We started the morning back tracking a section of highway. The temperatures were good in relation to our gear level and the winds were manageable.  As we pushed north the winds and all sounds just seemed to stop. It was odd, there we are cruising at highway speed and suddenly all sounds just disappeared and there was no longer the feeling of wind against your face. After a few seconds of this limbo, I check in with Swampkat and he’s getting the same experience. It was a pretty interesting effect. We think it was causes by wind moving with our direction of travel and at about the same speed. Once again, we’re not scientologists so how would we know.
We excited the highway and were immediately blasted by the south to north wind. There were some moments of respite here and there, but the wind was with us the rest of the time. A little rain near the end of the day and a surprising drop in temperature. Lemme tell you,  I will not be skipping the long johns tomorrow.
We road through beautifully eroded canyons and across the backbone of this ridge that must have had a 1/4 mile drop off on either side. The wind did not make that a particularly relaxing moment.
Due to the wind we’re beat-up, but in good shape. One gripe we have that occurred today and also on the TransAm, once the trip meters reach the time 99.59 minutes the trip mileage just stops counting up. It breaks your brain when you look down, do the math, figure out how long till your next town,  ride for a bit, look down and wonder why the mileage looks the same. I rode the longest 25 miles of my life before we figured out what was going on. So, to the lazy Triumph people who thought this was an acceptable idea, f*ck you all. Now I have to math. Total mileage 4880.

The wind is too strong to continue on our current path. We are sheltering here instead of riding the opposite direction which would put us further out of range of places we want to ride.
We are in a good spot and will have some good stuff for you all tomorrow.

Today we went to the the Grand Canyon’s north rim. Spoiler alert, it’s a big hole. Exactly as we did crater lake, enter the park, get stuck behind tourons, get to the hole, take 2 pictures, and leave immediately.
The highlight of the day was the 40 miles on the way out of the park. There were only 2 cars the entire way and the road was freshly paved.
Today was long, real long. We were hit by a lot of wind and high temperatures. We are both exhausted.
The terrain was probably pretty awesome, but you don’t give a shit when you’re mentally where we are.
We may be stuck here tomorrow, apparently the wind is going to be crazy. We’ll judge that tomorrow.

Today started with big blue skies filled with big puffy clouds. The temperature was perfect for our gear level. It’s pretty tough to tell how the road is going to feel during the load up part of the morning. You typically feel over dressed, because while loading your body temperature goes up. For example no matter the temperature, my sun glasses fog if I put them directly against my face before I start moving.
So with a clear forecast we head to Zion national park.
On the way there the scenery was amazing. It’s something you need to see with your own eyes to truly appreciate. Think about the old school Coyote and Roadrunner cartoons, it was miles of awesome like that today. Once we got close to Zion a shift in the force was obvious. There they were, massed humanity. Oh no. Urge to kill rising!  We sat in a line of cars for probably 20+ minutes. Our cold weather gear betrayed us and soon sweat was everywhere. Once through, we geared down and headed in. Robots grouped up everywhere, thinking of only themselves and the horde they are closest to. They drive way below the speed limit, stop in the road instead of pull outs, or attempting to pass when there isn’t any possible way. The scenery, absolutely beautiful…when you could safely pay attention to it. At one point we were stopped waiting to be allowed to drive through a tunnel, it was the hottest it’s been on the Funcut, and Swampkat says, “This sucks.”  I completely agreed. Being surrounded by all those people and not being able to enjoy the road is aweful. (Not as bad as work, but close) The tunnel was cool, but again, the humans. What do we have to do to get a rapture up in here?
Leaving the park and heading into Navajo territory we rode through beautiful scenery and got hit with a little rain here and there. I saw clouds that were the huge puffy type, but their undersides were a reddish pink. It was awesome. Though the terrain is beautiful, it is not fertile. Once again we found ourselves cursing the people who were responsible for relocating a tribe. How selfish they were/are.
We are currently staying deep in the Navajo territory tonight and will push to the north rim of the Grand Canyon tomorrow.
Before coming here we did some research on this area and one of the things they said was be ready to see dead animals on the side of the road. We saw 1. What’s funny, well not actually funny, is in Utah I don’t think there’s anyone in charge of removing road kills. The were everywhere! I’ve never seen that many ever. From mummified deer and calves, full size dear, birds, little unidentifiable fuzzy stains, to at worst (sorry) skin and hair smashed flat into the road and raw chucks of flesh smashed and spread across the road. It was graphic and not something forgettable. Like I said sorry. I’ve given a lot of shit to Utah, but it was a great place outside of salt lake city. I want to mention how well their drivers are on the freeways. They use signals, pass well, and just seemed more aware of their surroundings. We were watching TV while in Utah and saw a commercial that seemed out of place or out of time at least. It was a click it or ticket commercial. It was typically a family trying to convince the man in the car to wear their seat belt. Low budget and lame, what actual caught my eye was when the commercial said, Enforcement starts now. I was like wait, now? It’s 2016, what the hell? That explains why cell phones were everywhere on the road. Apparently it’s 1995 in Utah.
Now, time to see what Tuba, Arizona had to offer, see you guys around.

Today started innocently enough. We knew we’d be dealing with rain no matter what, so we had multiple escape routes planned and if all else failed we’d head to the freeway.
We began the day with a fill up and headed past the theater and immediately into the mountains. Good roads greeted us and we seemed to be getting really lucky weatherwise. The clouds looked ominous but the road just seemed to skirt their edges. Before lunch we had probably been rained on about 3 times, but nothing too worry about. The rain would stop and scenery just kept getting better and better. We saw painted hills just like we did in Oregon, but a whole lot more. We laughed, in Oregon we had to seek them out and in Utah they are in people’s fields. We rode passed giant eroded red cliffs and actually rode through 2 tunnels that were cut into the rock. It was really cool. We had a few random animal encounters, cows in the road, a farmers dog chased me, a big flock of birds, and a peacock in the middle of the street.
Since it’s been raining here the usually dry gullies have chocolate milk colored water rushing through them. We saw streams slightly swollen, you couldn’t see their banks but instead their edges just kind of disappeared into the ground cover.
Towards the end of the day we were crossing over a 10,000 ft pass. Rain was scheduled, no big deal right?  Wrong. Around 7,000 feet I noticed the rain wasn’t running down my visor,  but instead bouncing off. Oh hail nah! It was hail mixed with smaller sleet. Higher we went. Now it’s snowing and not a little. Small hail and sleet are no big deal because they bounce, snow sticks to your visor. Visibility is shit and we still aren’t at the summit. Constant wiping of the snow has soaked our left glove hand and is getting really cold. Snow would occasionally freeze to our visors too. We reached the highest point, the snow was much worse.  Yeah we could turn back, but now we’re dead center on the mountain crossing. We push on, slowly, and pass closed ski resorts and dump trucks heading uphill to sand the roads, I assume. The roads will be really bad tonight. Our windscreens had accumulated enough snow that they were no longer transparent. This wasn’t our first time riding in snow, but it was the longest, the most snow, and the most technical roads we’ve riden in the snow. As we descended, snow turned to sleet, relief was close at at hand. Soon rain, then blue skies! It was probably in the 50s or 60s buy to us it felt so good. I wonder what the random people who were going the opposite way thought when two motorcycles appeared out of the snow in front of them.
Epic day. We are exhausted and looking forward to some down time and grown up beers.