Travels with Putt Putt: Mountain High, Valley Low

I don’t generally name my cars, and I don’t really set out to name my motorcycles, but it seems like over the past decade most of the motorcycles I’ve owned have somehow let me know what they wanted to be called. This year all my motorcycling is being done on a Suzuki DR650, AKA Putt Putt.  This is the final installment of the story of Putt Putt’s and my trip to the canyon country of Utah.

With our visit to Zion National Park complete, it was time for my traveling companion Howard and me to turn our bikes back east.  There were still parks to visit, but the road would now be inevitably leading us back home.

We spent the night at a rustic, remote motel outside of Hatch, Utah, that was just one of several family run accommodations that turned out to be great choices. The Riverside Ranch RV Park Motel & Campground was old school, but neat and clean.  And there was a porch outside that let a person sit, sip bourbon, and enjoy the sunset.

There was also a restaurant across the parking lot with the enticing sign of “Restaurant” above.  I suppose there was a name for it on the menu… But the food was an interesting twist on New Mexican food. And it was dark enough after the late sunset to be able to see the Milky Way spread across the sky.

Simple pleasures are the order of the day at The Riverside Ranch, etc.

Breakfast offerings were pretty slim at The Riverside, so the next morning we rode on to Bryce Canyon Pines for eggs and homemade corned beef hash.  Much better than cold cereal and toast. It occurred to me that while making a go of it in the restaurant trade is always tough, it must be a particular challenge in such a remote place that depends so much on seasonal visitors.

As much as I loved our visit to Zion, I liked our time at Bryce Canyon National Park much more.  While still a busy park, it was much less crowded than the better known Zion.  While shuttle busses were an option, we were still allowed to ride the bikes out to the many overlooks and trails.

What a spectacular collection of canyons, amphitheaters, fins and hoodoos.  What’s a hoodoo? Think of giant sandstone columns topped with a harder-rock cap that keeps the top from eroding away. Some of the most dramatic and most iconically Utahan landscapes of the trip.  (A ruder person than me could make a crude analogy of what these valleys looked like, but I shall take the high rode here and not mention it. Those of you of the proper (or improper) frame of mind can figure it out for yourselves…)

An overlook full of hoodoos.

One of the endless views from Bryce.

There was debate over what these chirping bugs were.  One parking lot attendant suggested they were pine beetles, but there were also a lot of cicadas visible.  Any entomologist readers with an ID for us?

After leaving Bryce, we had a lot of miles to go across riding backroads, including the amazing Utah Highway 12.

We found time for a brief stop at the Capitol Reef National Park visitors center, but there will need to be a return visit there, along with the missed Cedar Breaks National Monument.

Utah Highway 12 descends off the mesa.

Our final stop for the day was at Colorado National Monument, just shy of our Grand Junction, Colorado destination. From there, it was back to our hotel. In the morning, I would head east across the Rockies home to Kearney, Nebraska, and Howard would head southeast back to Texas.

We had five great days of riding in Utah, but we still have unfinished business in the state. We skipped Arches National Park because of the crowds, we missed going into the Needles Unit of Canyonlands National Park, and we had to skip completely Cedar Breaks National Monument.

And there were a lot of interesting dirt roads that got bypassed because I had street tires on Putt Putt.

Three years ago I wrote about our ride up to Hyder, Alaska, saying that the trip was a mountaintop experience, not a part of a bucket list. As I wrote then:

The most important reason for this not being a bucket list trip, however, is because this isn’t something I’m checking off.  It will be something that stays with me for a long time to come.  I still think about a backpacking trip I took with my older brother more than 35 years ago. It’s still with me. And I hope that I haven’t left these beautiful areas behind forever.  I want to come back to see the mainland of Alaska, and Canada’s Northwest Territories, and…. It’s not a check box, it’s an introduction.

Mountain high, valley low, this has been a great trip, but it has only lengthened my list of places to go, not checked any off my list.