SLC to Moab - Day 12 - Epic Motorcycle Ride

Wednesday, July 25, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

The plan this morning was to wake up whenever we wanted to and take our time since the ride down to Arches National Park was only going to be about 250 miles. Ryan ended up waking up at the crack of dawn and I got up around 7, so we didn't really get to sleep in much. We did take our time getting ready though. After eating we packed up and headed out for some roads we thought were going to be dirt/gravel before hitting Heber, UT.

We ended up getting stopped for one-way construction traffic and had to wait for about 5 minutes for our turn to go. After a few miles we turned off onto some really nice and tight roads that gained quite a bit of elevation. Eventually the road turned to gravel and then eventually some really nasty hardpack that was being worked on. The road turned into some extremely unmaintained asphalt before we finally arrived in Heber.

We made our way through Provo to Highway 6 which we were on all the way until I-70. Another 45 miles or so and we were at Arches National Park. We used Ryan's park pass to get us both in and then went into the visitor center so I could get my national parks passport stamped and we could buy some stickers.

The ride through Arches NP was really nice. The rock formations and sights you can see simply while riding through the park are amazing. There wasn't too much traffic when we were going through which was nice.

It took another 45 minutes or so and we finally made it to our campsite at Devils Garden. By now it was around 3:15 and extremely hot. We quickly set up our tents and tried to stay in what little shade we could find. After relaxing for a bit we decided to have some vodka and go exploring around the campsite.

A little later we saw this big Ryder rental truck pull up to one of the group sites. We couldn't quite tell what was going on but guessed that they were probably setting up stuff for a big group. Sure enough, about an hour or so later this huge tour bus showed up full of high school aged looking kids. We figured they were going to be really loud all night but we lucked out. They did however create quite the line at the water station and restrooms.

Eventually it got dark and we were cool enough that we could finally start dinner. I had the Natural High Spicy Sausage Pasta and Ryan had the Chicken Enchilada. Both of us thought our meals were dull and lacking some flavor so we added a few packets of Taco Bell hot sauce.

We had a little fire and decided we'd head to bed. We were still kinda playing catch up from the last several long days. Tomorrow the plan is to explore Arches and try to do some off road exploring around Moab.

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