M/C Raven Trip Report 22 – Raven meets Wiley Coyote

I figured that after battling the dry lake bed dust, I’d have it easy for a while so, as I headed through downtown SLC I decided to turn off and check out the Mormon Temple.

The entire downtown area is solidly Mormon/LDS territory. There’s church administration offices, colleges, museums, the Temple itself, office after office of LDS bureaucracy. Well, I could check that off my to do list.

Got back onto Interstate 15 and headed south right into an accident that closed all 5 lanes of the interstate for 2-hours! 2-hours of move forward 10 feet then stop. Going slowly on a motorcycle is tough in the best of circumstances. Doing it in 100deg temps was murder. When I finally made it past the choke point, I headed to a McDonalds for something cool to drink and a check of email.

I headed down the highway towards Moab and the Canyon Country. But first, I stopped at the very first campsite I found and crashed out for the night. Lakebed dust and traffic jams had done me in. I filled and emptied my water bottle 3 times that evening.

Next morning it’s up early (I seem to get up just about sunup these days) and down the road where I spotted this motel sign. Kandi will recognize that it copies the Super 8 colors, look and feel, and even the buildings look like a Super 8. I saw several of these motels in Utah.

The country I was passing through changed from mountains to mesas and buttes. Balancing rocks started showing up and, I swear, I saw a roadrunner! I was pretty impressed with the landscape. Boy did I have a surprise coming.

I went through the town of Green River and had my first Taco Truck meal. It was great going down; not so great the next day.

I arrived at the Arches National Park just at Labor Day weekend. The place was packed. Every campground inside the Park was full but, the Ranger at the Visitors Center pointed me toward Horsethief Campground, a BLM campground about 15 miles from the Arches. The road up to Horsetheif was almost a beautiful as the National Park was, with plenty of picture opportunities and pull outs.

I spent 3-nights at Horsethief exploring Moab and the surrounding area. The Arches is the pearl but, Canyonlands, and Green River are amazing. Colors, pinnacles, arches, windows, balancing rocks. You leave here with now doubt about where Walt Disney and the artists for the Roadrunner cartoons got their ideas and palates.

I’ll post a bunch of pictures of this amazing place. This is really a place where a picture is worth a thousand words.