Late last night, I picked up Sarah from the Amtrak station. I love train stations, so this was great. I got there early and watched the trains roll by. Even took a few pictures, I know that’s hard to believe.

Sarah has been planning on seeing something called The Spiral Jetty for a very long time now. It’s just north of Salt Lake City, so when I was planning my trip, we planned to meet up and see it. Lucky for me it’s about 8 miles away from the Golden Spike Railroad National Park place.

We stopped first at the Golden Spike and I was really amazed at how nicely it’s been preserved. We visited the museum and I saw a ton of books I wanted to buy and even saw a crappy little movie about the transcontinental railroad, after which I felt that I didn’t know much more about it than I had before (which wasn’t much to begin with).

The place had the two trains that were there when the golden spike was driven in 1869 rebuilt and they look amazing. We poked around them for a bit (in the rain) and decided that it was now time to head to the Jetty.

The road was 16 miles of mostly dirt and rock. Much of it would have been better done in a four wheel drive, but we handled it pretty well, though we had to walk the last 1/2 mile or so.

But at the end of the walk, it paid off. There it was!

I was pretty impressed and Sarah was ecstatic.

The weather was windy, cold and a bit rainy, so unfortunately we couldn’t hang around Mr. Jetty as long as we would have liked.

However, on the way back, we got the chance, thanks to the Park Service, to drive on an 8 mile stretch of the original Central Pacific railroad grade. This was wonderful. It really gives you a feel for exactly what the train would see. And even though the road we came in on parallels it, it’s a much different feel.

I realize I’m summarizing much more than usual, but I’m no longer traveling alone, so I can’t write 2,500 word entries. Sorry about that. Think of it as a bit of a break.

Anyway, we were able to follow another four miles of the grade one the way out of the park. this was really nice, it went around a lovely bend and we were able to see Chinaman’s Arch – a natural limestone arch created by the lake that used to be here.

We then decided to start heading for Albuquerque, so grabbed a quick bite to eat at Long Life Vegi House and then fled south with the destination being Richfield. It was far enough away from SLC to get a jump on tomorrow and close enough to a bunch of cool stuff, so we’ve got choices on what to do when we wake up.

Albuquerque won’t happen tomorrow, but the next day. Tomorrow is for driving around, meandering our way to ABQ. We’ll see what there is to see!

Here are my pics.
And here are Sarah’s pics.

Miles today: 400
Total car miles: 400

We just spent about 12 hours in the car seeing some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. But there just isn’t much to say about it.

I did take a ton of pics. So did Sarah. And you’ll get to see them all.

We started in Richfield, UT at the Nights Inn… or possibly Knights Inn. You’ll see. Not a bad place. We then wandered our way to Utah Route 24, taking it south through Bicknell to Capitol Reef National Park.

That was pretty beautiful and really set the tone for the rest of the day.

Route 24 continued to Hanksville where we picked up Utah 95, part of the Trail of the Ancients.

That weirdly led to Glen Canyon – but just the northern bit. I went to Glen Canyon in 2004 and hated it quite a bit. You can read about that here.

This time was a bit more fun.

We stopped a few overlooks and saw the northern tip of the lake that should not be.

Moving on, we spent a bunch more time that we thought we would at Natural Bridges National Park. We saw two of the three natural bridges (though it’s hard to take pictures of them) and were thrilled to death with the cliff dwellings. They were pretty cool.

Still in Utah, we hung a right on US Route 191 through Bluff. Bluff isn’t much of a town, but Fort Bluff was amazing. It was a Mormon settlement that is amazingly well preserved, open to the public and FREE. We spent quite a while there reading the plaques and seeing the old cabins. Whoever is keeping this place up and running should be given a metal of honor.

Our path today was sort of zig-zagging our way across sourthern Utah, so we headed a bit west on US 163 to Mexican Hat, so named because of the Mexican Hat Rock that it’s a very high table rock that resembles a Mexican Hat.

This was our introduction to Monument Valley. Amazing. Just amazing. Hard to really put into words, please see our pictures.

We finally crossed into Arizona and drove to Kayanta, through Monument Valley. In Kayanta, we headed east on a road that didn’t really have a whole lot going for it.

But it was the road to Four Corners, where Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado meet. You have to go into New Mexico for a tiny bit to get into it, but once there, you can visit all four states at once! And it was only $3 to get in. Not bad considering I was expecting it to be three or four times that.

Cortez, Colorado, our home for the night, wasn’t far away. It was late and we were tired. Cortez is hosting a rodeo, so finding a room wasn’t easy, but we did it at the Tomakawk Motel. Nice little place. Cortez is actually a cool little town.

And this was a short little post. Tomorrow is Albuquerque and the day after that, Roswell! Sit tight!

Here are my pics.
Here are Sarah’s.

Car miles today: 464
Car miles total: 864

Sarah and I are now in Albuquerque. The trip from Cortez, CO to here was nice, but not really as wonderful as yesterday.

We hit Durango, where I got to see a narrow gauge steam engine. And we hit Santa Fe, where I decided I never want to drive in Santa Fe again.

Also on this trip, I’ve decided that I hate driving. A lot. I love riding, of course, but driving a car (at least a new car), I basically loathe. It is now in my immediate future to not own a car. Yeah, I know that I “just” bought a Yaris and it’s great and all, but I would very much like to not have or drive a car.

Of course, this would mean living in a place where I can ride year-round, but that’s been in the works for a year or so.

We ate at Fei’s Cafe in Albuquerque. It’s a vegan Chinese place and it’s pretty amazing. Very extremely healthy (compared to most Chinese food) and pretty yummy.

My hosts from before, Cortney and Sabra, are my hosts again and I’m really happy to be back. We hung out with them and their family – a lot of folks, including Gavin, stopped by. It’s a great community scene here. I dig it immensely.

Here are my pics.
Here are Sarah’s pics.

Car miles today: 338
Car miles total: 1,202

Today was a day off in pretty much every respect of the word. We didn’t do much at all, really. I showed Sarah around ABQ for a bit, we got some semi-ok Indian food and then came back to Cortney and Sabra’s.

I’ve started to plot out my trip from Seattle to Pennsylvania via the Yellowstone Trail, it’s sort of like Route 66, but not nearly as well traveled, researched or kitschy. I’m pretty excited about it. It goes from Seattle to Plymouth Rock, Mass.

Just how long that will take me, I’m not sure. I should be in Portland by June 23 and in Seattle by June 25. I’m not really sure how long I’ll stay in Seattle, but I assume about a week.

I also don’t know if I’ll do the small “southern” portion of Scoot 66 or not. Basically, that trip starts in Wheeling, WV, heads south to North Carolina and then north up the Blue Ridge Parkway.

If I do the southern trip, I’ll only be doing the Yellowstone Trail to around Cleveland, Ohio. If I don’t do the southern trip, I’ll do the Trail to somewhere in New York State, taking US 15 south to Lewisburg. I hope to complete the Trail on my way through New England.

I’ll be home by the beginning of August, either way. Then it’ll be time to think about New England and possibly The South. After that, it’ll be time to think about moving.

Today was another day off! I love it. Yeah, I’m definitely itching to get back on the scooter, but lounging around Sabra and Cortney’s is wonderful.

Speaking of the scooter, I got a call from the shop in Utah. My back breaks were completely shot, which isn’t surprising in the least. I’m glad they caught it and are changing them. I should have been checking them more thoroughly.

Anyway, today we headed up the mountain to the east of ABQ. It’s nearly 11,000 feet above sea level – by far the highest I’ve been on this trip.

It’s amazing how out of shape I am at 11,000 feet. Walk across the parking lot? Yeah, I’m out of breath! Even so, we walked around the top of the mountain and had a little picnic. It was pretty fun. I really dig a lot of stuff about this town.

After all that, we came back to their house and mostly just hung out. It’s nice to not have to do stuff. I mean, it’s the weekend and all, right? So why bother with doing stuff?

And on that philosophical note, I’ll bid you goodnight.

Here are my pics.

Ahh, another day off. And a Sunday, at that – the traditional day off. To celebrate, Sarah and I tried to hit about ten different thrift stores. A few were closed and I think we ended up hitting 7 or 8. Now, I used to be a hardcore thrifter and I really miss those days.

In the past few years, I’ve been buying new and honestly, I’m getting more and more not ok with that. Why make more crap when there’s so much used (and good) crap lying around? No idea.

That said, I found *one* shirt. I’ll take a picture of it later. It’s a nice shirt, but out of seven thrift stores, why could I only find one shirt? It’s probably because I’m picky. But it is a nice shirt. And it’s not like I need more shirts.

When we returned, Sabra and Cortney were hosting a little get together. Gavin and his family were there, Rebecca (Gavin and Cortney’s mother) was there. It’s a great sense of family and community.

During this little shindig, they were playing some pretty off the wall music. I love being introduced to new stuff that doesn’t completely suck. And in this case Mrs. Miller, Monks and the Song-Poem recordings of MSR Records totally made my day.

I’ve never been very comfortable with irony when it comes to music. I feel that if you like something, you should like it and if you don’t, you shouldn’t. I don’t have an ipod full of songs that just seem cool to like.

Everything On Area Man’s iPod Just There As A Joke – Like this. That’s not me. But some things *are* so bad that they’re good. Mrs. Miller falls into that category. And I think most of the song-poems do as well.

But the Monks are actually geniuses (though probably accidentally).

I don’t have time for such things now, but I’ll be posting a few songs from each in the next couple of days while I’m in SLC.

Tomorrow (Monday) Sarah and I drive ten long hours back to Salt Lake City so she can catch a plane on Tuesday morning and so that I get return this satanic PT Cruiser and again be reunited with my scooter.

And yes, if all goes according to plan, I will swear off cars for as long as humanly possible. Not that there’s a plan, really. Other than to swear off cars for as long as humanly possible.

That’s my plan.

And my plan’s got a great soundtrack. I’ll let you listen to it later.

For now… The Monks…

Car miles in the past two days: 120
Car miles total: 1,322

It was a sad time saying goodbye to Sabra and Cortney in ABQ. They’re great folks, great hosts and I can’t possibly thank them enough for putting us up. Thanks!!

Though our destination was north of Albuquerque, we had to head west for about 100 miles. Heading west from ABQ means one thing: Route 66. That’s right, I was back on the Mother Road.

We left the city on the interstate, but as soon as we got to Mesita, I turned off on 66. It was a long journey of 650ish miles ahead of us, but there’s always some time for Route 66.

This bit of it was Dead Man’s Curve! Ouuu, scary! But it’s one of my favorite stretches, so I was glad to be able to do it again… even if we were PT Losers.

We took Route 66 when we could from there to Gallup, NM, covering the route in about two and a half hours. It’s really weird that it took me all day to do it on a scooter. Of course, I really explored it – here, we were just doing a drive-by.

Once in Gallup, we took US 491 north, all the way to Cortez, Colorado, where we stayed nearly a week ago.

Along the way, we passed Shiprock, New Mexico, where the Ship Rock can be seen from miles away, almost hovering over the high desert horizon. The landscape was a nice way to end our time in the Four Corners area.

After a quick fill up in Cortez, we headed north west, still on US 491 to Monticello, Utah. We were back in Utah!

I know Utah gets a pretty bad rap, mostly because of the Mormon thing, but it really is a beautiful state. And now that I’ve been pretty much all over it in 2004, 2006, 2007 and now in 2008, I think I can speak with a bit of authority on this subject. Utah, though I wouldn’t want to live here (except maybe in SLC), is a really pretty state. If you haven’t visited it, you really should.

I’ve been across Utah enough to where I’m accidentally backtracking!

We grabbed US 191 North in Monticello and suddenly things started to look familiar. That’s not too uncommon when you’re traveling in the desert areas, a lot of desert looks the same. We then passed a really colorful cafe.

“I’ve been here before!” I exclaimed a bit too excitedly. It must have been in 2006 with Nikki and her brother and sister. I immediately doubted this because nothing else looked at all familiar.

The landscape was mostly flat, but was chucking huge rocks at us! Church Rock, for example. This looks sort of like a bee hive. More like a bee hive than a church, but who cares, it’s a really amazingly cool rock that I don’t remember seeing before.

Moab was next up on our travels. But before that, we passed “Hole in the Rock.” Well, we didn’t pass it, we stopped. Just like I stopped in 2006. Somehow or another, we must have came through here then. How? I’m not sure. We were traveling from Flagstaff to somewhere in Colorado, so this must have been along the way.

Hole in the Rock is a tourist trap, plain and simple. At any rate, it’s a pretty cool place. Some guy, a few decades ago, built his house into a rock (thus the name). You can tour his house for $5 a pop and maybe we should have. I didn’t in ‘06 and I didn’t in ‘08.

What does it say about me that I’ll drop $200 on comic books and won’t let go of a $5 note to see a cool house inside a rock? No idea.

But around the grounds of Hole in the Rock, there’s enough free stuff to keep you busy for the better part of an hour.

They’ve even got a Hebe statue just like my grandmothers. Ok, a lot of folks do, but I’m always happy to see dear Hebe again. Hebe is the daughter of Zeus (who isn’t?) and the goddess of youth. Go, Hebe, go!

In my family, her name was always pronounced “Hee-bai,” but actually it’s Hebe. Sorry, mom.

By now, I was convinced that I had been over this road before. As we entered Moab, I remembered the town. It’s a crappy tourist town, but I remembered it!

I think it was here in 2006 that we took some other road to I-70. Or maybe we took the same one that I was taking today. Anyway, in ‘06, we headed east on I-70, in ‘08, I was heading west.

Thankfully, we weren’t on I-70 for long. US 6 broke away from it, heading northwest to the Salt Lake area and we took it.

Route 6, again, delivered. It was a great road, winding through mountain passes and along some pretty busy Union Pacific lines.

I even got lucky and caught a picture of a north-bound exiting a tunnel. You know you’re jealous.

I take a lot of train pictures. I think I might collect them into one big train photo album. But would anyone really care? I don’t know. But I would dig it. So I’ll do that sometime.

US 6 takes us to Spanish Fork, so we stopped in at the HK temple for a quick hello and then drove to Orem, where my scooter was being worked on.

Thankfully, they were still open, so guess what? Yeah, I got my scooter back! Woo! I was thrilled.

The Scooter Lounge seems to be made up entirely of super helpful and awesome guys. They treated me really well and I’m glad that I got to meet them. If you’re ever riding through the SLC area, check them out.

So far I’ve had good luck with shops. Vespa OKC was great, Vespa ABQ was really great and The Scooter Lounge was just as great. All the shops are busy this time of year, so for any shop to fit me in basically thrills me.

Sarah drove the PT Evil and I got to ride all the way to Long Life Vegi House! And even though it was crappy I-15, I loved it!

I have said this before, but I don’t think I could possibly say it enough. I now hate cars. I don’t want one and wherever I choose to end up, it will be where I do not need a car. You have no idea how much this excites me.

After a bite to eat, we drove/rode to Mandy and Earl’s, where I’ll be staying for a handful of days before heading on up to Portland, OR to visit Ashley, who I traveled with in 2004 and a bit in 2006.

Was it a good day? I think so!

-

Here are my pics.
And here are Sarah’s

Car miles today: 654
Car miles total: 1976

Scooter miles today: 52
Scooter miles total: 6,033

Because of all the criss-crossing, the map is getting hard to read. Sorry. It’ll start making sense again soon.