Tuesday – Salt Lake City, Utah

I had another good brekky that they supplied, even with donuts and hard boiled eggs:) I did not bother to get on the road early as I was looking at the weather charts online and the forecast was for rain, rain, rain! Then tomorrow, snow, snow snow!!

It was not looking good and I wanted to stay down here in the south, but I needed my bank ATM. My cash had still not been put into my Travelex card, but I had enough for the day and I could make a phone call later on when I got back to Kens place.
It was cold, so I packed the bike around ten. For the Aussies, this is what a standard motel looks like.

That is the entrance from the street in the middle, one of the motel entrances is where the mat is behind my bike, that leads through to a central passage, a bit like a dorm building, with rooms on both sides. Not the best layout as there is no direct access to your room and you have to lug stuff, but for the price, OK.

After fuelling up and setting course to Kens, I ended up not leaving until 10.30. Ken had emailed a very confusing message, telling me to go on hwy 128. Well, I looked and looked but could not find it on the map between Moab and SLC! So, in the end I went direct north then took the 191 to SLC with a bit of the I15 (Interstate route 15) at the end.

Just to clear things up, it turns out I was looking in the wrong place for the hwy 128. If you look at the map at my starting place in Moab, bottom right, there is a yellow loop road heading east in the wrong direction, and that is the one Ken meant, lol, now why would I look that way? Never mind, I can do that road when I come back with my NP pass to do the Arches National Park.

So, just north of Moab were the same red cliffs and structures I had been seeing for the past few days, still great to look at, I am not canyoned out yet!

But it soon turned to wide roads with multi lanes and it did not take me long until I had to find a suitable place to add an additional layer of wet weather gear to help combat the cold. I also knew it was going to rain soon, and I had over 200 miles to go 😦

I got a few people honking their horns at me there, I wonder if I was allowed to take a whizz at that place?? 😉 Too late 🙂

Well, a good call on the rain gear as it soon became a bit on the damp side, with a drop in temperature as well. If the electric heated jackets were cheaper I may consider buying one, maybe when they are on special, cos one of them would come in handy right now. But, I am really intending to try and stay in the warmer areas from now on.

I found some twisties, not bad at all, very fast ones mostly 🙂

Then I spotted a frozen waterfall, nearly melted with the fresh rain runoff coming down, so I went back for a picture.

Not long after that and I was back in the high country, how could I tell, well look around, now it was getting colder, it was hovering around the zero C mark.

But once over the peak it warmed up to 6 C, lol! I managed to miss that mountain ahead, but soon after it started to rain hard 😦

When I got into Provo, which is about 50 miles south of SLC, I stopped at a McDonalds, I know, crap food and all, but it was warm inside and it was wet outside and I knew I could use the dunny. The chips were edible anyway and they warmed me up inside, while outside the bike got wet.

After that, I headed up the I15 at a fair rate. I did not need to get there until after 3 as Ken would not be home. Well, as it turns out, he was not going to be home until after 5 today, I had stuffed a shift time up, but he asked Debbie, his DIL, to drop by and let me in. That nearly worked, as it turns out the house key she had did not fit the lock, thanks for the effort Debbie, especially the extra trip back home to see if another key was there.

In the end I waited until Ken came home and although I was not a popsicle, I felt like one, but nothing a hot shower and a cuppa did not fix. 🙂

And that was it for the moment except the final straw on my Travelex card. I checked my account online; it still only had 11 bucks, as before. So, I phoned the 1800 number on the back of the card and picked the emergency help line, when I entered my card number it said I had heaps more dollars in it!!!! WTF, so I log back into the account and sure enough it is there, what goes on with that?

So, I am still unsure what caused the delay, also whether it was a coincidence the figure changed after I phoned in or not or whether that was the time the transfer finally flowed through normally after the holidays, but anyway, it looks like I can now travel 🙂 Next time I need to do a transfer, I will do it at the beginning of a week where there are no holidays and see if there is a quicker response.

Day – 246 miles and 396km
Trip – 2,355 miles and 3,790km

Cheers
TravellingStrom

__________________________________________________________________

Wednesday – Salt Lake City, Utah

After a bit of a sleep in I started to get a few things done, as the past week had been a shakedown cruise of the bike, to see what needed fixing, modifying etc. I had my mail, so the ATM card was now here and also my National Parks pass, which was great as this should save me some money as I intend to visit a lot of them, and I had access to my money finally 🙂

The next job was a top box. Now, Ken had offered me a repaired Shad 42 side case, this had broken at one stage, he had replaced them but repaired this one. The 42 signifies 42 litre capacity and so it was only 3 litres smaller than my RJ’s. The price was good, free, so all I had to do was mount it to my Happy Trails rack system. In the end, that was easy, I just drilled 3 extra holes, used the screws that were holding it together and some black Sikaflex to weather proof it. It looks good, if you ignore the words “side case” on it and as long as those words are horizontal I will be happy 🙂

This would now allow me to put all my wet and warm gear in an easily accessible spot. When I am not wearing all of it of course, so up here it should be nearly empty all the time! Next I had to do something about those two extra storage tubes I had made. The one I brought from Oz had a flat screw cap which I screwed a drawer handle to for access. These ones I bought here had this big square plastic bit in the middle and I have found it difficult to open or close properly. There is not enough grip or purchase, so I found some small bolts and added them for a lever point for my screw driver 🙂 You can see them just to the left of the round reflector.

After that, I chased up about my Camos speaker, it looks like I may have to go visit a shop in California in Newport Beach, just to plug in a new speaker to see where the problem lies; either the speaker or the main headset unit. I also have a number for the distributer in Canada, who I will probably call later. The chap in CA was reluctant to help with a warranty issue as I did not buy it from him, understandable I guess.

While having lunch we noticed the rain had finally stopped, it had been going all night. It did not mean anything good though for riding 😦

Yep, snow and after checking out the forecasts around this area, it was going to snow everywhere for the next day or so, bummer, sometimes I hate it when forecasters are correct 🙂 Oh well, I spent a few hours chasing up bike insurance, the current one would run out soon. I also started to plan my trip out and south. I wanted to do Death Valley before it got too hot, which sounds weird in the middle of a snow storm, but true. In summer it is an oven down there, so the sooner the better.

Anyway, a lazy day looking at maps, checking locations online etc and writing some blog stuff. I also made a start on a travel spreadsheet, mainly for distance, but I also hope to incorporate fuel use and cost.

Anyway, bed time night all 🙂

Day – 0 miles and 0km – too cold and wet
Trip – 2,112 miles and 3,379km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
Go to top of page