I'm on the road again,
Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway
We're the best of friends
Insisting that the world be runnin' our way
Last week my friend Kyle and I packed up our bikes and hit the road going north and west trying to stay off the main roads and resolving to spend zero dollars camping anywhere we could find dirt to call home for a night
We found out that's quite possible given the right circumstances and a willingness to ride up some sketchy roads. His moderately loaded '97 BMW F650 and my overloaded '86 XT600 were fortunately outfitted with knobby tires and we made them work hard for us as we traversed desert, mountain, sand, wind, and rain to pitch our tents and make our dinners and drink our mezcals wherever we could.
We rode through to Utah in about 6 days after an appreciable number of breakdowns including Kye's front sprocket nut falling off somewhere in the desert. We couldn't find it or a replacement in the small town we were in so thankfully a machinist was able to tap him a new nut and it was reapplied with liberal amounts of red locktite. I learned my bike needs a carb adjustment every 2,000 feet of elevation or else it'll die at idle. Turning in the fuel screw a quarter turn does the trick to lean out the mixture as I gain elevation.
Outside of Santa Fe Kyle's reg/rect decided to cross its wires and it drained the battery to the point where his electronic ignition refused to fire the spark anymore and it died on the side of the highway. We pushed the bike up the hill to a parking lot and took the battery out of my bike and it gave him enough legs to get to breakfast where he began a wild chase to find a replacement battery after it was learned his old battery would no longer hold charge.
Finally we were back on the road again and pushed through the Moab where my lady friend rode my other bike down from Salt Lake City and met us. She only dropped it once and managed to ride through a massive 30mph cross wind as we shot the gap of two storm cells converging on our road.
As always Moab is gorgeous. Words cannot describe enough how beautiful the red desert is.
We rode into Arches Park with the last remaining light once again chased by storms and crowds of German tourists to climb up to Delicate Arch as the sun made its last gasp of glorious light
We stayed with a friend who works for the Forest Service and she suggested we go check out the upper trail of Mill Creek. There we found petroglyphs and plenty of water. The creek had carved bath tub deep slots into the rock bed and we stripped down to enjoy the cold morning water rushing over our bodies most illegally. If the morality police had showed up we would have been arrested, but it was worth the risk.
The next morning we got up and drove into the mountains to find some hot springs. Camping out at Diamond Fork is one of my favorite things to do in Utah because the scenery is so incredibly beautiful it hurts. We woke up at 5am so we could enjoy the hot water all by ourselves.
There was even an archway waterfall! Come on! It seems too pretty to be real, but it is...
The drive into Salt Lake took us up to 10,000 feet where my bike died again at idle and I had to bump start it going down the hill rather than fiddle around with the carb knowing it would be back at 6,000 feet in about 25 minutes.
I'm hanging in Utah for another few days while I make minor repairs like chain, sprockets, oil change, etc and then I am driving up to Canada again to go hike on the West Coast Trail on Vancouver Island. Summer has finally arrived just in time to greet fall right in the face.
Well done mate...... 