I woke up this morning thinking that I would take the ferry across Lake Powell to the other side of the Glen Canyon Recreation area. As I approached the ferry landing, I realized it was not going to happen. The road down to the ferry was a very steep grade with loose gravel from top to bottom. Loose gravel and motorcycles generally do not go together very well. So off I went back tracking the road I came in on yesterday. All was fine for about the first 40 miles then suddenly I came upon road construction. I was the only one on the road that I could see; however, the lady flag person told me there would be about a 20 minute wait before I could proceed. I asked what they were doing to the road as I had just traveled the same road the day before and all seemed fine. She told me they were chipping. I did not know what chipping was but soon found out. As the pilot truck guided me down the opposite side of the highway I realized that chipping was the process of applying fresh tar with about one half inch of loose gravel on top. This process really makes a nice road; however, it is not a road you want to drive on until the packers have packed the gravel into the tar. Just as the pilot truck was approaching the end of the construction area he was forced to turn back onto the chipped surface due to a maintenance truck blocking the road. I too had no alternative, it was either follow the pilot truck or go off the road. Well I did both. As I followed the pilot truck onto the freshly chipped surface I realized this was like riding on ice. I could not turn nor could I stop. Off the road I went into the brush and red clay and down. Luckily there was no steep drop off at this point just soft shoulders. Of course I ripped off another mirror along with one of my add on running lights. The mirror did not break but did pull the wiring out of the turn signal plug. It was a two piece plug. One piece which is now buried in the deserts of Utah along with the running light. When the wires pulled out from the turn signal, they shorted together causing my temperature gauge, gas gauge and speedometer to stop working. After getting back on the road I found a pull off and was able to reattach the mirror and fix the wiring for the turn signal so that it would work. The gas gauge etc. was fixed by replacing a blown fuse. I traveled on and finally arrived at my next destination, Capitol Reef National Park Campgrounds located about 10 miles northeast of Torrey, Utah. The campground is located in a peach gorge and is surrounded by shear cliffs. It's very pretty. Once I got settled in it began to rain, but that was fine with me, all I wanted to do was get a good nice nights rest.
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| My campsite at Capitol Reef Campground - Utah The following photos were taken as I was leaving the campground         |
