We knew today was going to be a long one – 437 miles, so we got right to the Spelling Bee and had a cup of artisan coffee before hitting the road. When we left Torrey the temperature was 48 degrees which we thought was cold. We were to learn what cold really was.
Torrey is 6,837 feet in elevation, but we were to rise to 9,500 feet soon and found ourselves within the fall color instead of viewing it from afar.
It was a beautiful ride and we shared the road with free range cattle. This little guys was just as curious about us as we were about him.
At one point, there was a cow blockade. We inched forward but they did not budge. Tom finally honked the horn and they took off together through an open gate.
As the elevation dropped, we rode along Hell’s Backbone, a narrow ridge top between Grand Escalante Staircase and Bryce Canyon.
We rode through the Red Canyon and Bryce but did not go to the viewpoint. We still saw lots of hoodoos.
Once we dropped down toward the Great Basin, the wind started to pick up. We stopped in Milford for lunch at Penny’s Diner where we met two other BMW riders – one from Tahoe and one from Auburn. They had just come from the Great Basin and warned us of the wind. Their warning was valid; the wind gusts were brutal.
We saw several dust storms and eventually we had to ride though one of them.
The forecast for Eureka called for clouds but no rain. As we entered the Great Basin, it started to get cloudy and the wind made it cold. We turned on the Garmin’s Doppler radar and it indicated rain in Eureka. Knowing this, we still did nothing to prepare. Ugh.
The temperature kept dropping and we saw the snowflake icon for the second time. We forged on and soon the rain began. Just as we found ourselves in the fall color, we now found ourselves in the wet clouds. Now we were wet and cold. The temperature dropped to 37 degrees.
When we got to the hotel, they had us in a room in a historic building down the street with only street parking. We quickly changed that and settled for covered parking and modern heating!
We took long hot showers and heated the room to 76 degrees in order to dry our clothes and warm our frozen bodies. We walked down the street to a family-run Mexican restaurant where their 10ish year old daughter seated us. She was darling and made us miss our grandkids.
Tomorrow we are homeward bound. We may have to get a later start then we would normally leave because it is supposed to rain first thing. We will wait for the roads to thaw before heading out.
Today’s barn pic:
Monkeybutt Chronicles 