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Brandon O'Brien

Travel and Adventure Journal

I wanted a place to journal all my travels and adventures around the world. I always enjoy going back and reflecting on my past travels and getting to relive them through my words and photos.

Across the desert - Day 11 - Epic Motorcycle Ride

Across the desert - Day 11 - Epic Motorcycle Ride

Tuesday, July 24, 2012 @ 7:00 PM in 2012 Epic Motorcycle Ride

Today we woke up around 6am so we could get packed, eat and fuel up before starting the long haul to our campsite east of Salt Lake City. We were on the road around 7:15 and immediately jumped on I-80 East. We would be on this for about 500 miles today in total.

The day started off with nice weather but by the time we stopped for lunch in Elko it was really heating up. We resorted to pouring water into our riding gear in order to cool off while we rode. The water would evaporate pretty quickly which was a shame.

About a half hour west of Wendover the clouds started darkening quickly and it looked like rain. We stopped and zipped up our riding gear and took off. Not 30 seconds later the rain started. It wasn't too heavy and only lasted a little while but this would make it the 10th day in a row we hit some sort of precipitation. We hit a break in the rain when we got to Wendover and had just enough time to fuel up and find a liquor store before the rain hit. If we had been another minute slower we would have been drenched. Fortunately by the time we made it to the salt flats the rain was getting farther and farther behind us.

The last 80 miles or so of the ride seemed to take forever. We finally hit I-215 and made our way to Exit 6 where we would get off and make our way to the campground. We were happy when we rolled into our campsite and it was still daylight. Our long day of riding was complete and the temperatures were quite pleasant. It might not have been our longest distance day, but it was definitely the most monotonous day of the trip so far.

After setting up camp we looked around for some fire wood so we could get a fire going. Some of the empty campsites still had some laying around that we were able to take back to our site. Unfortunately they had some really heavy rains there earlier in the day so everything was wet and hard to start. We tried a few things and finally resorted to dousing it all with some gasoline. That did the trick and we had a nice fire the rest of the night.

For dinner I had some of the Natural High Chicken Pot Pie with Mashed Potatoes and I was blown away with how good it was. Ryan had the Honey Mustard Chicken and said it was pretty good too. We're both extremely exhausted so we're going to head off to bed now. Tomorrow takes us down to Arches National Park where we'll be staying for two nights. The ride is only 250 miles which seems like an extremely short day compared to what we've been doing.

Teaser photos:

The seemingly everpresent rain we run into all the time
The seemingly everpresent rain we run into all the time
Finally off the interstate and onto 190
Finally off the interstate and onto 190
The campsite at Spruces Campground
The campsite at Spruces Campground
Cooling our booze and drinks in the creek. The water was so cold it actually cooled everything down really well.
Cooling our booze and drinks in the creek. The water was so cold it actually cooled everything down really well.

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Tags: motorcycle

Posted from: United States