Now the real fun began. We really didn't have to be anywhere anytime except to make San Francisco by next Sunday. This Sunday dawned clear and glorious. The mountains around Salt Lake City were coated in new brilliant white snow. Sunday afternoon my conference was over and my Traveling Partner (TP) arrived from Denver. (There it had been snowing like crazy.) I packed her stuff into the saddle bag and top case. (She had planned well and we had enough space with nothing hanging on the outside.) Any excess stuff I had was packed into the suitcase my business partner was taking home for me. (It weighed a ton.)
Leaving the motel, we wandered around Salt Lake City doing a moto-tour observation of the city sites. We then meandered to Provo for the night.
Monday morning we really started for Las Vegas. In the morning I checked the BMWMOA message board for messages from Hilde. I had left a few and wondered if I had any responses. Well... She had called just before me and that was why I was on hold for a few minutes. Great! I thought, she is checking. I left her a message. I checked for replies every day for the rest of the trip. I heard naught. :( :( :(
This was a see what we can see trip, not how many miles can we cover. At Payson we tried a scenic byway through the Santaquin Unita National Forest. It was scenic. It was a byway. It started dry in the town. Then there was snow along the road side. The higher we got, the deeper the snow got. We turned around when the snow plowing stopped and the road turned to two ruts in the snow. Again, a loaded K75RT with two people was not going to make a good snow bike.
At Nephi we turned onto UT 132. At the gas stop another biker, traveling by truck, told us that it was raining to the south but it got warmer once we got through the gorge. Well, we were Weather Channel habitués at this point. In fact, motels lost points for not carrying the Weather Channel. The storm was to the south of us. It would not be too good to get there too soon. So I had anticipated the report of rain, but had no idea what "gorge" he was speaking of.
Continuing down UT 132 we stopped once because the TP lost heat. If the passenger looses heat when it is cold out, it is almost more important than if the driver does. On a faired bike the passenger gets the collapsing air bubble. She is blasted with cold air. We swapped vests. I wanted to confirm whether she had actually lost heat. I had heated grips, she did not. She also put on a pair of powder pants to block the wind. (She had a motorcycling jacket but not a 'stich. She ended up with many more layers than I.) Through out the trip the powder pants turned out to be a great help in keeping warm since they reduced heat loss by blocking the wind.
As we traveled south in the valley/basin that UT 132 passed through, we kept watching the clouds. They appeared to be getting lower and covering the tops of the mountains on the sides. :( We started to hit patches of rain. Riding with the TP's vest, confirmed it was not working. Thinking about likely failure points I realized the switch wire connection screws might have loosened. A quick stop and inspection found them loose. A small screwdriver cured this problem and the world became much better. :) :) I had warmth again. (At home I Loctited all the wire connection screws on both vests.)
At one point the rain was really coming down. A tractor trailer was approaching. It was pushing a lot of spray. Remembering that the tires were cold and not grippy, I moved to the right to avoid as much of the wind blast as possible. When we passed the truck, it was like passing through a car wash!!! A dirty car wash. :( :(
At Salina we paused again. Here another guy came up to us. (I think were quite a sight and rather unexpected. Motorcyclists in late October in the rain!) He told us that there were 3-4 inches of snow on I-15 in Beaver the other side of the I-70 pass to I-15. In other words, there was snow in our path and the snow would probably get worse not better. He recommended finding some place to hide out and we followed his recommendation. (Some of that preplanning and consideration was paying off. We had time. We were not "pushing the river." We accepted having to stop due to weather.)
From Salina, we traveled to Sigurd. This town has the same name as Hilde's husband. While her husband may be quite something, (never met him so can't say.) the town is not much. A general store with bar and post office integral to it. That, and two gypsum wallboard manufacturing plants are about it. But we got some mementos for Hilde and Sigurd.
From Sigurd, we headed to Richfield. Richfield was somewhere in not much of anywhere. When we hit the room in the motel, the TP started shivering. I know this symptom: even with the electric vest and vapor barrier shirt she had become slightly hypothermic. I knew the motel had a spa and when I went to find it, I found they also had a sauna that was "up to temp." I took her down to the sauna and stuffed her in clothes and all. Heat was good. She rewarmed.
We had traveled through a lot of wet today. The bike was filthy and the bags were even worse. After our showers, I emptied the bags and washed the outsides of the bags in the tub. They will float when closed and empty. They looked much better. I was also careful to clean the bottom of the tub afterward. I figured this was better than gunging up towels like crazy cleaning them off. I checked the BMWMOA message board. No messages from Hilde. :(
With the rain and the cold, we were glad the motel had a decent Mexican restaurant in it. The food really hit the spot.
Tuesday morning we crossed the mountain pass on I-70. The report was correct. There was snow, a good bit of it in the mountains. We could see where it had been plowed off the road. There was some sand on the road. Also, in places the snow was melting and flowing across the road. I was careful in these stretches. Trying to cross them upright and with minimal throttle. One never knows when there might be ice under that water. As we went down in altitude the snow decreased and finally went away.
Traveling down I-15 the snow came back on the side of the road. Apparently Beaver is fairly high in altitude and there was significant snow there. But the roadway was clear. If we had tried to go on the day before, we might have gotten caught in a bad spot. A place with no town or motels. When traveling in the late fall and winter, you need to anticipate what might be ahead and make decisions when you have options and not when all the good options are closed off or ugly. (California and Nevada both show the altitude of the town as you enter it. This gives you some idea of whether you are going up or down. Utah does not. It really irritated me.)
At Cedar City, we took UT 14 towards Cedar Breaks. The road climbed fairly quickly out of the city. We were quickly surrounded by snow. But the road was clear. Or, it was clear of snow. At one point we passed under some high cliffs on the south side of the road. The road looked wet. The road had sand/gravel/cinders on it. It felt slippery under wheel. Rather than avoiding the gravel, I headed for it. There was traction there!! =:-0 We got past it and ran for some time. But the road kept looking wettish. Then we noticed some snow flakes. Then we saw the notice that we were entering the Dixie National Forest. We were a long way from completing this road, and it had to get higher before it got lower. (In fact the eastern terminus is at 7513 feet which is higher than the pass we had gone over earlier in the day.) We took some pictures and turned around. The snow covered evergreens matched every photo you have seen and exceeded them. It was spectacular. As we went out, we noticed that the amount of snow by the road had decreased in just the few minutes since we passed. Snow melts fast in the high desert.
South of Cedar City, we turned into the Kolob Canyon area of Zion National Park. Here were some real interesting views. This is the northwestern area of Zion. Zion is characterized by very red rock, and deep canyons. Additionally in this area, there are a number of side canyons with forests in them. Forests that even if they were allowed to be logged would be quite difficult to log. There is no way to get to them by road. Snow covered evergreens surrounded by snow covered red rock. Eye candy of a non-bike kind. We paused about 20 minutes at the overlook at the end of the road. On the way in we passed a rock wall where old wave action patterns were brought into sharp contrast with the white snow and the red rock. On the way out, it looked completely different. The way we saw it was viewed only be us. By the time someone else got there it was different.
From the Kolob Canyons we continued on I-15. We finally found the "gorge" that we had heard of earlier. Down we went and as we descended it got warmer. By golly, this altitude weather stuff is true. :) Quickly passing through the bustling metropolises of La Verkin, Hurricane, Rockville and Springdale we entered Zion proper. Zion in the fall/winter is much different than Zion in the summer. There are no tour busses. There are no hordes of tourists. It is COOL rather than SCREAMING HOT. Quite a contrast. It was late in the day, so on exiting the park we stayed just outside the park in Springdale. This also allowed us to see the OmniMax movie on the 6 story high screen in the theater right next to the motel. (I was told by the TP that we were too close to the screen and she became bilious at some of the views.) Being bilious is not good after the fine repast we had it Springdale. Some of the little towns in the west have real fine restaurants.
The next morning the skies were clear. I checked for messages from Hilde. There were none. We re-entered the park and traversed the Zion canyon and through the tunnel to the eastern edge of the park. East of the tunnel we saw more tourists than almost anywhere else. There were loads of photographers capturing the fall foliage and other scenic views. This was not with "wimpy" 35mm cameras but with large format view cameras. Retracing our path we started for Las Vegas.
I-15 cuts the northwest corner of Arizona and passes through the Piute Wilderness Area. IMO, this is a true wilderness area. There is damn little there but rock and soil. Now it is spectacular, but I was glad we were here when we were. It must be rather "warm" during the summer months.
Entering Nevada, at the town of Mesquite, we finally saw the town and casinos that had been advertised for miles. (If you see the advertisements for miles, be careful. Only one things pay for those signs, customer dollars.) Besides casinos they are also building golf courses like crazy. Leaving there, there is not much in the southern part of Nevada. Apparently guidance is a problem on this part of I-15. I have never seen such elaborate guide rails trying to keep people on the highway and out of the cuts that were filled for the road.
We could tell when we were getting closer to Las Vegas. The number of billboards increased. Now this was the middle of nowhere and power lines had not arrived there. But modern technology solved this problem. SOLAR PANELS stored the sun and illuminated the signs in the night. :):)
Real close to Las Vegas we saw two fighters heading in to Nellis Air Force base and passed the new Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Even now, with it being added too, it is quite a physical plant. The biggest difference between it and say Indianapolis is that there is only one way, I-15, in and out. But it will have 40,000 parking places. Going to a race there requires good timing so you can get there before it starts and patience on leaving. The other impressive thing about Las Vegas as we entered was the Stratosphere needle, our destination.
We traveled the Strip from Luxor back up to the Stratosphere. Our stay in Las Vegas was the exception to the no reservation rule. I knew we were going to get to Las Vegas the day before so I called my travel agent and got a real good rate. We paid $39.00 for one of Las Vegas newest hotels. Not too bad a place either. They did a great job of feeding us. I amazed the waitress, by demolishing most of the ribs and fried onion appetizer, most of the potato skin appetizer, the two rib pork roast, and a good part of the TP's caesar salad. I did pass on desert. :) :) We got there fairly late and it was drizzling, so we checked out the interior of the casino and its shops and only wandered around the strip close to the hotel. We did hit the combination microbrewery and casino. A nice place for adult beverages.
The next day, after checking again with no luck for messages from Hilde, we went to the top of the Stratosphere. The tip is 1,149 feet above ground level. (It's "UP THERE!") While I don't think it does, from the observation deck, it appears that it overhangs the street below. You look down on all of Las Vegas. You can see planes landing _below_ you at Mc Carran airport. Besides having shops and a restaurant up there, there is a roller coaster and a ride called the "Big Shot" up on top. The observation deck floor rumbles impressively under you when the roller coaster operates. After going to the top, we moved.
We hotel hopped to check out different hotels. From the Stratosphere we moved to Treasure Island, again at a good rate of $59.00 (We got very good at unpacking and packing.) Since we checked in here earlier, we walked the hotel and casino and then headed down to the Luxor. Walking gave us time to check out a lot of the exteriors of various casinos. When it is completed "New York, New York" will be interesting. It will have a very spectacular roller coaster. On the way to the Luxor we traversed the Excalibur. It definitely carries its medieval theme thoroughly. Over at the Luxor we were bummed. We wanted to ride the "inclinators" (Elevators that run at an angle parallel to the sides of the Luxor. The Luxor has a pyramid shape with sloping sides.) However, since kids had ridden up them and dropped stuff, they restricted them to guests only. While we were not kids, we were not allowed to view the place from the top. :( :( From the Luxor we went over to the MGM Grand. IMO, the MGM is one of the most confusing hotel casino complexes there. We got lost several times and were not able to find some of the stuff in there.
From the MGM Grand, it was back up to Treasure Island for the show. Unfortunately, the show was canceled due to high winds. So we went to dinner. This was one time where I did not pig out. I restrained myself. Finishing dinner we went back out to the show. The winds had died down and we saw the H.M.S Bounty round the cove entrance, fire on the pirates, damage their ship, and destroy their storehouse, but unfortunately the Bounty was sunk in process. (The TP is a Brit and this upset her a bit.) All in all a spectacular show. From here we took the tram over to the Mirage. Here we saw the volcano erupt, spreading fire and flame far and wide. The Mirage also has the white tigers of Siegfried and Roy. Next door to the Mirage is Caesars with animated statues and a laser show. We went until we were ready to drop and then did.
The next day after seeing the white tigers one more time, and again checking unsuccessfully for a message from Hilde we departed Las Vegas, for California.
Leaving Las Vegas we had some decisions to make. We could exit to the southwest, swoop around the bottom end of the Sierras and travel up the San Joaquin valley, or we could travel up the east face of the Sierras and take our chances crossing around Lake Tahoe. (Before Lake Tahoe there are no passes, or they closed for the winter.) The TP wanted to take the east face route. That way we did not drone up the San Joaquin Valley on CA 99. Since additional weather had not rolled in from the north, it was likely that the Tahoe crossings would be open. That these are major crossings, with lots of traffic worked in our favor. They are plowed early and thoroughly. The traffic tends to throw and evaporate the moisture. The altitude and sun tends to melt and evaporate it. Lots of good things. So we decided to go for the northern crossing rather than the southern. Also, there were plenty of places to stay if we had to hole up there for a day or so. There was no reason to be dumb.
Next: Las Vegas to San Francisco
Back to Philly to Salt Lake City
Back to the Norcal Home Page...