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I had a pretty uneventful day meandering through Zion and then once again across the amazing Utah countryside as I wound my way towards Bryce Canyon National Park.
In the morning before I left I met a nice older guy and his wife who had just ridden into Zion on a rented Softail out of Vegas. He told me about his MC club that does a trip through Mexico every year on their Harley's. He had spent the last 20 years convincing his wife to go along on one of the Baja trips. This was her practice run with him to see if she liked being baggage on a long trip. She said something about she was having more fun than she had expected to have. Poor guy. There go his Baja trips...
Here's something you shouldn't do. The saddlebags I bought for my bike were of the inexpensive variety. They connected one to the other by means of straps that run up and over the fender, one just under the front part of the seat, the other runs across the back of the fender through the license plate holder. Two other straps secure the lower part of the bags to the passenger footpegs. The whole contraption is held away from the bike by standard bag bars that bolt onto the fender hardware. No problem. I don't know exactly what the hell I was thinking, but I rode the first 5 days of the trip with these straps running over the bare fender. In other words I had two nicely ground down dull spots on the otherwise pristine paint. Doh. I managed to find a roll of black electrical tape, which I then preceded to lay down across the fender in short strips until I had covered the entire fender. Looked a bit odd but it beat wearing the paint down any further.
I guess that's what happens when you buy a new bike, pull up stakes and get the hell out of the town you've lived in for 10 years all in the course of 9 days. By the time I left San Francisco I was reeling from all the frenzied preparations and I just plain neglected to do anything about this problem until it was too late. Such is life. If I can't buff the marks out in the spring then I've got a good excuse to custom paint the bike.
Just outside the entrance of Bryce I stopped for gas. As I was filling up, a retiree and his wife rolled up on a custom Harley trike towing a matching custom trailer. Very cool. She looked quite comfortable perched up there on the captains chair with the armrests. Turns out the guy is from a town about 10 miles from where I got my new job in Massachusetts. Towing the trailer he said he got about 10 miles to the gallon. That guys' gotta be careful where he goes. His tank was the big fat-bob tank, but what's that, 6 gallons? I thought I had it tough with my 3.3. gallon tank.
I pulled into Bryce (got in free again) just as thunder started to echo down the mountains. I selected a camping spot, set up shop and headed out to the general store. As soon as I hit the road to the store (maybe a mile away), the temperature dropped from 70 to 45. By the time I pulled into the store the rain started.
I snagged a 6 pack and a cheeseball Tony Hillerman novel ("Sacred Clowns") and made it back to the tent only partly soaked where I spent the rest of the afternoon laying in my sleeping bag eating slim-jims, drinking beer and reading the book. Ah the good life. Turned out to be a great afternoon. Right around dinnertime, the rain stopped long enough for me to go to the only restaurant in the park where I had a completely crappy overpriced dinner (ok, it was better than slim-jims... just barely). I got back to the tent just as it began to rain in earnest. At some point that night a squirrel took up residence on top of the tent between the rainfly and the tent. Pretty damned funny. I poked him in the gut with my finger, he took off and I fell back asleep. All things being equal, not a bad day.
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