Trans America Trail - August/Sept 2017: 6 - 8/24/2017 - Monticello to Moab, Utah. 105 Miles

We started out the day by walking over to a little restaurant to get some breakfast. Henry and Ruby were there drinking their morning coffee and invited us to sit with them. It was fun visiting with them and learning about their adventures, they are great people! Both are retired and just travel around the country in their motor home. They host at campgrounds in exchange for a free place to stay, not a bad plan!
After breakfast, we packed up and got ready to leave. The owner of the campground, a Monticello police officer, was a personal friend of Staff Sgt Butler, a National Guardsman recently killed in Afghanistan. He was brought home to rest today, his 28th birthday. We watched the procession as we were leaving town. The whole town was standing along the road. Some were waiving American flags and signs, some saluting, some with their hands over their hearts, others bowed their heads. Our new friend Henry (retired Marine) rode in the procession. It was nice to see the support and to be able to pay our respects to this brave young man who gave his life protecting our freedom.
http://fox13now.com/2017/08/24/body-of-utah-guardsman-returns-home/amp/

Today was a short ride day so we took our time. We stopped at the 3-Step Hideaway which is not too far out of Monticello and was on our must see list. This is a place that caters to dirtbikers. They have a neat setup! Cabins, tee-pees, a full shop, and a Cantina! Unfortunately we missed the owners, Scott and Julie. Scott is one of BigDog's riding buddies, his nickname is "Dingweeds". If you remember back to my 1st post, this is one of the guys I read about so we were looking forward to meeting him! They had run into town for supplies but there was a note on the door to make ourselves comfortable. We went in and got a couple of Gatorade's, stickers and left some money on the bar. No one else was around yet none of the doors were locked! http://www.3stephideaway.com/

The rest of the ride was mostly high-desert and some small mountains. However, the last pass was Glacier Pass at 11,500ft! Very nice riding up there, cool for a change! Once we got to the top, Canyonlands and Moab were revealed to us. Absolutely stunning! We hurried down the moutain and into Moab. It's an off-roaders paradise! We found a nice campground on the west edge of town with reasonable rates. This would be our 1st multi-day stay, 2 days. We set up our tents and went to The Sunset Grill for dinner. It's on the top of a mountain with excellent views and a bacon wrapped fillet! I needed a good steak dinner! While there, we were treated to a nice Monsoon storm and a beautiful sunset. Interesting story http://moabsunsetgrill.com/history/

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