Day 9: Grand Junction's Colorado National Monument and Moab, Utah

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Start: Grand Junction, Colorado
Finish: Moab, Utah
Distance: 224 miles Total to date: 2726 miles
Campground: KOA Campground, Moab, Utah; $55 for a RV site. Had to take this site as opposed to a tent or cabin as everything in the area is booked due to the long Labour Day weekend. Mountains provide a very nice backdrop, but very windy during the nights. We all thought we would be blown away by the high winds that gusted thru the night.

Gas: Grand Junction, Colorado 4.244 gal @ $2.899/gal $12.30; Moab, Utah 4.365 gal @ $2.979/gal $13.00
Park Fees: Colorado National Monument $5.00 for motorcycle

We left our campsite early expecting to get to Moab early as it was really not that far away. We just wanted to take a quick tour of the 20 mile route around Colorado National Monument. The desk clerk at the KOA called it Grand Junctions little Arches.

As we rode towards the monument, there were a ton of people jogging and riding their bikes along the desert hills. Grand Junction seems to be a very recreational city.

Colorado National Monument is impressive even before you get to it. It starts with strong bold, red rock faced cliffs and is an area of desert land high on the Colorado Plateau. It has pinion and juniper forests on the plateau.

As you start to climb the plateau, you see spectacular canyons cut deep into sandstone, and there are granite rock formations. There are many little pullouts along the way, but many are on an angle and it is difficult to get a good place to balance the bike to take photos.

Each turn, I wanted to stop and take another photo. Our short 20 mile ride was starting to get longer and longer!

As we rode along these steep roads, there were a ton of cyclists trying to beat the steep, winding roads of the plateau. We passed them and they passed us many times during our stops and starts for viewing and photo taking.

There are magnificent views from trails and the Rim Rock Drive, which winds along the plateau. You can see the Book Cliffs and the Grand Mesa, the largest flat-topped mountain in the world.

We stopped at the Cold Shivers Lookout, a lookout at a canyon that went hundreds of feet straight down. The name really suited the site. The monument's feature attraction is Monument Canyon, which runs the width of the park and includes rock formations such as Independence Monument, the Kissing Couple, and Coke Ovens.

Coming down, I caught a photo of the Als' riding down the plateau. They looked like small ants in the photo.

It was was a great trip and it got us excited for Arches and the Grand Canyon and the 20 miles only took us about 3.5 hours.

Once we got out of the monument, we headed down the Interstate 70 towards Moab. The scenery was one of vastness and desert. After a short ride, we entered Utah. As we rode, we really had to have a tight grip as the side-winds started blowing us around a bit.

Within an hour, we took Hwy 128 south towards Moab. It was a nice road in, windy and curvy, but very windy as well. After about 20 miles, we started getting into a totally different terrain. The huge red cliffs and formations are spectacular as you ride along a narrow, windy road that follows a slow running, brown coloured river. We saw many tents crammed into little areas along the river as these were campers  that were ATVing, mountain biking and rafting. The water looks so brown because of the silty dirt from the formations.

We got to Moab and it was very, busy and bustling with tourists. It seemed like there were many more times the people than the 5000 permanent residents.

We took photos along the way and wanted to get to our KOA site to freshen up so we could go back and see more of  the area. Since we were so long in the Colorado National Monument, we did not have a lot of time in Moab to explore.

Tomorrow, we will stay in the area for another day and take a tour of Arches National Park.
The KOA campsite is a nice setting with the mountains surrounding us.

As a side note, Al C took an back road to explore the sites and ended up getting stuck in some sand...so much so that his Harley was standing on it's own without the kickstand. A few people helped him out of his predicament.  He staged a bit of a photoshoot of his Harley, chained to a 4X4 that was stuck on a ridge, pulling out the truck....Not!

Another aside...Al T just looked at his rear tire and it's heavily wore...It has to be replaced before we go any further...It's the long weekend, so hopefully something is open!