There was some lively discussion about what route I should take from Moab back to San Diego--the Moab contingent wanted me to head north to I-70 and take that across to US24, down through Capitol Reef and US12, Bryce Canyon and Zion. There were a couple of problems with that--at least an extra day of travel (and I'm running out of coffee), and not much of a choice of roads at the end of that run: I-15 through Las Vegas, or another days travel to get back to 'interesting' roads.

I'm getting tired of 'wandering,' so I picked the more direct route, down US191. It's been some years since I've been on this road, through more of the spectacular Utah scenery, getting redder as I head south.

My first fuel stop of the day was at Medicine Hat; it wasn't too hot yet, so gasoline was all I bothered with. The temperature varied about ten degrees, depending on altitude and terrain; hovering around 90.

Down through Monument Valley (which I've never actually visited) on US163, hooking up with US160 at Kayenta, and now I'm on the route I almost always seem to take on my way home. The good news is, several years ago I set waypoints where all the gas is on this route, up until Flagstaff. The bad news is, I didn't really need gas in Flagstaff, so endured the lousy routing and traffic to get to 89-Alt. The worse news is, there are no gas stations on 89-Alt. But the speed limits are low, so perhaps that'll save enough to get me through...

...Oak Creek Canyon. There was nobody ahead of me as I started down the (20 mph) switchbacks, and I didn't catch up to anything until about halfway through. Tourists seem reluctant to do even the speed limit; I guess they're afraid they're going to miss something. And he slowed down even more when he got to Sedona, although to be fair, the east end is crowded with shops and pedestrians crossing in Brownian mode.

I finally found a reasonable place to stop for gas on the west side, and managed almost five gallons, high for the trip. It was miserable hot by this point, but it didn't seem worth getting out the wet towel for the 60 miles I had left; I still had plenty of water in the tank bag bladder.

The road through Cottonwood and up to Jerome was empty, but traffic in Jerome was the worst I've ever seen it. Tourists wandering around, sure, but why were lines of cars backing up at every stop sign? Turns out they were doing some road repair, with a single lane controlled by a light. And even after clearing that, the traffic was still slow, 5mph under for the most part, all the way down into Prescott Valley.

Finally, though, through there and downtown Prescott; I wended my way to a motel next door to the Safeway where BC and I stopped on our memorable bicycle ride to the Grand Canyon. The A/C was iffy in the first room I was offered; it works fine in this one.

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