Day 24

Day 24 was another beautiful day with some more heat on the agenda.  We left Escalante with a plan in question as our planned route was to head up Route 12 on our way towards I-70 before heading South again through Moab and on to Monticello.  The question was brought up by our waiter last night who felt the trip North was a waste of 80+ miles and felt we wouldn't see much by passing by Moab.  He felt we would be better served saving the 80 miles and heading south on Route 95 to 191.

Route 12 East of Escalante is a motorcyclists dream with non stop scenery and not a straight section of road in sight.

The view from the road side lookout right before the Kiva Koffehouse which sits on the edge of a cliff.  45 seconds after taking this photo we were passing through on the road below, it's a quick descent.

While Route 12 is a dream to ride you have to be cautious as it's also open range country and the cattle is pretty ignorant about who has the right of way at times.

Right after this was taken he started eyeballing us and came up onto the shoulder.  I think he had sights on Char's red jacket, either way I was back on the throttle pretty quick.

These guys were more interested in retreating than coming forward, they broke into a run and a couple of bounds later were out of sight.

It's too bad the camera picked up so much of the cloud cover, the view from this turnout was incredible, nothing amazing just an endless landscape.

I believe this formation was called Chimney Rock.

This is the Historic one room schoolhouse in the town of Fruita in Capital Reef N.P.

Coming out the east side of Capital Reef the landscapes start to change with less color in the rock formations and an almost sand look to the hills.

When we stopped for gas in Hanksville we met a nice couple who started asking questions about the Nomad.  During the conversation we learned they had spent extensive time around Moab.  When asked about our route they shared the opinion of last nights waiter so our decision was made.  Instead of heading North on 24 from Hanksville we went South on 95.  This brought us to some fantastic scenery around Lake Powell.

Another view as we approach Lake Powell.

I don't know who Jacob is, but that's his chair on top of that Mesa.

As we approached our destination of Monticello, UT it looked like some weather was approaching on the horizon.

Mileage covered today was 422.1 km bringing our trip total to 6894.1 km.