So last night I drift off to sleep pretty early and was so comfortable that I didn’t use the sleeping bag – I was wearing shorts & a t-shirt and just curled up in a poncho liner… ah, that was a mistake. Around three in the morning I wake up and realize that it was pretty cold, that I was pretty cold. The temp was in the mid-thirties. Ouch! I broke out the sleeping bag and dashed out to the bike to get a set of sweats. The awesome stillness and clarity of the night-sky was a sight to behold. If I hadn’t been so cold I would have figured out a way to snap a few shots… as it was, I was back in bed in a few minutes.

I wake (again) with the sunrise and have things packed and ready to go within half an hour or so. I load up and am cruising down SR40 (Utah), south of the Flaming Gorge Area, when I see movement off to the left side of the road. I hit the brakes just in time as some monster cow walks out into the road. Get this – the cow is walking on top of one of those cattle guards! Sheesh, I thought those were supposed to keep the livestock from crossing the road! I continue a lot slower than before and run into a small herd a few hundred feet up the road. I toot the horn a few times – some nervous looks, but no real movement. I slowly weave my way through them, conscious of the fact that one of them could knock me over in a heartbeat. I stop and take some pictures. Some bonehead in a Honda Civic comes up behind me, waits for about two seconds, and then guns it and blasts around me – he came really close to whacking a cow that ran in front of his POS car. Would have served him right. Anyway, I get going a few minutes later and continue to bump into cows for the next couple of miles. I cannot imagine what it would be like to run into a 1000-lb cow (how much do those things weigh anyway?) with an 800-lb motorcycle.