This was such a wonderful tour. We were planning a second pass in the spring of 2020 from Saint George to Albuquerque, and even had the flight purchased and some of the lodging booked until the world shut down.

I started reading and couldn't stop. I rode the ACA Western Express route in 2017 and it overlaps with your route a lot - I recognized many of the photos. I was there about 2 months after you - small world. Utah was quite memorable, and reading your journal took me down memory lane.

I don’t know what came over me and it’s unlikely to happen again but it makes a great story and I’m glad I did it!

What an amazing day!! The knife’s edge of risk/reward. And that rogue woman Rachael - I’ll just have to start calling her Louise.

Desert Solitaire! I loved that book also, and read it befor my first trip to the region back in 1987. Also the Monkey House Gang - when I biked through Arches the first time I kept thinking about Abbey and what an exceptional experience that must have been for him when he was there before tourism really took off.

I have been reminded that this is the fiftieth anniversary year of Edward Abbey's Desert Solitaire, a book that is important to Maun and me. When we lived in Price we were pretty well Abbey disciples, reading everything we could find which was a lot given our many visits to the Back of Beyond bookstore in Moab. Bits of wisdom remain, such as his advice to measure highway distance in six packs. Try try that with other than session beer. Maun and I honored his advice mostly in the breach but we were not above cracking a can when we were within 12 ounces or so of our destination

Wow is right. The astounding thing is that Snow Canyon is a fairly minor attraction in Southern Utah.

Wow