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It is Day 2 and the riders are anxious to begin a long and wonderful riding experience. Freedom from the stress of everyday life and freedom from the limited minds of those less powerful. The day was incredible. Inspiring landscapes with vistas that sweep the sky and moments of time forever frozen in the minds of those fortunate enough to witness such grandeur.
Just the road and the company of men who have dedicated themselves to lives of destiny and honor. Men who have committed to mentoring and empowering others to achieve financial independence.
Leaving Bryce on the morning of the 22nd, the riders continued up highway 12 towards Capital Reef National Park. Car and Driver Magazine has designated highway 12 as one of the most beautiful roads in the United States, with good reason. Just outside of the town of Escalante as the road tops a slight rise and makes a hard turn to the right, it drops down into the rock gardens. It looks like a snake winding thru the rocks.
The view opens up to a magnificent picture of rock mounds, upheavals, ravines, mesas and buttes. As far as the eye can see the colors and shapes are magnificent.
This group of men were standing a Dead Horse State Park, looking over a 1000 foot cliff and off in the distance was a mountain of a rock that seemed to spark a fond memory of a cruise that Fred Holpp had once shared with his wife.
Continuing up Hwy. 12, one finds the town of Boulder, UT; the location of the Anasazi State Park. The park is home to ancient artifacts such as pottery, tools and partial and still intact dwellings of the ancient Anasazi Indians that lived in the area one half century ago. There is an excellent twenty-five minute video that covers some of the ancient and prehistoric history of the area.
Two of the bad boys are standing on a point looking out over the immense chasm that is the Buck Canyon in Canyonland. Again the magnificent backdrop of the canyon they seem small and insignificant on the sky line, yet among men, they stand out uniquely against the vast backdrop.
Pete Paine said what everyone else was thinking while looking into the depths of the Canyonland Nat. Park from an area called "The Islands In the Sky", "the vastness of it is hard to comprehend".
Upon leaving Boulder the riders headed towards Capital Reef National Park. To get there they climbed from approximately 3500 ft. to nearly 9,000 ft and back again. The landscape is in stark contrast to everything the riders have seen to this point. It looked more like the mountains of Colorado than the high desert of Utah.
The riders stopped for a moment to capture the magnificence and were moved deeply. There are fur trees, aspen and birch everywhere. As the road crests the range and drops back again, the terrain opens up so that one can see for almost 100 miles. On a clear day one can see all the way to the LaSalle range, which is eighty miles to the east.
After descending out of the forests the riders traveled thru a small section of Capital Reef National Park heading north to Moab for their first of two nights at the Moab Valley Inn. On the way they rode thru some very interesting areas. One piece of country had gray sandstone haystacks that seem as though they were placed there for lack of someplace to put them.
North of Hanksville, the terrain turns to wide-open spaces with buttes and mesas jutting up out of the ground like dispossessed buildings. Eventually the road leads to I70. After a short trip east on the interstate the riders turned south and dropped into Moab. For the remainder of the day the riders took in the Moab scene. It is a busy little town that exists primarily for the purpose of tourists. The riders took a break by hanging out at the pool which is an indoor-outdoor pool with an opening in the wall that swimmers swim through to move inside to outside.
Dinner at Bucks Many of The riders ate big steak dinners and enjoyed the camaraderie of others. At the end of the meal, the riders retired early for a big next day.
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