Sagebrush is out west..... Made it! (Will be picture heavy)

[Sagebrush]

The Scenic Byway 12 was interesting, things started looking more Gray and the road was a mix of straights and sweepers. When things got tight and fun the road turned to rough chip seal....

Its like a moon scape with trees up here:

At an over look you could see for miles. The road was cut right into the rock:

Same over look on the other side of the road:

The road surface on down in the valley was what I would call chip seal, fairly loose making the turns less fun than they could have been:

Where was I? The pictures of the info signs are a good reminder:

Hey its green down there, things are so dry and rocky out here and then this:

A short ride up a ridge and we are back to this:

The views go on forever, when I took this the temps were dropping fast. It was a cool 64 up there and the wind was kicking hard.

This truly is high desert, cool for a change though.

On down the road things turn red and it reminds me of Moab. A thunderstorm is rumbling so, its not all that late just cloudy.

I'm getting close to Grover here:

Up ahead I see a few cars parked and go see what there is to see.... Pretty neat little stop:

Ok, now over to the sign to see whats up and why no one is looking at the little deer.

See the family?

Never seen that before....

On to Torrey for fuel and I figure Glenn Canyon can be squeezed in today. So, off I go on 24 west at a good clip feeling refreshed, fueled and cool from the light rain showers.

Stopped to look at a camp spot, looked nice but, no water and no stores close by. Should have gotten supplies back in Torrey just in case but, I was going to Glen Canyon anyway.... Moving on.

 

[Sagebrush]

Entering Glen Canyon and having a blast seeing how the tires do while heeled over fully loaded I see a rest area and pull in, its 96 degrees and I'm in the middle of no where. Talk about desolate, the run into Glen Canyon is very remote, feels like your on the moon. I only saw a couple people riding some gray sand dunes... I love the FJR's range in places like this...

The rest stop with a bridge:

Cool bridge over this:

Leading over to this:

Some Reading material:

More pics of the area:

On down the road through some awesome canyon curves with good pavement you come upon a couple over looks of Lake Powell:

I'm headed over that bridge way over there.....

Headed out of the canyon the road is great with some good curves between the long never ending straights. At this point I was tired and ready to stop, I made some great time on this road. Tires still did well at higher speeds.....

Next up is Mesa Verde, I stop some where for the night at a hotel and ride back into CO. One nice very long day coming to a close. After leaving Glen Canyon I went another hundred plus miles till I found a town. You can go a long ways on a tank of fuel, about 300, yeah FJR at altitude produces big mpg numbers. Did 282 miles on this tank and still had almost gallon left if its really 6.6 gallons. Pumped in 5.2 gallons. My best economy was in Rocky Mountain National Park at an average of 44 mph I got 57 mpg! When I pulled into Carbondale, CO the computer showed 56 mpg averaging 62 mph. Most of Utah was 46 to 47 mpg while playing hitting well over 50 mpg while over 8,000 feet riding with my Uncle. Best fuel economy ever for me. My normal is 39 to 42 mpg around home.

:clapping:

 

[Kasey]

Thanks for the update - one of my favorite roads was Boulder-Escalante, not so much for the scenery but for the thrill of ending up on a razorback ridge with the 'ditch' far far below. I had a lousy camera back then and didn't get any good shots so I really appreciate your photos.

I enjoyed Mesa Verde as well in spite of the fact it began to rain for the first time in three years - on the plus side we'd already done our walkabout.

Kasey

 

[Sagebrush]

On to Mesa Verde, what a place. Well worth a visit, I spent half the day there and I took a few photos:

What a cool place, the trail leading to and from the pics above:

If you look close you can see more cliff side apartments:

A valley in the park:

The tunnel:

The overlook near the entrance:

Well, its getting late in the day and I have a long way to go. So, off I go on my quest to see

Carlsbad Caverns. Today I'm heading across NM on 160 to 140 to 574 on to 544 and pick up 64 to Chama.

Eat at the burger joint there and head south on 84 and then follow 285 all the way to Carlsbad.... I ended

up spending the night in Espanola, NM..... at about 7pm I ran low on human go juice with temps in the high 90's.

 

[Sagebrush]

So on through the center on NM and I see Roswell.... Didn't feel the need for the UFO museum... Got gas there and kept rolling south. A good bit of road construction, the winds were real bad. Temps in the 50's and wind blowing 50 mph plus, made cold and hard riding. The bike stayed leaned over a good bit for a couple hours fighting the wind.

Here is the truck stop and breakfast location, nothing special in the food department:

At about 11 pm I arrive in Carlsbad and check into the Days Inn. Tried the China Buffet and it wasn't bad at all.

Pretty decent actually. Now its cavern time, about 30 minutes away is the cavern:

The road in looking down and back to the entrance:

The parking lot has nice views too and bike parking:

After getting a ticket and talking to another ranger on what not to do while down below you walk down the path

to the natural entrance, Here comes all the pictures, they aren't all that great, its fairly dark down there and I

only brought my point and shoot camera....

Man what a walk, took over an hour to get through to here:

I thought Mammoth Cave was big but, this one has more color and the ceiling heights are major:

I killed my camera batteries down there. Its the best cave I've been in so far. I head back to the surface via elevators

and head to the Days Inn. Tomorrow I head home via some side tracks....

 

[dcarver]

Woot Woot! Great read and pix, keep it coming! :clapping:

 

[Silver Penguin]

Woot Woot! Great read and pix, keep it coming! :clapping:

Agree with Mr Carver! Loving those photos. Some of the shots of Utah roads brought back memories of two, wonderful trips to that part of the country.

 

[FJR-RemingtonRider]

Nice pics, of this epic journey. Started reading from the beginning, through today.

Didn't know the caves could be so interesting. This is some inspirational stuff, gotta start planning me some journey rides like this.

Rid'em safe.

 

[Sagebrush]

From the Carlsbad Days Inn I headed to Texas planning on covering as many miles as I felt like. I woke up to heavy rain and Carlsbad roads were flooded with up to 12" of water. Getting through town was an adventure with the water up to my FJR's foot pegs, after a couple miles of water crossing I broke out to faster pavement.

Heading out on 180 I took TX 385 north keeping the speed up till Amarillo and then I-40 east till I got tired in Elk City, OK and stayed at the Best Western. I stopped at a few places along the way looking around at the towns. But, it was raining the whole day and I just kept going east. I did do some of the old Route 66 in TX to get away from I-40 road spray. I'm glad I purchased some road toggs, they came in handy more than once to cover my mesh riding gear. I stayed dry the whole time with the held water proof gloves and my SIDI onroad boots... Propper gear is nice on soggy days.

Here is a rest stop pic:

From Elk City I headed to Oklahoma City and headed north to 77 north for a late lunch at Lucille's in Mulhall.... Great food if your ever in the area, or within 136 miles like me.

This was a big detour for me, but it was worth it. Lucille's is hard to pass up. From this point I felt recharged and wanted some new roads and headed north to find a way across to AR. I made my way over to 412 on a bright sunny day and headed east once again. Past Tulsa this interstate road turned into a toll road and it reminded me of the Florida turn pike with the rest areas in the middle of the interstate providing food, fuel, auto repairs etc. Everything looked fairly new along the toll road and the speeds limits were pretty good, with 65, and 70 mph signs common.

So here I'm burning down the interstate into AR and I take the 412 Scenic two lane route and actually get into some hills. From here on ever thing looked familiar, like being home. I got out my list of AR scenic roads and burned on down them. The pavement was smooth most of the time and I ended up seeing Forum, Eureka Springs, little towns like oak grove and then on over to Blue Eye to see Table Rock Lake. I headed north into Mark Twain National Forest in Missouri and over to Branson, MO for some reason.

At this point it was 8pm and I was looking for a hotel with no success. Heading south I kept on the roads with the curves and ended up heading for a campground shown on my GPS. I arrived late to some park that was way out on narrow roads and didn't find any camping areas. To many houses around and the lake was all grown up with tall grass. So after looking at maps I didn't see much to the south for camping, the wilderness area didn't seem appealing on the FJR at 12am. Decided to head home since it was late and I wouldn't get much use of a hotel room any way, its only 439 miles to home at this point. So, it was GPS navigation from here on and time to tuck in and roll.

I went through many small towns and stopped at this one, the lighting looked cool on the bike:

Made a good place to stop and rest a bit. From here I ran on through to Memphis, TN and got fuel. I was getting tired at this point so, I found an IHOP south of town near ship docks of some sort. Breakfast felt right at 3am.

Back on the road again with a full tank its a loop over to 78 and on through the early morning to Mississippi and them home sweet home Alabama... When I hit I-20 again I stopped and took these:

I headed to Birmingham for some reason not thinking right and finally found a way over to I-59 north. Got turned around on some construction detours and fought traffic back to open road. It was about 7am when I got back near home, arriving in Gadsden felt good. A quick run south on 278 to Roy Webb Road and over Cannon Ball Road back to my road and down the half mile chert rock drive way I arrived. At 10am I was sleeping on the couch.. :lazy3:

I ended the trip with a real bun burner, left Elk City at 9AM and 1,248 miles later I made my way to Jacksonville, AL and pulled up at 8:24am. My rear end took a couple days to recover, I let the bike sit a week before going on a ride. It was a great trip, wish I had the resources to slow down and spend more time in the Rocky's. I ran about 7,000 miles on the western leg of my three leg adventure. I have to say that the high light of the trip was the run to and through Rocky Mountain National Park and then Utah Scenic Byway 12. I'll always want to do 92 again and see whats down in that Black Canyon of Gunnison, CO too.

 

[Sagebrush]

Thanks for the update - one of my favorite roads was Boulder-Escalante, not so much for the scenery but for the thrill of ending up on a razorback ridge with the 'ditch' far far below. I had a lousy camera back then and didn't get any good shots so I really appreciate your photos.
I enjoyed Mesa Verde as well in spite of the fact it began to rain for the first time in three years - on the plus side we'd already done our walkabout.

Kasey

It was raining on me at Mesa Verde too, not much though. I was surprised about all the wet stuff. I got into rain in total desert a few times in Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. I was able to stay ahead of the rain in Colorado. The area around Mesa Verde was nice and green, I would think rain is common... maybe not. The guys in CO told me its been a very wet year and that its not normally so green. Even the open grass areas of Chama, NM was very green.