Grand Canyon to Mexican Hat UT

Thursday 31st July
We rode out to Jacob Lake for breakfast this morning.  When we arrived at the gas station there were moths everywhere mostly dead but the ones that were alive were clinging to the pump hose and the bowser.  We went into the restaurant there for breakfast and ordered the special Breakfast Casserole a little strange to say the least, quite cheesy and served with fruit in a bowl and toast... of course.
Riding through the desert today was very hot.  We stopped at Maccas for lunch a nice cool place to sit and eat.
We drove through Monument Valley amazing absolutely amazing!!  We took soo many photos.
Tonight we went to a funny little restaurant just up the road from where we are staying.  Just as we were walking in the door a man started choking and I quickly went over to him as he banged his own body over the low brick wall near the bar and dislodged whatever it was.  When he finished he came over to thank me for coming to his aid even though I didn't lay a hand on him.  There were only 5 things on the menu a burger, an 8oz steak, 2 huge steaks and a veggie option all served with pinto beans, house salad (which turned out to be lettuce with dressing ha ha) and texas toast.  The meal was surprisingly good.  And all cooked over a swinging grill!!!

great grilling technique

Hurricane to North Rim Grand Canyon

Wednesday 30th July
We got up early to have a quick breakfast so we could get going early.  Yesterday when we rode through Zion the GoPro battery died so we are going to ride through there again this morning so we can film the ride again.  It means adding a little to our ride and we go through a time change so we thought it was going to mean a close shave for time to do the mule ride in the Grand Canyon.  But we stop in Arizona for petrol and find out time went back not forward huzzah!!! this means we will have plenty of time!
We finally remembered to post the brake pads back to LA and a house key we pinched from our SLC hosts John & Leslie oops.
We arrived at the North Rim and had some lunch after checking in for our mule ride.  We rode around the rim.  A 3 hour ride it was great fun but I now have a bit of a sore butt ha ha
We rode out to Point Imperial and Cape Royal this afternoon both spectacular viewpoints.
We had made reservations at the restaurant at the Lodge for dinner as soon as we sat down the difference between tonight and last night was like chalk and cheese.  The food and service were just lovely pity it was dark as the view from the restaurant was magnificent.

Grand Canyon from North Rim Lodge

our mules await

ride em cowboy

took this riding along

and this

and this LOL

Escalante - Hurricaine via Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park

Tuesday 29th July
Today I turn 50!!!! still cannot believe that I am half a century old, aiming to live a whole century sooo you heard it here first some of you will live to see that day woohoooo!!

We had a yummy breakfast of egg and cheese fritatta and blueberry coffee cake, no the cake wasn't coffee flavoured it was a coffee cake, you know, like a tea cake LOL anyway it was delicious and extremely filling.  We shared breakfast with a father and son who were travelling from Minnesota they had flown to Las Vegas and rented a car (a sports car!!!!) fun! we were telling them about all that we had done and the father pipes up and says "wouldn't it be easier to rent a car?" oh my I laughed hard!!!!

The weather looked good as we set off this morning. 
The two parks were completely different Bryce Canyon you ride along the ridge and stop at the lookouts and view the canyon below whereas Zion you ride through the canyon and it rises above you both extraordinarily beautiful but I must say Zion stole my heart sooo majestic and riding through it was amazing.

We arrive in Hurricane and it is so hot!!! thank goodness the hotel we have chosen has a pool.  We had a short swim and then showered.

We asked ther young man behind the desk of the hotel Jesse where was good to eat in town and he suggested a restaurant within walking distance called Baristas he had a menu there and it looked great........this was our most bizzarre dining experience this holiday so far bear with me as I share.....
We arrive and are met by the 'greeter' a young woman dressed very inappropriately for this job singlet top with bikini top underneath and the shortest denim shorts that left nothing to the imagination, she did not introduce herself and lead us to a table and put the menus on it.  A little while later she came back and asked if we were ready for drinks we said "we're ready to order!" so she took the menus and then said "Your server will be with you shortly!"  what the!!! then it got even more bizzarre the 'server' and unshaven man did not introduce himself and then pulled up a chair and sat at the table to take our order! he then barked at the young woman to bring back the beer list so we could order.  We said "no need for that we know what we want" so he took our food and drink orders.  We had to ask for water and when the beers came the server just 'dumped' the bottles on the table we had to ask for glasses and the young woman also 'dumped' them on the table as far from both of us as possible seemingly.  Then our meals were not served to us but put on the table and we had to move them in front of us. The whole time we were eating the male server was barking orders at the two young people who were obviously inexperienced and should not have been waiting tables until they had had a few lessons! then we wanted dessert but could not attract the servers attention when we finally did he says "so you want the bill?" and we replied "No we would like dessert please" he replied "oh I'll be with you soon" after about 10 minutes he yells over to the young woman can you get the bill for T2 pointing to us and I said "um we were wanting to order dessert??" he then came over and took our order.  Dessert was dumped on the table (we were sitting at a table for four sitting at the seats next to each other and she put it at one of the other places OMG!!!!!!!) what a birthday dinner this turned out to be!! having said ALLL that the food was REALLY good if we could have tipped the chef only, I would have, we left a very small tip.

my cards :))

birthday girl ha ha

SLC - Escalante

Monday 28th July
Blast off!!!!!!! 48 hours of celebrating my 50th birthday woooohoooo
Amazing scenery today, we got a little wet and then pulled into Cafe Diablo at Torrey for an awesome lunch.

mm my first ever Tequila Sunrise

chocolate stack with drunk monkey ice cream mmmmmm to share of course!

Then we continued along the road and rode along another scenic byway Highway 12 at one point riding along a road where the road drops away 1000ft on each side so you are riding along a ridge, crazy with no guard rails aaarrrrrrggghhhh!
We are staying in our last B&B tonight it's really really lovely and a great restaurant within walking distance for pizza salad and a pitcher of a great local beer mmmmm

our room there's another bed on the other side of the room LOL

wow storm coming??

mmmm beer

Sensational Salt Lake City

Thursday 24th July - Sunday 27th July
Countdown continues 4....3....2.....1
We left Vernal early to avoid the 24th of July holiday Parade (Utah holiday).  On our way we encountered some lightening it was pretty scarey.  We stopped in Park City just before SLC to find fuel as we were on reserve.  Park City is the wierdest place and it took us FOREVER to find fuel.  We finally found it and then got back on the 40 to ride towards the I80 for SLC just 2 miles down the road just off the highway was fuel!!! oh well LOL so we found the I80 and decided to find some food for lunch.  We found Chick-fil-a mmmmmm salad and got the GPS out so we could find John and Leslie's house and found that they were just 2 mins away!!!

We had a wonderful 4 nights with Leslie, Murphy (Golden retriever) and Oliver (Schnauzer) John was away at a conference in Madison Wisconsin.  Murphy is a sweetheart who walks around with a tennis ball in his mouth the entire time, sometimes two!!!  Ollie is Patrick (John & Leslie's son) & Maggie's dog and at first he was a little excitable nipping at our ankles and such but he did settle down.
We went for a run up near the University and then explored SLC with Leslie on Friday, visiting the cemetry to see the Christmas Box Angel and the Capitol building and Memory Park.  After another short run on Saturday morning we visited the massive Farmers Market and bought some fresh produce, new earrings for moi and lunch mmm spicy Jambalaya!  On the way there in the car Leslie showed us the mansion two doors down from her house and was telling us about her lovely neighbour who spends half his time in LA and half at this house because he's an actor and she nonchalantly was talking about him and said his name which I didn't really recognise so I asked what show he was on and she says oh a show called Modern Family she lives just down the road from Phil Dunphy!!!!!!!!!!!! I soooo wanted to meet him!!!  Then on Sunday we rode up Big Cottonwood Canyon, Emigration Canyon and visited Hogle Zoo.  We also caught up with the lovely SLC SOFT group.  Debbie Dye organised a birthday cake for me it was really yummy such a lovely surprise.  It was so wonderful catching up with Leslie.  She spoilt us rotten with great meals each night and birthday cake on our last night.....very sweet.

Elephant selfie

snuggling with this cutie

lovely Leslie

Boulder CO - Vernal UT

Wednesday 23rd July
Countdown continues 5....
We left Boulder on a lovely sunny morning and rode through the canyon on highway 6 and then joined the I70 after riding through the Eisenhower tunnel we joined highway 40 towards Dinosaur.  We then crossed the border into Utah wow the terrain was almost immediately different it was a pretty hot day.  We were quite wary about Vernal because it's another oil & gas town but it was NOTHING like Gillette WY or Limon CO.  The room was comfy and cool the only downer was having to ride to go out for dinner.  David has a cold and is not feeling very well.  I am hoping not to catch it and we have been very careful sharing drinks and such today.

Utah sign you can't see it!!? LOL

trying to stay cool with wet bandanas

Wonderful Wolperts

Monday 21st - Tuesday 22nd July
Countdown continues 8.....7
We left Monument and went for a ride through Estes National Park so pretty and more mountain passes.

Lunch today was at Sloopy's even though I thought our instructions said Sloppy's LOL We had some very nice fried chicken.

We were riding into Boulder and we turned on the GPS to find Bill and Jude's house.  We had taken a wrong turn due to me not being able to decipher the GPS directions properly!!  and had just got back on track and were waiting at a T intersection to turn left when a Mercedes motioned for us to go ahead we both shook our heads NO! so the driver proceeded forward and as he did I noticed it was Bill ha ha so I told David to follow that car!!

We spent the next two nights with Bill and Jude we had a wonderful time they have a gorgeous home.  Their daughter Kelsey and grandog Mufasa also came to visit for dinner on our first night it was so lovely to see Kels again and to meet Mufasa.  We also got to spend some time with Iya, Kam's service dog, who when he doesn't have his service vest on is just a goofball!!  He's a Bernese Mountain dog who thinks he is a lap dog ha ha.  Kam and her caregiver Kristie were away in Aspen going to day camp white water rafting and other such fun activities!!  So Iya was missing her heaps.

not Iya but very much like him!! just georgeous! can you imagine him jumping onto your lap?!

We ran about 4 kms on our second morning and did a little exploring in downtown Boulder. We took the bike to another car wash and gave it another squirt.  Comes up very shiny!! and it's way too much fun for just $2.50!!

Bill made and cooked some lovely buffalo burgers for dinner and we sat and chatted for ages making plans for next year ha ha!!!  Two big ass RV's doing the desert circuit through Utah yiihaaaaa!!!

Running in Boulder

riding home from the carwash

Limon - Monument via New Life Church and Pike's Peak

Sunday 20th July
countdown continues 9
As we leave this morning we had noticed a Maccas on google maps at the other end of Limon so decided on the way out to go there for breakfast, just as we pulled up and were taking off our helmets three large buses with probably 200 young people on them pulled up too.  These young people just kept coming and coming until there was a sizeable line right out the door!!  We promptly donned our helmets and took off ha ha

Another 50 miles or so down the road towards Colorado Springs we found another one we almost had the place to ourselves.

Then we rode on to New Life Church and enjoyed their 9am service.  I was hoping to catch up with the lovely Lisa Bevere but she wasn't there.  We met some lovely people though and they all made us feel very welcomed.  We enjoyed a cuppa in the cafe before riding over to Garden of the God's.  We rode through and it was so hot in this area that we were glad not to get off.  We then made our way over to Pike's Peak.

It wasn't very far to the base of Pike's Peak but the 19 mile drive up there was very steep and windy!!  It took us about an hour and a half to ride up and was very interesting at times due to the fact that the hydraulic clutch was not working very well.  We think it may have been a combination of old oil, hot oil and altitude (summit is over 14,000 ft).  We stopped up the top for lunch and the clutch oil cooled down and worked ok on the way down.  It was very difficult  being at that altitude even for such a short time and not doing anything very strenuous.  I cannot imagine people doing treks for long periods at altitude.  I foiund myself having to take big gulps of air regularly.  As we were leaving I saw a man lighting a cigarette and could not believe it.

From there we rode back up the highway to Monument and our lovely accomodation at Sundance Mountain Lodge.  We did some washing and had a swim in the pool.  We headed up to the restaurant for dinner only to find it closed on Sundays.  It had just started to rain and we really didn't want to ride anywhere so we asked at the desk if there was anywhere within walking distance so we christened our SOFT rainbow umbrella and started walking to a restaurant when we stumbled on Pike's Peak Brewery huzzah!!! really nice beers and we chatted to one of the staff there Adam and he gave us a few free samples to allow us to make up our minds.  Dinner was a meat and cheese platter mmm yum!

New Life Church

carpark at New Life with all the flags see the Aussie one?

Garden of the Gods visitors centre

Garden of the Gods

Rding up Pike's Peak

Pike's Peak summit

view from our room Sundance Mountain Lodge

King bed woohoo

Kansas City - Limon

Saturday 19th July
Countdown commences 10
We rode out of Kansas City to a roadside Maccas for breakfast.  Gotta love Maccas for breakfast and it helps that they have free wifi.

Riding through Kansas we see heaps of little oil rigs all through the fields and many tanks to decant the oil until pick up.  It looks terrible!!!!  The terrain is pretty flat and boring.

We arrive in Limon and find our hotel oh my!!!! it awful from the outside I wondered what it would be like from the inside.  First we have to find our room, the directions we were given were pretty pointless and we had to negatiate a maze of stairs, doors and hallways to find the room.  In the entry way to the stairs there was a huge bucket of sand with heaps of cigarette ends in it!!  The hallways were filthy, the stairs were a trip hazard and there was this room opposite the door to our room that contained piles of broken furniture.  Our room was pretty old school with carpeted shelves everywhere and the ceiling was peeling and obviously water affected.  The bathroom was pretty good it actually looked like it had been recently renovated.

We were not keen on riding anywhere for dinner and had asked the man at the desk in the lobby if the Pizza Hut next door was open as it looked abandoned.  So we walked over there and were shown to a table.  The waitress came to ask what we like to drink and I had noticed a sign stating what beers they served so I asked for an MGD, she couldn't understand my accent and said "we don't have that" I pointed to the sign and said "that sign says you do" so off she went to check, they didn't have any so we asked for Coors which came in these cute little stubby bottles, she then bought our water in kiddie cups and apologised that they had run out of the red ones.  ooookkkkkk......then we ordered our pizza a large, thincrust super supreme ie meats, green peppers (capsicum), mushrooms and olives.  The server came to the table with a pizza put it down in front of us not only was it not a large, it had no olives or green peppers.  She said oh sh!t!" ha ha David was peeing himself laughing, she came back with the right pizza but it still had no green peppers so I mentioned it and she said "we ran out!! oh my so funny!!! so we asked for more beers.  Another couple of groups of people came in and the servers said "there will be a 30-60 minute wait" so both groups walked straight back out.  While the server was bringing our beers a man pushed his face against the window to see if the restaurant Then another couple came in and ordered salad bar but they had no forks left the male of the couple held his hands up as if to shovel his food with them and said "but how will I eat my food?"we ended up giving him the fork we hadn't used.  When we went to pay the bill the server only charged us for one beer each, David tried to point it out but she just dismissed him, the single funniest night we've had in ages.

Lexington - Kansas City

Friday 18th July

Started out quite cool today.  We rode and rode and rode.  What more can I say it was a long way 580 miles (about 920kms) we started out at 7:05am and arrived at 7pm BUT we realised that we had gained an hour woohoo!!
We stopped for ice cream at a DQ (Dairy Queen for the aussies) and it was soooo yummy
We arrived at the hotel it looks REALLY dodgy from the outside and the office has bulletproof glass OMG!!! BUT we get into the room and it's actually quite OK.
$2.49 Aldi lasagna for dinner wow it tastes good and it's cheap.

Lovin Lexington too

Thursday 17th July
Grab & go breaky again. 
After breakfast we went to the Drury household to hang out.  We took a walk down to the park and had a swing with the boys.  Such beautiful boys, just makes my desire to be a grandmother all the more strong!!  We made a plan to meet Jamie and the boys for dinner at their favourite restaurant Cabo, unfortunately Anyerin can't come.
We went to get some Subway for lunch.  Then Dave had a nap while I worked on reviews for all the hotels we've stayed in. 
Jamie came to pick us up for dinner as she had to drive right by our hotel to get there.  The restaurant is amazing there is a huge tank in the middle that has jellyfish in it.  There are lights that change colour intermittently.  We order our food and the server brings salsa, bean dip and chips.  Which is complimentary.  The bean dip is purple and warm and tastes awesome!!!!  Zev loves it and soon polishes off one whole dish which is fine because the server brings more I love this country!!!
Our food is delicious and I have margheritas to go with it.  After the meal the server brings a treasure chest and the boys get to pick out a coin each which entitles them to a free cup of ice cream at the ice cream bar.  It's very cool and the boys love picking out their flavours.  It was so lovely to spend time with them all and we say goodbye.

"can I wear the boy one?"

I look cool!

Noah - photo by Zev

Noah & me - photo by Zev

Jamie - photo by Zev

David & Zev

Zev, Noah & I

Zev - photo by Noah