It was a great tour of Utah and the desert Southwest. My sister and her partner had never been there and loved it. But I daresay they, like me, were done with red sandstone for awhile. It is possible to be overexposed to unique landscapes and I believe Utah has six or more national parks. I will post more photos of Bryce and Arches. And I am writing this about 120 miles west of St Louis and will be spending the next week getting my motorcycle (still have not made a final choice) ready and going over equipment and packing. I expect to leave St Louis by 9 or 10 October for Texas and the border.

We left Page, Arizona, on the morning of 28 Sept for Zion National Park. It is magnificent and may be my favorite park in Utah.  We enjoyed the ride through the park and spent the night in Hurricane, UT in the far southwestern corner of the state. It is important that even with school starting and supposedly less Americans on the road, all the national parks we visited had lines waiting at the entrance gate.  Prices were up with $20 to $30 per vehicle being the average. I don't think the parks are getting their fair share of funding and the NPS has no alternative but to raise admission prices to cover operating costs. Maybe we should apply that idea to the Defense Department. If we charged an admission fee to go to war, there would be less wars. If you have never purchased a national park pass, you are missing one of the best deals from the federal government.

Donna and Dennis did a hike that I remember doing with MB about two and a half years ago. If memory serves, it is three miles round trip and has perhaps 500 feet of elevation gain so not a particularly hard or difficult hike. They don't have a lot of experience with the SW and they did the hike with temperatures of 90 degrees F (33/34 C), wearing motorcycling clothes and boots and without water. If you here them describe it, it almost killed them and my sister declared she will never hike again, even if she lives to be 100 years of age. My comment is to use the correct gear and carry lots and lots of water, especially in the Southwestern part of the US which is essentially a dessert. The relative humidity is probably 10-15% and it will suck the water from your body and you will not notice it. We all recovered nicely in the air conditioning with a lot of water, a few beers and good food.

The next day we needed to ride about 100-125 miles to Bryce Canyon. It started with a comedy of errors based on a misunderstanding. I was leading and Donna stopped to put on a leather jacket. She and Dennis were five minutes behind me as I pulled into a gas station to wait. I flagged them down and saw them stop but I could not wait and really needed to use the facilities. When I came out of the restroom ten minutes later, they were no where to be seen so I assumed they continued toward Bryce so I jumped on my bike and left. Well, they watched me leave and assumed I just wanted to travel by myself. I saw them later in the park but neither of us stopped.  What had I done to make them angry with me? They were thinking the same thing.  It was not until the next morning that we resolved the issue as neither of us saw the others at the gas station as they were refuelling when I walked out of the restroom and having trouble with the fuel nozzle.  Bryce was magnificent with hoodoos showing the result of wind and rain erosion. I even got photos of Butch Cassidy's boyhood home. For those of you who not know who Butch Cassidy is check out the 1970's movie BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

We figured that Saturday 30 Sept was our last day as we expected the federal government and the national parks to be closed starting the next day. We had to ride 150 miles from the west side of the state to the east side but even the scenery along Interstate 70 was magnificent! Donna and Dennis wanted a break after Arches National Park so they booked a nice hotel in Moab (expensive tourist area) and then planned to spend most of Sunday 1 October shopping in Moab. They had reached the saturation point for national parks. We discovered that we needed reservations for Arches which surprised us as they were not needed for the other parks we visited. Now I knew that reservations were needed for other popular parks like Yellowstone or Yosemite or seeing sunrise from the summit of Haleakala but Arches I would not have expected it for Arches. When MB and I visited 2.5 years ago, it was during the covid shutdown and the middle of December so we did not encounter the reservation issue.

Since Dennis and Donna wanted to shop and take a break, we separated before Arches. I continued east on Interstate 70 to Denver. I70 has a gorgeous route through the Rockies but needs some maintenance. Traffic into Denver starts backing up 40 miles west.  Denver has just gotten too big. I spent the night after a 450 mile day near the new international airport. I did not even bother with dinner as I was exhausted so I ate some dried fruit, trail mix and beef jerky.

Yesterday 1 October I decided to see if I could still do long distance like I have done in my youth (60 years old). My goal was to ride from Denver to St Louis in one long day. The distance was 850 miles and the bike was my Harley Road King, the best touring bike I own thanks to a comfortable seat, cruise control and floor boards and highway pegs.I left the hotel before sunrise and was cursed with high winds during the first 300 miles of the ride. And then I discovered how boring Kansas is but I made it (not to STL) but to Columbia, Missouri about 130 miles short of my goal. I still felt fine when I decided to call it a day at Columbia.  But it was getting dark and I did not want to ride the last hour on back roads in the dark. I don't have night vision like I used to and there are just too many deer in Missouri so I stopped and had dinner at the first place we ate in 2008 when my daughter started at Mizzou as a freshman. Believe it or not, it was a HOOTERS.  The waitress asked me if I had been there before so I told her 2008 and my daughter graduated in 2011. The costume the waitress must wear seem to have gotten shorter and tighter.

I am writing this installment before breakfast at the Ramada Inn in Columbia. I have a two hour ride and then will be packing and figuring out which bike to take south. I cannot believe how quickly my departure from the US is approaching. By the way, I rode over 6000 miles (9600 kms) during the month of September. I will post photos and don't expect to post again for a week or so. Enjoy.