10 States in 10 days!

[BamaFan]

What started out to be a guys trip turned into a trip for myself and the wife. When my buddy dropped out I decided to go it alone, camping along the way as planned. My wife couldn't stand it, she wanted to go, I told her it was going to be ride and sleep over and over so she had to be on my schedule. She had her vacation moved up and then we were off for 10 days.
While on this whirlwind trip we visited the Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon North Rim, Zion Nat Park, Bryce Canyon Nat Park, Mesa Verde Nat Park. We passed through/by Dixie Nat Forest, Vermillion Cliffs, Grand Staircase-Escalante Nat Monument, Glen Canyon Dam, Telluride Co, Lizard Head Pass, Wolf Creek Pass and on and on and on.......... We took the interstate all the way there and after that it was back roads until we got home. In Utah we rode hwy's 9/89/12/24 all excellent roads. In Arizona we rode all the roads entering the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. Colorado we rode hwy's 141/145/160 all the way into Kansas. In Kansas we rode 160 to Dodge City then 400 to Wichita, from there we rode I-35 South to I-40 and over into Ft. Smith Ark. Hwy 71 South to home.
We encountered rain, hail, 40*-104*, it was awesome and we loved every minute of it. We were constantly putting on or taking off, it was great! We encountered buffalo, free range cows, deer, and turkey.
We met people from Germany, France, Texas, Missouri, Arizona, I talked to them all, I think they just liked to hear my redneck accent!
Our mileage was 4423.2 miles at 44.6 mpg over the entire trip. I had one mechanical problem as I picked up some low octane (bad?) gas at an old po'dunk gas station in Arizona the second day out. The bike just lost power, the aft cylinder was barely firing as the front was doing fine. We got into Flagstaff and the following morning I swapped out the plugs and that cured the problem.
We never backtracked except to come out of the parks, the entire trip we were moving forward. I would make a conscience effort to do this.
We are thinking about concentrating on one state and ride it for 8-10 days next year. We ended up with 624 pics but here a just a few.

[Greg MacD]

Awesome ride, thanks for sharing the pictures, I am sure you will have many memories and stories that will last a lifetime.

[20538]

WOW, a trip of a lifetime there, with your wife. very nice trip story you have and many memories to draw from in the winter.

[bullgo]

Sounds like a great trip!!! Nice pics!!!!

[plongson]

Ya Buddy! Fabulous trip, My wife and I did a smaller version the first of August. I'm rather prejudice about the southwest. It has unbelievable roads, scenery and WIDE open spaces.
THANKS for the pics'

[BamaFan]

Hey Plongson we did pass through the Marble Canyon/Lee's Ferry area, I saw the Motel you mentioned with the bar , my whistle sure was dry and I was thinking about that good food you mentioned but it was too early in the day for us to stop, we kept traveling until we got to Kanab and that is where we rested our heels for the night. Anyway I don't even know you but I thought of you when we went through this area!
STEVE

[plongson]

Steve, GLAD you had a great trip. I know what you mean, I've hit some roads where I've read about them here on VTF and thought about the folks too. Pretty crazy.

That little bar/restaurant was a trip...It was early evening when we rolled in, not a customer in sight. The cook and a guy waitin' tables were just sitting around killing time. My buddy asked them not to go home while we showered up because we were starving, so they stayed and fried up the best cheeseburger I've had for a long time. They just sat and BS with us while we ate. It was pretty dark when we got out and not one car had passed the whole time. Talk about peace and quite...

[MaloloJoe]

Sweeeeet ride and nice photos. Thanks for sharing…

[road_king]

sounds like a good time. thanks for posting your experience for all !

[Shoe]

How cool........ I was stationed out in California for about 5 years. I used to love the riding out there. Those pictures remind me alot of the mountains in California.

Dave