading Zion Ponderosa Ranch
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By Lynx, on June 20th, 2010 
With names like Fairyland Trail, Queens Garden, Thors Hammer, Fairy Castle, The Cathedral and Rainbow Point, Bryce Canyon National Park sounds like an imaginary playground from children’s tales. In reality its not far from that, the amazing rock windows, spires and grottos look like they’d be more at place in some fantasy land of a Narnia or Lord of the Rings movie.
The highway along the top of the ridge is great for riding, it winds along the top of a mesa through trees and green pastures, these are all along the edge where its eroded away. Most of the tourists stick to the upper third of the highway where the big sections of spires are, we went all the way to the end to avoid the crowds. If here by motorcycle going all the way to Rainbow Point is a must!
We were also reminded just how blessed we were to have an opportunity to travel like this and see such amazing landscapes by a crazy German running, skipping and leaping through one of the packed parking lots. He was running from car to car and taking pictures of license plates while talking to himself, New York great! Oregon yes yes! Washington very good! He came to ours and asked “What state?” When we told him he excitedly exclaims “New Mexico! yes I do not have dis one! So many states! I love America! So beautiful! Freedom to go from everywhere, this is great! I love America!!” With that he leaped through the air down the street like a ballet dancer to get more pictures, we both laughed hysterically but hes right. The western states are as big as countries in other places and we might need passports to go between them, America truly is great to preserve beautiful places like Bryce Canyon “For the Benefit and Enjoyment of the People”
Continue reading Bryce Canyon National Park
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By Lynx, on June 19th, 2010 We spent the night at Escalante State Park, or Escalante Petrified Forest State Park. I saw both names in signage and online, they must have recently changed names. The park was nice, we got there fairly late but had reserved a space ahead of time through ReserveAmerica.com. Every spot was taken, there’s not very many. I’d recommend reserving a space if you choose to stay here between Bryce Canyon and Capitol Reef like we did.
The park is small but nice, with paved driveways in all the camping spaces and very nice hot showers and clean bathrooms. We were only here for a night and an afternoon but there was plenty of nature trails and hiking for a day or two and more in the surrounding area.
Doing my best Hercules impression. By the power of Greyskull! ..wait wrong show. After a few days on the road you need to have some fun and unwind.
Aww… Cece’s made a new friend, a giant collared lizard. Look what followed us home! Mom can we keep it?
Continue reading Escalante Petrified Forest State Park
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By Lynx, on June 18th, 2010 Utah 12 is one of the best motorcycle roads I’ve ever been down, I’d rate it 9.8 out of 10. There are several similar ones back home and throughout the Rockies but they tend to be more technical and challenging, rough, torn up by plows, with treacherous sand in the curves. Not this one, smooth as glass and mostly high speed sweepers. Combined with the last section of highway 24 its 100 miles of pure motorcycle heaven.
There was loads of motorcycles in Torrey, Utah where we stopped for lunch. Most were going the other direction than we were and all of them we talked to described 12 as an absolutely phenomenal road and it didn’t disappoint. One large tour group we got behind for a little ways had all different kinds of bikes from Harley Davidsons to Triumphs to BMWs and even a Ducati. All of them were flying different European flags of where they were from. They had all come halfway around the world to ride this road. The tour guide leader bikes all had Alaskan plates, I wonder if that was where they were headed. If so that’s one killer ride.
First you climb up quite a ways in altitude through mountain sweepers and aspen trees with spectacular views, the temperature drops 10-15 degrees. Looking over Capitol Reef down below.
Some shots of the road further south in Grand Staircase National Monument where we could pull over, imagine roads like this for 60 miles:
If you’ve ever lived high up in the mountains you know what happens to anything that was packaged at sea level, like bags of chips exploding all over the back seat when you go skiing. We had gone up so much in altitude since we packed up at Glen Canyon this morning that our Thermarest sleeping pads were straining at their straps and we had to leave the caps open to let air out as we went higher.
Continue reading Utah 12 – Grand Staircase National Monument
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By Lynx, on June 17th, 2010 
Utah 24 into Capitol Reef National Park is AWESOME! The road is a lot of sweepers and twisties through the bottom of the canyons with all these rock-faces high high overhead. Its hard to get a sense of scale from the pics, these cliffs are 1000 ft up.
Once further in theres lots of overhanging trees with glimpses of the cliffs between them. Spectacularly good smooth pavement the whole way.
I’d heard from many people including total strangers when we mentioned roughly where we were going that the Burr Trail from Bullfrog to Capitol Reef was one of the most spectacular roads ever. Unfortunately its not paved much of the way and pretty rough going through spots. From what we’d already experienced with the area dirt roads from recent rains this adventure was not to be on an overloaded cruiser motorcycle two up. One day I want to see it, especially now after going on the pavement. You can just make it out on this map, the grey line along the ridge.
Continue reading Capitol Reef National Park
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By Lynx, on June 16th, 2010 
Camping in Glen Canyon on the shores of Lake Powell. We did learn that fishermen and boaters make terrible campers hehe. You can’t quite see it in this picture with the tree in the way but there was one rain cloud just dumping on the other side of the lake. We were watching it for a while while we cooked some pasta and got ready for the night, then I noticed that our tent was set up in a bit of a depression. We pulled up stakes and moved the tent to a slopped spot with better drainage “just in case.” An hour or two later with it still headed our way we started putting the rain covers on the motorcycle bags and stashing all of our gear under the tent vestibules.
When the rain reached us it was sudden, like someone flipping a switch on a fire hose. At that moment the 20 or so boaters camping around us all scrambled for cover frantically trying to cover everything. It was coming down in buckets! I thought it was hilarious. Hellooooo? Giant rain storm slowly coming this way for the past 3 hours…. What did you think was going to happen?
Apparently they’ve been getting huge rain like this for a while. At the grocery store/marina they said the water level of the whole lake had risen something like 12 feet in the past two weeks. It had actually put the parking lot under water, we had to park way up the hill on an over flow lot and hike down the road.
Lake Powell is enormous, I never knew there was so much water in the desert. If I had a boat I would definitely come here and spend a week. Jet Skis, Fishing, Camping, it would be a blast!
Continue reading Glen Canyon – Lake Powell
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By Lynx, on June 15th, 2010 
Next stop, Natural Bridges National Monument. The weathered canyons and arches here are beautiful. Best of all, since theres not much around in any direction to get here theres virtually no people! Our private little National Park.
Taking a break from the road and doing our daily hiking. We were doing 3-4 miles of hiking a day through all the national parks we stopped at. We learned its critical to stay along the (vaguely) marked trails and not wander off on your own. Much of the surface is coated with a living bacterial soil crust that gives nutrients to the plants and important in the control of erosion with its soil binding properties. One false step can destroy 100’s or 1000’s of years of growth.
Continue reading Natural Bridges National Monument
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