Just finished an absolutely epic trip!

circa1968 · May 18, 2021

At the beginning of April, I rode my '07 Venture to KC to help my brother out after having back surgery. Due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances, I ended up leaving the bike in his barn and fly back home to San Jose.

Fast forward a month and my son wrapped up his 1st year of college in St. Louis and wanted to drive home and see some of our National Parks along the way. We threw together a quick plan, made some reservations and my wife & I jumped on a plane to KC to pick up the bike and meet my son to start the journey. As it turned out, my wife never got on the bike with me as we only packed warm weather riding gear for her. There were only two days that would have been appropriate for her riding with me. I was extremely tired from a long hike on the 1st day and the 2nd was a miserably hot day going into Vegas.

So, the trip highlights, in order:

Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs (highly recommend!)

Royal Gorge Bridge (cool to see, but not my favorite)

Highway 50 from Colorado Springs to Montrose (2 of the best days of riding scenery I've ever had....at this point...)

Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP

Arches NP (amazing! Did a nice hike to Delicate Arch)

Bryce Canyon NP (pretty cool, but not something I would make a trip just to see, but I was also wiped out from the ride there.)

Zion NP (Wowsers of all wowsers!) We did the Angel's landing hike on day 1 but I chickened out of the last mile which required holding on to chains as you climbed up with a straight dropoff 1500' down! 2nd day we hiked the Narrows @ Zion, best hike ever! We rented water boots/socks & poles as the hike is up a river in water that ranges from ankle to waist deep. We got very deep into the slot canyons & had to climb up a couple of small waterfalls, fallen trees, boulders, etc. It was quite an adventure! Was completely wiped out at the end of the day.

Las Vegas - hmm, I actually don't have a lot of good to say about Vegas itself, the strip is way overbuilt, overcrowded and apparently a favorite hangout for pot smokers (to each his own, its just not my thing and I don't like to be around it - and it was inescapable). But, the highlight from our day in Vegas was at the Vegas speedway. My son & I each took 5 laps behind the wheel in a 760HP Shelby GT500 Mustang! That's an unreal amount of power and one intense experience.

And now, the favorite part of the trip for all three of us: The drive down highway 128 from I-70 to Moab (on our way to Arches). By chance, we met a couple from Ohio the day before who recommended taking 128, even though every mapping app does not tell you to go that way. We said what the heck, let's check it out.

OMG! And I say that with all due respect because the one thought that kept popping into my mind on hiway 128 was "This must be where God goes to hang out on his day off..."

If you ever make it westward, hiway 128 is an absolute must see. Its ~40 miles and will take an hour to drive. I hate to oversell it, but I am not ashamed to admit that the beauty of this place literally moved me to tears. Perhaps my expectations were so low that they were easy to exceed. Perhaps its some weird manopause hormonal thing I got goin on that made me tear up. Perhaps I need to get out more. But in any case, after a little over 2,000 miles in 9 days, 4 National Parks in 4 days, it was the favorite part of the trip for all three of us. Highly recommended!

And my love of my Venture just grows deeper! I got more than one "Nice Bike!" comment along the way.

SpencerPJ · May 18, 2021

Great write up, thanks for sharing. I agree, Zion is a special place indeed.

Squidley · May 18, 2021

Sounds like an epic trip, glad you were able to do it and enjoyed it as much as you did 👍

bpate4home · May 18, 2021

What's the saying here 'No Pictures? Then it didn't happen.' LOL Would love to see some of the pics or maybe even a ride video.

circa1968 · May 18, 2021

1 hour ago, bpate4home said:

What's the saying here 'No Pictures? Then it didn't happen.' LOL Would love to see some of the pics or maybe even a ride video.

Yeah, I know...working on it. Unfortunately, I was so in awe of the scenery, the Venture never made it into any of my pics.

cowpuc · May 19, 2021

Darn straight!! THAT is an AWESOME epic adventure!!! THANK YOU for allowing us the ride along!!

circa1968 · May 20, 2021

8 hours ago, cowpuc said:

THANK YOU for allowing us the ride along!!

Well, that's the least I could do considering all the help I've gotten here getting my girl running right & looking good! still working on those pics though.

djh3 · May 22, 2021

Any trip on the bike is way better than in a car. I sorely miss my yearly trips with my friend Lynn. RIP buddy

circa1968 · May 23, 2021

Finally got around to processing from pics from my camera. Wow, it was fun to relive the trip for a few minutes in pictures! In order, the pictures are from: Sunset on Rockies, Garden of Gods, Royal Gorge Bridge, Black Canyon of Gunnison NP, Arches NP, & Zion NP