I skipped writing yesterday because not much of consequence happened.\u00a0 I basically tried to sit tight in Page, but the wandering spirit kept calling, so I made an attempt to ride over to the Navajo National Monument [since it is run by the Navajo, the Feds cannot keep them from running it \ud83d\ude42 ]\u00a0 However, the brief moment of morning sunlight turned into a chilly wind, and rain started advancing towards me as I rode.\u00a0 So, I did a 360 and made it back to Page, where I hung out with Beat [pronounce Beh-at], a dentist from Switzerland, and a fellow BMW rider.\u00a0 We ate Texas BBQ, which was really good, and exchanged travel tips.\u00a0 Towards late afternoon, it cleared enough for me to go get some more shots of the Canyonlands Dam [closed of course] and then I rode out to Antelope Point where I nabbed what I think will turn out so be some pretty awesome photos, and managed to strike a conversation with a guard.\u00a0 One of the things that came up,. was the fact that people who have been on the 15 year waiting list to raft down the Grand Canyon were out of luck.\u00a0\u00a0 WOW! talk about peeved.
\nI left Page this morning.\u00a0 I packed the BeMWu under the admiring gaze of a boat load of German tourists that were boarding a tour bus.\u00a0 I guess it was a bus load then.\u00a0 What a difference a day, and some better preparation, can make.\u00a0 Part of my route was the same one I attempted in the morning yesterday.\u00a0 One of the things that makes it hard to leave Page is the fact that the landscape, not matter which direction you go, is magnificent.\u00a0 So, even in the cold of the morning, it was great, and sad, to be on the road, leaving all this beauty behind.\u00a0 It did help to know that I was headed to Monument Valley, and then Moab, via Newspaper Rock in Canyonlands. It is hard for me to recap it all.\u00a0 I must say that I have never approached Monument Valley from the West and South.\u00a0 It is probably more amazing.\u00a0 There were spots along the way that made me laugh.\u00a0 For example, when I crossed the bridge at Mexican Hat a few years ago I had dismounted to take a few photos, and a dog seemed to take exception to my invading his territory.\u00a0 I did come quite close to getting bitten.\u00a0 With all the beauty around, the cold wind was still getting to me and fatigue was mounting.\u00a0 As I made it to Blanding, I saw dark clouds ahead of me and courtains of rain.\u00a0 Enough.\u00a0 All I needed to do now was to make it to Moab, and skip Newspaper Rock.\u00a0 However, as I cleared a high pass, the rain stayed behind me and when I got to the turn off to Newspaper Rock I decided to ahead and stick it out.\u00a0 I rode the 12 miles to the rock.\u00a0 The road has postings warning that this area is open range, and sure enough, the cows in the area made sure that the little yellow metal diamonds on a stick were telling no lies.\u00a0 In about 3 different places, the cows did not seem to care that their hooves were trampling on asphalt, and the BeMWu just made them jump around.\u00a0 This made for interesting games of ‘Guess which way the calf will jump, and the biker will go’.\u00a0 I finally made it to the rock, which bears a collection of pictographs that were put there by people from several points in history.\u00a0 The surrounding oaks announce that fall is indeed here, their leaves turning yellow.
\nFrom the Rock to Moab was just another 45 minutes.\u00a0 Signs on the side of the road happily announce that the Parks in the area are actually open.\u00a0 As it turns out, starting tomorrow, they will open at 8 am.\u00a0 The governor Utah figured out a deal with the Feds to allow him to open the parks, on the state’s $ so that those whose livelihood depends to these precious assets can still make a living.
\nFor me this means that I will visit Corona Arch tomorrow, outside Arches, and then Arches itself.
\nSo, after a week on the road, I have seen more cold that I care for, more make it\u00a0 up as you go than ever before, and laid down over 2,000 miles in tracks.\u00a0 I am in some kind of funk, in awe on one side, and desperately wishing for sunlight and warmth.
\nDay after tomorrow will start the rode back home.\u00a0 I am basically escaping this fall that feels like winter, and wishing for warm nights and days.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I skipped writing yesterday because not much of consequence happened.\u00a0 I basically tried to sit tight in Page, but the wandering spirit kept calling, so I made an attempt to ride over to the Navajo National Monument [since it is run by the Navajo, the Feds cannot keep them from running it \ud83d\ude42 ]\u00a0 However,… Read More »Getting to the Middle of the Journey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2o6Hc-gT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1048,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1047\/revisions\/1048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jaderiderjourneys.com\/2endslavery\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}