The Route

Here is a map of the exact route we took. Just so ya know. You'll have to "View Larger Map" or just zoom out until you can see the whole thing.

View Larger Map

And that's the end of that Chapter

We should have taken a picture but after Fairview we got stopped in the middle of this canyon due to construction. We happened to be at the front of a huge line of cars (they weren't able to pass us due to the nature of traveling through a canyon) when we came to the stop. We were told by the lady holding the sign that it would take about 10 minutes until we could go so we hopped off the scooter to stretch and eat some snacks. We talked with the construction lady while we waited and missed another good photo opportunity. Oh well. After the wait was over we had all the cars in line go ahead of us which also allowed us to be the "flag carrier". We were given one of those bright orange construction flags which we carried through the canyon all the way to the next flag guy who we passed off to him as we drove by in a cool looking fashion. From here it was just a 15 minute drive behind the Wasatch Mountains before we ended up in Springville then finally Provo/Orem! We made it!

Road Demons

Snow Canyon Warriors?

Mt. Pleasant was nice when we pulled in but by the time we got out of town it was POURING rain, I mean, it was really coming down. We could see the sunlight on the road a few miles out so we pushed Lady Laser as hard as she could which was good and bad I suppose. We were able to get out of the rain fast enough, about 5 minutes, but we got nailed...hard. This was the most painful part of the trip. We were both covering our faces with our hands to avoid the sting of the rain. I of course was driving so I had one hand on the throttle and one on my face. Wow, I remember when we came out of the storm we were both soaked and shaking with cold for at least 10 minutes. This was the last bit of rain we had to deal with the rest of the way home though.

Manti

Manti was another awesome stop along the way. The temple there is so intense!


Dan

Kenner

More Towns along 89

Gunnison: PROGRESS WITH PURPOSE!

Sterling and Pettyville: Two for the price of one

Awesome artillery cannons in Gunnison

Longer than we thought

The time really seemed to fly and before we knew it 6 o'clock was creeping on us. The original plan was to make a stop in Redmond, Utah to visit my Grandma June and have a good meal, and although it was possible to keep on keepin' on, we were both very tired and thought it would be best to just spend the night instead. And we're lucky we did because right as we arrived at her house a HUGE rain storm came through that would have destroyed us. Oh yeah! We made a stop in Richfield and I was finally able to buy a long sleeve!


You can see the storm gathering in these pictures.

I love you Grandma! We got to her house that night and she cooked us the perfect meal: bacon, eggs and potatoes. It was exactly what we both needed. It's crazy how much energy you can lose just sitting on your butt all day long, but the sun, wind and rain can really beat the crap out of you. After eating our dinner we joined my grandma in the living room and watched the Denver Nuggets beat the Lakers. GO NUGGETS! This picture was taken right before we left the following morning.

The Hot Springs

Alright, I'm warning you now, it gets a little steamy here. Haha! What a horrible pun. These hot springs were so incredible though. Both Dan and I were expecting a pretty lack luster experience, but we were blown away. We first drove up to this old run down house with some most excellent hippie guys smoking out front. "Hey guys, you wanna take a soak in the tubs?" After we got inside and paid the fee we realized that we didn't have any swimsuits, we had to improvise. I just happened to bring a pair of gym shorts so we could use those, but we still lacked another "swimsuit". It was time to man-up. I let Dan use the gymshorts and I'd go in my underwear. Oh boy, this seriously was the highlight of the trip for me. Click on the pictures to view a higher resolution picture, that goes for all the pictures in the blog too, just so ya know. In the picture above you can see what happens as the water runs out of the spring over the years. It carries some kind of sediment that builds up slowly, which leaves a pretty cool formation.

Here you can see the rock slowly taking over the iron cast tub. Pretty neat, this tub was approximately 105 degrees, so it felt like any other hot tub.

This tub is on the other side of the rock formation and it was like 115 degrees so we couldn't really stay in it for longer than a minute.

HAHA! Getting ready to take a dip. Now remember, the water was way too hot in the other tub so in light of our gayness, we decided we could share a tub for awhile. Seriously though, we aren't gay.

And finally, some pictures of us just kickin' back.


It was hard to leave, but we had to get back on the road.

Monroe

Monroe was my favorite stop on the way up, the town itself was really pretty and the air was finally starting to warm a little. Most of the trip outside of Zion was very cold, especially after getting rained on. Monroe also had...

In The Big Rock Candy Mountains

I took a tip from my Dad who had traveled these same roads on a bike trip he took with his brother Neil to make a stop at The Big Rock Candy Mountain. I couldn't believe this place existed! I thought it was just a neat little song. Well it may be hard to tell from the pictures but it really is pretty amazing to see. All sorts of different colors are on the mountain here, Reds, oranges, greens, yellows. My dad said it reminds him of a big bowl of ice cream. Here is a little info I found on Wikipedia about the Mountain

Shortly after the release of the song in 1928, some local residents, as a joke, placed a sign at the base of cluster of some brightly-colored hills a short distance north of Marysvale, Utah near Fishlake National Forest naming it “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” They also placed a sign next to a nearby spring proclaiming it “Lemon Springs.”

Towns on the Path

Established again? WTF?

Foy's Restaurant

We stopped in Panguitch to get some food, so we stopped at the first Mom and Pop diner we could find. Foy's restaurant is a Man's diner. There were no frilly antics or over enthusiastic hosts or waiters. All business here. "Sit there, what do you want, here's the ticket, thanks guys." Then we were on our way again. Still no long sleeve for me though, everything was closed!

Forgot something

On our way out of Zion we were being tailed by these guys in a silver SUV of some kind. They were behind us for quite a long time and I would check to see if they were there still every once in awhile, but one time I looked back and they were gone! I had no clue where they could have gone since there were no roads to turn off on to. Well I kept scooting then all of a sudden they reappeared! They were getting extremely close and I was wishing they would just pass us up but they weren't, and I guess they couldn't anyways because we were traveling next to a double solid yellow line. Well at the first opportunity they had they finally started passing us. They pulled up right along side us and rolled down their window. They were yelling something but I couldn't hear because of the wind, but then they starting pointing at a black camera case. "Oh awesome! They wanna take a picture of us!" I thought. But then I looked carefully at what the girl in the passenger seat was saying, I read her lips "Your camera fell out of your back pack!" Haha! I must have looked so retarded, I remember my jaw seriously dropped wide open. We pulled over and the nice couple told us that it had fallen out of the backpack Dan was wearing about a mile or two back. They stopped to pick it up then chased us down to give it back to us. I'm so thankful for people like those two. The case wasn't totally zipped up when it fell out so the camera was damaged a little, but it still works just fine!

Rain Sucks

On the road again. We were on our way to Panguitch and we could see a storm gathering ahead. We tried our best to beat it but it was in vain! We caught the edge of the storm and even then, it was difficult to travel in the rain. I didn't pack a long sleeve shirt because I figured I could grab one on the way out of town but since it was memorial day everything was closed. It was also very sunny as we left St. George so instead of just going to Walmart as I should have, we just kept on going. I learned from that mistake. After the first sign of rain we stopped so Dan could put on his long sleeve, all I had was another short sleeve so I put it on. Anything is better than nothing. The rain started coming down and it was not pleasant AT ALL. Imagine needles getting jabbed into your skin everywhere it is exposed. We didn't have full face helmets either so anything below our sunglasses was getting hit as well. This went on for about 10 minutes or so before we finally broke free of the rain. We stopped at this Chevron in the middle of no where to regain our senses and look for a long sleeve shirt for myself. 35 bucks?! Yeah right, I'd rather suffer some more than have to pay 35 bucks for a freakin shirt. Rubbish. On the road again we got hit by another little rain shower. After we got out of THAT one we stopped by on the side of the road and did some exercises to warm our bodies. Well, more like we danced around like idiots for five minutes. It really was a lot of fun and we couldn't stop laughing about how stupid we looked. We couldn't help but think about what all the people passing thought of us. Man, we're cool.

Zion is better on a Scooter

Seriously, it was so intense going through Zion. It sucked that there was a fee just to drive through but even then, it is so incredible. I hadn't been through Zion in like 5 years, I think the last time I was there was in 11th grade or so. Well we stopped for a picture and some nice old guy offered to take one for us, high five. The tunnel through the mountain was pretty awesome. My eyes had trouble adjusting at first so I felt like I was driving in the dark, the headlight on the scooter didn't seem to help much. I was frightened to my very core, but Dan held me close and we persevered through the darkness. Haha, that's not true. Good times though. Oh we missed a good photo opportunity as we left the canyon. We stopped to get a picture with the Zion sign and met this father and son who were traveling across the country from New York and back stopping at every national park on their path. They had trekked to California and were heading back to New York and were stopping for a picture with the sign, as we were. We shot the breeze with them for awhile and posed as they took a picture of us on Lady Laser (which is the name of the scooter now, named after the model type: Laser R9). Cool guys, I regret not getting a picture with them.

Road to Zion

It surprising to me to see how many towns there are on these back roads. From La Verkin to Zion we passed 3 towns. Ha, oh yeah, we passed a huge biker gang and gave them all the "power fist", and they delivered "power fists" in return. You see, two dudes on one scooter in the middle of a town would look like total wieners, but out in the middle of no where it's possible to jump about 5 levels in awesomeness from a level 1 Wiener to, give or take, level 6 Road Demon. When these bikers on their scooters saw Dan and I on our hog they had no choice but to give us some mad respect. We earned it.

The Bridge to Zion

It was really nice to travel through Hurricane and La Verkin. The backroads really let you take your time and see the "little things" about a town that make it neat. We had plenty more of these experiences and it really was cool to see these sleepy towns.

Hold the Pickles

Going through Washington on Telegraph street we both could feel the excitement building, we were really gonna do it. Right as Telegraph ended we stopped on the side of road and had a small prayer for protection and good weather. After our short break we had a good hug then hopped on W SR-9 to Hurricane. Our first taste of travel on a State Route. - Kenner

Take Off!

Getting on the road was actually kinda stressful. I was gonna spend the night at Dan's parents house with him then get up and go but the night before we left I simply could not find him anywhere! His phone had died and no one seemed to know where he was so I had to do some searching which eventually led me to nothing so I just fell asleep on Andrew Belmonts couch, still unaware of where Dan had gone. I later found out that he had lost his keys at someones house and his phone had died so he was up till like 2 or maybe even 3 in the morning looking for his keys! Well he found them and made it back to his parents house. In the morning I did those final checks then tried calling Dan again, this time he answered and I could tell he had been up pretty late. He told me his story which made me feel pretty bad for him. The poor creature. Well I made it to his house where we said bye to his parents then freakin started the trip! - Kenner

Home.

Wow, we made it back to Orem. I can't believe how long it took! Well, we took a lot of pictures, namely around the Welcome sign to each town we passed. Due to a lack of a third person to take pictures or a tripod to set the camera on, we had to take individual pictures for each of us. So basically this is how I will post everything: I'll start from where we left off and include a small story (if there is one to tell) about what happened between each city. Then you'll get a double dosage of pretty much every picture because there is one of Dan, then one of myself. Anyways, we're back and extremely tired! I hope you like the pictures. - Kenner

P.S. Actually, ya know what, I think I'll just alternate between pictures of Dan and I.

Tomorrow It Begins

Hey. Tomorrow I'll be waking up at 8 or so, making some last minute checks, filling the tires with the proper amount of air then I'll be getting on the road! It's here, we're queer, get used to it! - Kenner

I can smell it

I made it to STG and have already been making some preparations for the trip. I installed the rack that I got from The Scooter Lounge and it looks great! I attached a milk carton deally for added storage space. I also ran to Walmart and bought a bunch of safety and repair items for the trip. Hopefully all goes well and we make it without any issues but it's better safe than sorry. Once Dan gets here I'll add some pictures and make this look a little nicer. That's about it for now. Stay tuned. -Kenner

Days Away

It's wednesday and I am about to make a list of all the crap I need to put together for the upcoming trip from St. George to Orem. I went to a scooter shop up here in Orem about a week ago and ordered a storage rack for the back of the scooter. They were supposed to call when they recieved it and they expected it would be there within 3 days. It's been about 8 days now and still no word so I hope they just forgot to call. The storage rack will be very important for the trip. I'll swing by later today and see if they got it, otherwise I'll have to improvise somehow. I'll be in STG tomorrow and I'll try to get a picture taken and get it on here. Anyways, that's about it for now, I'll update again soon! - Kenner

Prepping

To catch up to speed on the recent work I've done on the scooter in preparation for the trip I'll tell you all the crap I've done to it. Over a year ago I ran over a nail and had to get the rear tire patched and plugged since I didn't want to buy a new tire. Well this worked for the following year but a couple of weeks ago I saw that it was going flat pretty regularly so I decided it would be pretty smart to buy a new tire instead of having it blow out on a road and have me go flying into oncoming traffic. I went to Stephen Wade Power Sports and ordered a new tire which they put on like 3 days later. It was a lot cheaper than I thought it would be so that was nice. I also decided it would be smart to gain some knowledge of the workings of a motor so I took it upon myself to try and learn the ins and outs of the scooter. I changed the oil by myself, which really isn't all that impressive, but screw you. I'm proud of myself. I also noticed that I had lost some brake fluid somewhere along the road so I bought some more and topped it off. I figured the air filter could use replacing but I couldn't find the one I need anywhere in town so I just got an air compressor and blew the snot out of that thing. I got some air filter lubricant and a new fuel filter from this fool down the road from me who sells that kind of stuff. With the help of my friends Matt and Cody I was able to put on the new fuel filter and a new spark plug I had purchased from a nearby Checker. Thanks guys! My first go around with the air filter lubricant didn't go so well and I put way too much of that crap on there. Trial and error though, I learned from it and I won't make that mistake again. My scooter came with an alarm and remote start system that I disabled when I bought it. I figured two things, no one is gonna jack with my scooter, and it's gonna drain the battery. Well my scooter was stolen once before so I decided I should probably reactivate the alarm system so it doesn't get gangbanged in the middle of the night somewhere. I think that about wraps up the recent workings I've performed on it. I regret not starting this blog earlier because I could have been taking pictures to make sense of all these words but I just never did. So hopefully from here on out I'll post pictures and videos of all that happens with Dan, Myself and the Scooter. - Kenner

The First Post

A few years back my friends and I returned from a vacation to Disneyland for our senior trip. One night shortly after we were all reminiscing at Lacey Oliver Bundy's house when our buddy Eric Gibson showed up on a little 50 cc scooter. My friend Dan Butler and I climbed on the scooter and took it for a small cruise around the heights of Santa Clara. At first we both felt super gay but it quickly became funny and we embraced our homosexual tendencies. After all, it is kinda weird to see two dudes on a scooter. The only thing worse is probably two dudes on bullet bikes with their shirts off. At least on a scooter you can act like a queer and it's not a big deal. At least that's how we look at it. I'm not alone am I? Well as we wrapped up our trip we joked about the movie Dumb and Dumber and how they rode a little scooter looking machine to Aspen, Colorado. I can't remember who but one of us said how awesome it would be to "ride a scooter to Disneyland!" I couldn't really get that thought out of my head over the next few weeks so I actually started to look for a scooter I could afford. Time was limited as Dan was about to go on a mission to Brazil, and I didn't have enough money to buy a decent scooter anyways, so we put the idea on hold for 2 whole freakin years. We had to remind each other in our letters and emails about the trip to keep ourselves pumped about it. And it worked. Dan has been home for half a year now and during his time in Brazil I bought a scooter that we will be able to ride to California. Finally, after 3 years of waiting, the time has come and we're getting ready to go on our trip to Disneyland. - Kenner