Chapter Five

The next morning held a bit more anticipation as far as I was concerned, than any day so far because we were to ride up to the Grand Canyon and then through Monument Valley. For some reason I didn’t feel as refreshed as I had every morning since the beginning of the trip. I don’t know if I didn’t sleep well or if the jet lag from the first day was catching up with me. But we had a good breakfast buffet at the motel then went outside to clean up the bikes as some did every morning and most of us did occasionally. Mark never did, I think this was where the conversation came up about how dirty his bike was and he kind of braggingly spoke of never washing it. The windshield had no need to clean because there were so many stickers on it from all the places he had visited over the years. There looked to be only room for one or two more then he planned to start putting them on the inside, which he did by trips end. Keith and some of the others cleaned his bike for him to his surprise and delight, But it earned him the nickname "Pigpen".

After our morning prayer we loaded the bikes and headed north to the southern rim of the Grand Canyon. This being one of the shortest days, ride wise, I figured we could spend a little extra time at the Grand Canyon. The ride up was rather boring. The scenery was so- so, not what I was expecting but then I didn’t know what I did expect. But the closer we got to the canyon it started looking better, a little woodsier and more like what you would expect from the mountains. When we reached the gateway, again we had to cough up some dough to see one of our nations natural wonders, like the government owned it and had the right to charge admission. But like most tourist we just paid the fare went our way and said nothing.

We stopped at the first overlook site we came to and rested and took pictures of the canyon. It was magnificent, bigger than I had imagined. It was almost impossible to see the bottom, although the other side wasn’t that far off, left to right there was no end, except to round a corner and then continue on. You could walk over right to the edge of the canyon; of course there was a railing to keep some idiot from falling over. After taking bunches of pictures of the canyon and the group and of course, each other, we were considering getting ready to leave when up drove three bikes, the same fellas we saw in the desert a couple of days before , Chuck’s group. So we stayed and talked a little longer with them, then they left after taking only a few pictures, and went on their way and that was the last we saw of then on the trip.

We then ourselves, continued on our way, passed a couple of smaller overlooks then came to what seemed to be the end of the canyon road (Rim Road) and there was a rest area stop with a souvenir shop, a restaurant and "BATHROOMS". Also at the end of the walkway there was a watchtower with a really good view of that end of the canyon. It felt good to stay there awhile and rest, buy a few T-shirts and some refreshments. It was pretty crowded, kids running everywhere, lots of tourist, not like us you know, the foreign kind. The temperature started to rise by the time we had to leave, which didn’t bother me, it made for good riding weather.

The next part of the trip wasn’t a whole lot to write home about, we went past a few Indian reservations, nothing noticeable. Then I noticed what I think must have been the Painted Desert. All of a sudden the rock covered landscapes were very colorful. Reds, blues, purples and many various shades of every color scattered everywhere. We rode through this one section, there were cliffs on both sides of us and straight ahead was the desert as if it was framed for a picture, so I took one or two, and then raised the camera over my head, pointed the camera behind me to snap some of Devon and the others following. In my mirror I saw Devon wave.

When we got to Kayenta we stopped at a Subway for a bite of lunch. Everyone was of Indian descent, don’t know what tribe but I knew we were close to some reservation, if they still live on reservations. Maybe they just mostly occupy the territory. I’m not making fun of them or anything like that; I had just never seen that many Indian people at one time before. I wondered if they thought that we were invading their territory like the Whites had always done throughout history. Probably not, because no one said anything to us at all, not even a hello, and we all came back with our scalps.

After a quick lunch we continued on our way, crossed over into Utah and to one of the most anticipated legs of the trip, Monument Valley. Less than an hour into this segment, you could see these huge formations of red rock from way off in the distance. I mean miles away; the land was so flat you could almost see forever. We stopped to rest at a gas station at what must have been at the entrance to Monument Valley, because you could tell not only were we very close but the dirt on the ground was also red.

We met some other bikers there, two couples who were on their way home from a trip they were on, really nice folks. We ate some ice cream then off to the Valley we headed.

It seemed to take forever to reach the first formation, but you could see it getting bigger and bigger as we approached it. Then the next one was even larger than the first one. Others were smaller and different shapes, bit all in all I was sorted disappointed in how few in number there were. It seemed like there were only a dozen or so but they all looked different as we passed by and viewed them from another angle. We stopped along the road and took some pictures, then back on the road suddenly they were gone, all except the mountain ranges that resembled them in color, but they just continued on and on instead of making a formation.

After a while the mountain ranges turned from red back to the gray rocky color we had left behind us a couple days earlier. We made good time getting to Moab, which was our next stop for the night, daylight was still hanging around and we rode into town and there was a huge mountain range on the left right behind the motel we were staying. It was like the building was right at the base of the mountain. Mine and Joel’s room was on the front so I didn’t get to see any view of it.