10/25/2013 Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park 435 miles PICS

Today's route was a loop starting and ending in Cedar City UT, through Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon National Park.  The map:

This route is very scenic.  The views are spectacular.  The whole route, including lots of picture taking took 14 hours.  We had temperatures between 27.5F on the low side to 85 on the high side.  During this trip, I rolled right past 10,000 miles on my K16.

There were a couple rather amusing moments on this trip.  It seemed that we kept getting stopped by foreigners who were asking if they could take a picture.  Naturally, we assumed they wanted pictures of BMWs creations - both BMW's flagship touring bike, the K1200LT (Paul's), or their replacement for that line, the K1600GT (mine).  That wasn't true.  They either wanted a picture of my Pennsylvania license plate, or to ask about my GoPro camera.  Unbelievable... thousands of dollars of world class motorcycles in front of them and they're interested in an $80 license plate and a $400 camera.the  I'm going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

The other amusing moment happened about 20 miles West of Baker California.  We had recently stopped for gas and when I did, I picked up a couple protein bars for the rest of the ride.  While I was struggling with opening the wrapper; largely due to my gloves, an SUV came up on my left.  The lady in the passenger seat started laughing at me.  She was very amused and I didn't know if it was because I couldn't get the protein bar out of the wrapper or because I was caught with both hands off the handlebars or something else.  I put my arms out to the side and said "What??" like a kid caught with their hands in the cookie jar; but, she couldn't hear me.  I got the wrapper open; but, if I didn't, I would have motioned for her to open her window and asked her to open it for me.  That would have provided entertainment for the rest of her day, I'm sure.

Enough of that, here's the pics.  There's some wrap up comments at the end.

<<<Video 1>>>

 (Issaic, Abraham and Joseph)

I love the color of Paul's 1200LT.

So, this is the map of our return route.  The entire route started in Redlands, CA (bottom of the P) and we stayed in Cedar City Utah on Friday and Saturday evenings.  On Saturday morning, we came back south and did the incomplete part of the loop, moving North and West around the loop until we got back to Cedar City: Day 1 403 miles;  Day 2 427 miles;  Day 3 403 miles.

This is the first time I got to travel with Paul.  We met only a few weeks ago at work.  He's an outstanding rider and very patient.  I think I on Saturday, I must have gotten off the bike about 30 times to take pictures.  It really delayed our time around the loop.  It became a 14 hour riding day; but, it was really worth it.  When I go back, I really want to hike into the canyon and see these formations close up.

I have dozens of videos that I will probably add; but, in the meantime, this video does a great job of telling the story...