To (as Opposed to Fro)...

At long last and with no further ado, it is my great pleasure to present to you the first segment of our journey...

It all began on a Saturday at 8:30 a.m. Phoenix time. We headed off in full gear but with all vents open, including those four little, pin-sized holes in my helmet that direct four focused, pin-sized gusts of wind at my scalp. First stop was Navajo Bridge which spans the Colorado River:

We ate crackers with cheese and salami and wished we were the wee little rafters down below us. In their wetsuits and big, poofy boats, they seemed to be having such a jolly good time. Here is where the trip began to get incredibly scenic. Now, the boyfriend had been in the area several times before with the boys of the BMW forum. The destination was an unknown hamlet named Torrey, Utah that borders multiple national parks and dozens of awesome country roads--windy, desolate, scenic, where you can go 90 mph through gorges of red rock. And everything seems to be quite hellishly named: the Dirty Devil River, Hell’s Backbone. That last one is exactly like it sounds, a narrow bumpy road with a sheer drop off a foot past the end of the shoulderless concrete. Our first night was spent in Torrey at a little campground that, thank God, had a windbreak for our tent. (The wind was beginning to get a might whippy, which became rather portentous.)

The next day we traveled out on highway 12 (above) and highway 72 (below). See? See? I told you parts of Utah could be pretty, but you just didn't believe me, huh? You were just picturing ranches and cookie-cutter Latter Day Saints temples weren't you? Well, those came after the Torrey scenery as we headed towards Salt Lake.

Then, it began to get really ugly, in a weather way rather than a scenery one. We had been using our Gerbing heated vests since entering Utah and, let me tell you, they are a motorcycle bitch’s best friend. I still began to get chilled, vest notwithstanding, and my hands didn't seem to want to bend any more as we headed into Jackson, Wyoming. They had gone on strike due to inhumane conditions.

Thankfully, even the die-hard boyfriend admitted that camping was not an option and we settled for a little cabin in town. The next morning, we attempted to ride into the Grand Teton National Forest and into Yellowstone as planned. This, however, was how the Tetons looked that morning:

Ah, the Tetons, the rebellious teenagers of the mountain family. Relatively young and uneroded, their edges still sharp and their angles dramatic. How I love the Tetons. Their rough yet confident beauty reminds me of Kerouac. Okay, that sounds really pretentious but I will share the reference anyway. Old beatnik Jacky boy spent a summer as a forest fire lookout in the Cascade Mountain Range in Oregon and this is what his cocaine-fueled brilliance captured on the page. Well, maybe he was sober, up there alone on that mountain and all. But if this is sober, man, what a naturally cracked-out mind that man was cursed/blessed with. I believe Kerouac, however, had better weather during his summer sojourn. This is how the roads leading into the park began to look for us:

Yes, it was snowing and the gas station we stopped at had even lost power due to the unseasonably late storm. For safety's sake, we backtracked east and through Cody, Wyoming (where my Mommy was born!) and into Billings, Montana only 250 miles off track. Only, Ha!

Next installment.... Our three days in Billings.