June 11 Day 15

Where are Tom and Lennie Now? -Click Here For Our Current Location

The weather out this way is starting to change.  The heat is on the way out, and cooler weather is on the way in.  The only issue, is that rain and thunderstorms are on the way in too.  The high today in Moab was expected to be 85.

We started our morning by heading over to Arches National Park.  The roadway into Arches includes a pretty decent incline, and a number of switchbacks.

The rock formation below is known as The Three Gossips.

Below is the famous Balanced Rock in Arches.

Since we have been to Arches before, we just took a quick ride around the park, then headed off to Canyonlands National Park, which is just down the road.

Along the drive to Canyonlands, there is a state park called Dead Horse Point.  I have seen fantastic pictures of this place, and wanted to see the park myself.  So, in we went.

We made a stop at the visitor center on the way in and Lennie did a little shopping.  When it was time to head to the overlooks, Lennie walked out to the parking lot and noticed a crowd of people around our bike.  There was a bus-load of folks who did not speak English (they were speaking French), and they were very intrigued by the whole bike and trailer setup.  They asked Lennie to open the trailer and the bike trunk so they could see how everything works.  They took a ton of pictures of the bike and trailer and climbed back into their tour bus and off we went.

We get this reaction a lot when we are on the road with the trailer.  On the highway, cars come flying along in the passing lane, then slow down and ride right next to us, often taking pictures from their car or giving us a thumbs up.  I guess people are just not used to seeing a bike pull a trailer?

Below are a couple of photos from Dead Horse Point.  The river you see is the Colorado. It is about a 2000 foot drop from the flat arrow shaped mesa, down to the river bed.

There are some very colorful formations in this area as well.

From Dead Horse Point, we continued on toward the northern area of Canyonlands National Park.

As the day went on, the storms started to brew.  Below, you can see rain clouds hanging over the valley in the distance.

The northern area of Canyonlands includes a viewpoint called Islands in the Sky.  It is a huge flat top mesa that sits on sandstone cliffs.  The cliffs overlook deep canyons and interesting rock formations.

After Canyonlands, we headed toward Montrose, Colorado, where we will stay for the night. 

The last 3 hours of the ride, we were extremely lucky, as we dodged a ton of storm cells that were popping up all over southern Utah and Colorado.  We arrived at the hotel around 7 PM, and stayed dry the entire way.  We normally ride 1.5 to 2 hours between stretch or gas breaks, but the last 3 hour leg today, we rode with no rest stops.

The ride today completes our time in Utah.  It also completes our National Park visits with a total of 7.  We visited every National Park in Utah (Zion, Bryce, Capitol Reef, Arches, and Canyonlands), and two in Arizona (Petrified Forest, and Grand Canyon). 

Below is our route from today, we covered 302 miles, bringing our current trip total to 4353 miles.

Tomorrow, we are planning on riding Colorado's Million Dollar Highway, and will end up in Pagosa Springs, Colorado for the night.