Start 9:00 AM - Stop 7:30 PM
Distance - 328 miles
The previous night turned out to be a much tougher sleep than we had hoped. The walls in the hotel rooms were pretty thin. On one side of us were people that liked to watch television way into the night, on the other side was a young couple that were having a loud and long argument. We called the front desk a couple of times to solicit their help in getting our neighbors to quiet down. When I awoke early in the morning I was careful not to wake Carole, allowing her the extra sleep that we had lost the night before. The only real item on our agenda for today besides riding was the viewing of the Grand Canyon,
After Carole awakened, we packed up and hit the road near 9:00 AM. The ride out of Sedona on Hwy 89A north was gorgeous, taking us through Slide Rock State Park. The climb into Flagstaff was filled with some beautiful wooded roads, some technical and some nice and gentle. Our ride through Flagstaff was uneventful with light traffic, and we quickly exited the north side of town on US 180 to cut toward the Grand Canyon. This was the only day of our trip where we would encounter any rain, and we felt the first few drops as we rode down the highway encountering no traffic whatsoever. The rain didn't last long enough for us to even consider it.
We stopped for lunch at a relatively new diner at the intersection of Hwy 64 and US 180. A walked by a few Harleys were sitting in the parking lot as we made our way to the entrance. It turned out that the only people in the place were the Harley riders and us. They took up a large table in the center of the diner and although fairly quiet were not recognizing that we entered the place, even though it had been impossible not to see us pull up on our bike. Oh well, this trip was not about them. We also found that this diner wasn't exactly vegetarian friendly, a tone that was set pretty much for the rest of our trip. No big deal, I had a grilled cheese sandwich and Carole had a salad.
We headed back on the road toward the Grand Canyon. We didn't really know what to expect since neither of us had been to the Grand Canyon before but needless to say, we were both pretty excited. Traffic remained light until we got to the entrance of the South Rim. There was a line of maybe 30 cars as we arrived. When we made it to the toll entry I saw a sign that said we could purchase $50.00 annual national parks pass that would allow us to enter any national park in the United States without having to pay an additional fee. Since we were going to pass through several national parks on our trip, and since we live close to Yosemite and like to ride through there a lot, we purchased the annual pass. It turned out to be an exceptional value when you consider that each national park normally charges a $20.00 entry fee. Once inside the park the rain started coming down in earnest. I found a parking place under some trees where we dismounted and stood under the awning of an employees cabin. The rain passed in about 10 minutes and the sun broke through the clouds, welcoming us to the Grand Canyon.
We rode about a quarter mile to the main parking area, parked the bike and walked the short distance to view the canyon next to the El Towar Hotel. The view absolutely took our breath away. To describe the Grand Canyon or even to try and share it through pictures is impossible. You all of a sudden understand what huge means when staring into the canyons and all the way across to the North Rim. We took quite a few pictures, appreciating the offer of a couple to snap our photo with our camera as we stood on the edge of the cliff. Of course we reciprocated. We could have stood there all day and not have taken in enough. But we realized this fact, so we decided to go ahead an mount back up and ride around the eastern end of the canyon into Utah. As we exited the park we stopped at quite a few places along the cliffs to take more pictures. We met quite a few people during our stops along the Grand Canyon, all of them Europeans. But it made sense to me. When coming to America, why would they want to hang out in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, or Dallas? They have big cities at home. What they don't have is the huge and wonderful national parks we get to experience. Most Americans travel to Europe to engage in the history, art, and culture of the major cities. Most Europeans come to the US to experience the vast natural wonders that we take for granted.
We exited the park on Hwy 180 and made our way to Hwy 89, cutting north to enter Utah at the Carl Hayden bridge over the Colorado River. Originally I had planned to take the alternate Hwy 89 through Northern Arizona to stick close to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and enjoy the ride along the Vermillion Cliffs. But as we approached Antelope Pass the weather looked extremely severe on the North Rim, so we continued on up to take Hwy 89 through southern Utah and the Grande Staircase - Escalante National Monument area. It was a win/win decision, both routes offer spectacular scenery. But the southern route would have been more technical (can you spell FUN!) where the northern route is made for speed.
The sky was almost as spectacular as the landscape. You could see thunderheads and storm cells developing every where. It seemed like we were in a tunnel of relatively clear, albeit windy, weather with hail storms wreaking havoc in all directions. I watched our path closely on the GPS, hoping beyond hope that our trip to Kanab was down the corridor of calm that we seemed to be riding down. It was a tight corridor that is hard to describe. I could see hail storms a quarter mile to our left and a quarter mile to our right, but we were riding in dry conditions. Our speed continued to increase as the skies got darker and more threatening. At sunset I could see the town of Kanab off in the distance. It looked like we would make it without getting drenched. We rapidly approached a pickup truck from the rear so I gave it a bit of extra throttle and quickly passed the slower moving vehicle. Just as I pulled back into the right lane I saw a policeman on the opposite side of the road turn on his lights. I looked in my rear view mirror and saw him make a U-turn and speed up to chase us down.
I pulled over and waited for his arrival. I asked Carole if she was doing okay and she said, "Yes, but I think I'll stand here and shiver so maybe he'll take pity on us." Fat chance. He came forward and asked for my registration and drivers license, then explained to me that I had been speeding. This was the first time I had ever been pulled over by someone that was young enough to be my kid. I'm serious, this guy didn't even look like he had started shaving yet. But he had the badge and the side-arm, so I gave him the respect that every lawman deserves. He asked us all the typical questions about where we were from and where we were headed. I got a distinct feeling that he was simply protecting his town from evil-doers and ready to escort us to the opposite town border if necessary. He went back to his vehicle to do the normal registration and license checks and then came back to stand beside our bike. I don't think he noticed Carole's show of shivering at all. As he explained to me that he was letting us off with a warning he kept looking closely at all the switches and gizmos on the bike. I could tell he was really curious about the GPS. So we finally got around to talking about the bike and all its toys. After about ten minutes he finally said to me, "Well, your wife here looks pretty uncomfortable so you ought to head into town and call it a night." Okay, so he did notice.
We rode into Kanab and stopped at the K-Motel. I registered with the owner who spent the next five minutes telling me about all the bikes that had been stopping at their motel for the past couple of nights. I asked him for a recommended restaurant and he suggested the Mexican place that was two buildings up the street. Why not? We unpacked our stuff and moved it into the motel room. I loved this place. I'm a real fan of dive motels, much to Carole's chagrin. She didn't like the room at all thinking it was kind of dirty. I guess I was caught up too much in the romance of the road to notice. Anyway, we walked on down to the Mexican restaurant and had a wonderful meal. When we asked the waitress for a recommended local brew, she suggested we try the Polygamy Porter. She showed us the six pack the brew came in and we saw its slogan was, "When one isn't enough." Perfect! She described to us how this was a beer brewed near Salt Lake, and when the owner first setup the brewery he caught a lot of heat from the local Mormons. The name and the slogan was just his way of shoving it in their face after winning the legal battles that allowed him to stay in business. We ended up with an empty six pack to hang on to for a souvenir (even though Carole was the only one drinking that evening and had just one beer).
We turned in at around 10:00, having just ridden through some of the most surreal landscape we had ever seen. Little did we know that the next day was going to push the "surrealism" to a whole new level.