I'll never make fun of my wife's grip warmers again.

You didn't see last night, but I actually parked inside a pavilion since then I could reach an outlet from within my tent. This turned out to be a good idea because the skies opened up that night and continued into the morning, which made packing up nice and dry.

I was considering staying another day, since hey it's cold and rainy why not. When I asked the internet what it thought about that idea, well…

Decision made, let's put some miles on.

As usual, Utah wowed with its views.

But it became obvious that I should have pressed on instead of calling it in early yesterday, because the best roads were ahead, soaking wet. Justin at sport-touring.net was right, if you're in southern Utah you need to ride UT-12 and UT-24. Preferably when it's dry.

Did I mention I (apparently) don't have proper rain gear? The gore-tex gloves were soaked through in no time, and my hands hurt after about 30 miles. My rain liners worked fine, but at the edges wound up letting a bunch of water in. So after 60 miles elapsed I happened into a town and spent an hour warming up and having lunch.

The rain still wasn't letting up, so I gassed and took off, brain falling into "eff it, let's ride". After another two hours of rain and cold, I crested a pass and was greeted with BLUE SKY!

No more rain for the last 60 miles, and the last 30 miles were even pretty dry, so I finally got some good lean angles in.

If you're doing the math at home, that's two hours plus 60 miles of riding since I got gas. Sure enough, the fuel light came on 20 miles away from town, and I pulled into the nearest gas station right after the warning lamp went solid. Basked in the sun for a while, and spotted this sign of the times.

I'm motelling it tonight, letting my gear dry off. Turns out my ripstop bag-o-clothes isn't actually waterproof. Oops. Next time, I'm bringing a 1-piece rain oversuit and grip warmers.

Tomorrow: Colorado!