Steve discusses the route with Don, Rafe and Billy - like I can't stand anymore rain!
Joe has to be the only person in the world that polishes his bike in the rain
Billy gets ready for the worst, but it was worse than that!
The rain had stopped for a while, but as we climbed up to another 10,000 ft pass it came back with a vengeance. Visibility was reduced to 100 yards and my goggles fogged up as did Alan's visor and the other guys too. We were struggling down the other side of the pass when a couple of motorcycles came steaming past at a great rate of knots. They were riding a KTM and a BMW GS and they obviously found it easier to handle the conditions than we did.
We got onto our first Interstate Hwy 70 and the sun came out, but the road was still wet and the spray from the trucks kept us on our toes. The freeway wound through beautiful Canyon Country of Colorado and we turned off past the Arches NP into Moab. We had lunch in a restaurant that had a fine spray of water misting down the walls - a common way to cool buildings in the hottest places. The gang all arrived and we headed off to our accommodation at the Rustic Inn.
Rafe, Billy, Alan and I rode back to the Arches NP to have a look around. Rafe suggested a walk that started with a deep chasm and then across a wide sandy meadow to a rock arch. Rafe reminded us that we should always stick to the paths because the soils were very ancient and very sensitive to foot traffic. We saw a frog hopping through the sand but I don't think it caused as much damage as my size 12's.
Rock formations in Arches NP
Colin, Billy and Alan stand under an Arch
Rafe sent a photo of Billy to his new girlfriend the result of which was a demand for him to return forthwith, which he did the next day! Alan and I were amazed as there was no way we'd cut a bike trip short just because our womenfolk asked us to come home. Billy explained that he needed to keep this relationship strong ( as some previous ones had not). We rode back to the motel and enjoyed the empty roads through the park - which had some weird shaped rocks that seemed to defy gravity. There was also an amazing cloud formation that looked like an arch in the sky.
This called the Balancing Rock
A cloud arch
The gang were enjoying cocktails prepared by Joe and were all half pissed. We had dinner at McStiffs and in conversation Barry explained US politics, which is a mystery to us Aussies. He told us that there are a few "hot button" issues like abortion, gun control, socialised medicine and big government that will always produce a predictable voting pattern in certain States. It ended up that the average voter would often decide his vote on these issues and then end up with a party that had policies that were definitely not in his own interests on things like jobs, control of banks etc..
Sean and Jake wanted to kick on - being young guys, so Alan, Don and I went off in search of a bar. We found Jacki D's and we played pool and drank shots of whiskey for an hour. Jake had studied film at college and knew Jean Luc Goddard the French auteur which impressed me if no-one else! The "old folks" left Sean and Jake and headed home to bed. I flicked on the TV back in our room and watched a doco about 9/11 - which is really 11th Sept. It was an assembly of home videos taken from the street of the events leading up to, during and after the collapse of the WTC towers and was amazing and really portrayed the horror of what happened in a very visceral way.
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