Day 15 - Riding with Friends

We met up with our friends from The Ride Central...BillK, Airborne (Don), and Marcss. The day looked to be a really good one so after a hearty breakfast we headed out on what was supposed to be a 260 mile ride.

First we rode through Zion National Park.  The ride through the park is only about 13 miles but the views are pretty awesome. 

About 1/2 way though the park we road though the Zion-Mt. Carmel Tunnel a 1.1 mile tunnel in the side of one of the sandstone mountians which in July 1930 was the longest tunnel in the U.S.

There is a section of the park you must take a shuttle to access by vehicle.  This time around we did not stop and take the shuttle in though.

From Zion we headed toward Bryce Canyon National Park The ride took us through several interesting areas including Red Canyon.

Bryce Cayon National park is basically a single road that travels about 25 miles in and 25 miles back.  Right after we entered we stopped at the visitor center and some of us discussed going to the end of the road and then stopping at the sights on the way back since they would be on the opposite side of the road.

Don (Airborne) evidently didn't hear the plan and thought we weren't stopping for anything.   =P  and tried to slow me down...hehehe.   We did get to see several stops from the end of the road to the great Bryce Canyon Amphitheater.  In the second picture to the right.

After Bryce Canyon we rode toward Escalante, Utah thriugh an area called the Grand Staircase.  We stopped for lunch at a great little place called the Escalante Frosty Shop and bakery because they had a sign that said they had the "best hamburger in Utah".  Now since most of us really had not had another burger in Utah we really can't say...but I will say the burger was pretty darn good and the buns are made fresh daily. The owner was very nice also.

There is not much of an available loop to ride so we headed back the way we came.  We did take a detour over a 10,400 ft mountian to Cedar City, Utah befor returning to the hotel near Zion.

All in all it was a great day.  The weather was perfect and the scenery was awesome.   The ride turned out to be 360 miles instead of 260 miles...but who's counting?

The Guys have plans for Sunday that sounded fun but we need to head for home.