I headed into town and sat down at a coffee shop to pull myself together and plan out my day. I'd ride the bus tour, ride my bike through a different path, and then make for the 8 hours towards SoCal.
After a quick perusal of the visitor center, as I was about to hop on the one of the guide buses, the driver came up to me and asked, "what type of bike do you ride?" Turns out, she spotted my backpack as a tank bag and herself rode a 05 BMW 650GS. She was pretty nice to me, turns out her name was Gene and she had lived in Portland a ways back, and settled here for the past 9 years, as she needed somewhere with more sun. Funny thing, I can totally understand where she is coming from. But as we got to the final trail before headed back, I took her picture.
The park itself was gorgeous. Every corner was something new and beautiful. I threw in a few pictures, but just don't think that they did justice to it all.
There were tons of signs directing me to not feed the squirrels under penalty of fine and putting down the animals and what not, yet they seemed to get awfully close and friendly along the way. I finally turned the corner and this old man was tossing peanuts at a squirrel and scratching its belly with a stick. He told me the squirrel really liked it, then looked at me seriously and said, "do you have a problem with this?" I was laughing inside but said no and turned around. At this point he noticed a wet spot on my pants (from my hydration bag) then says to me, "don't worry I won't tell anyone about it." Then not two seconds later, he yells at his friend down the path, "Ralph, look at this guy walking past you, he wet his pants! ha ha!" It was like I was in a movie or something. Just feel sorry for the guys family for having to deal with him, for me its just amusing, his grandchildren are probably going to end up bombing something. (Yes that is the picture of the old man's stick.)
At the end of the paved trail is where I diverged from the masses. The path carried on through the river, and I had to limit my time in Zion. I sat down and opened up a granola bar only to be accosted by a squirrel The sucker was fat and hungry, and ended up trying to pull the food to himself. He actually tried to bite me to get to the wrapper, and at that point I has lost patience and just flung him off the bench. Just glad he didn't get a solid bite in me. Though I did get a couple pictures of the cute fat little piece of fur crawling around on my lap.
I got back to the bus, filled my hydration pack with a some Zion spring water, and got onto my moto. I was looking forward to the tunnels that I was told about.
The ride was amazing going up to the tunnel, though on the other side, the area was less impressive. My opinion could be slightly tainted by some of the idiot drivers riding my tail as I followed a train of traffic to the other entrance. On the plus side, I did see some big horn sheep. Other than that, it wasn't too great. (last pic is on the park side of the tunnel.)
The way out was beautiful. I stopped by some whole foods mart nearby that Gene has suggested that I visit and ran into a gal and her mother who had been in the park filming a movie that they could not say anything about. That were from New York and that explained all the New Yorkers I had met and the annoying hipster with a bandanna and a macbook who looked at me ironically when I asked if he'd watch my bag as I used the restroom. Hipsters. I bought a bandanna to soak with water for the road. Shhh. But anyways, I took a picture of the gal and her mother in case she gets famous or something. They seemed nice enough.
And that was my last interaction with Zion. I got on my bike and took off for a long, straight and hot ride towards SoCal. The ride was uneventful and HOT. We were pushing 110 degrees in places and it just felt that I was riding into walls of heat. I had to pull over every so often and literally pour water in the visor of my helmet, on my jeans, all over. This would feel great for the next 5 minutes. I drank and drank out of the hydration bag, but still felt thirsty and pulled over in Las Vegas for a smoothie, as I knew that I needed some solid food, but nothing seemed good. I wasn't sweating, still hot to touch, and a tad disoriented/confused... all signs of a slight case of heatstroke? After about 30 min in the AC I felt good to eat, so grabbed a pita, a coffee and got on the road again.
The sunset and moonlight were beautiful and I had toyed with the idea of pulling over and taking a picture of the sunset silhouetting a Joshua tree. It would have been an artistic triumph, I'm sure. There was a nasty dust storm that I rode briefly through as I entered California. I'm sure everyone in their climate-controlled Escalades were laughing at me. I was. It was dark as I rode through the Mojave, for which I was thankful, it was still a hot ride. I started to realize a runny nose and sore throat, so I grabbed some Zincum Gluconate at a pharmacy while I gassed up in Barstow. I finally made it to my friend's at 11 or so that night. He had a room for me, a cold beer, I was thankful that I was in Huntington Beach.
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