Next stop, Salt Lake City...HOME!

Today is Sunday, June 22 and we've been home for two weeks. Everyday, Randy or I remind each other of a memory. We've been laughing a lot about some of our crazy memories and sharing them with our friends.

Leaving Ouray was bittersweet as we were on our way home. In the morning, we enjoyed a dip in one of the hot tubs and hit the road. Unfortunately our departure coincided with the rain. We had fairly good weather on our entire trip and it looked like our last day was going to be a little challenging. Rain and cold weather was in the mountain forecast.


We headed to Ridgeway, a short 10 mile ride, to have breakfast at "Kate's Place" as recommended by Mr. Grumpy Pants. Wonderful suggestion! Randy had biscuits and gravy and I had Lemon Ricotta Blueberry Pancakes. 

 Delicious and what a treat! Everything on the menu sounded incredible and it's all made fresh and with local products.


Unfortunately Randy left his phone at the hotel in Ouray and left me at Kate's to finish up my breakfast and rode back to Ouray to grab his phone.

After breakfast and phone retrieval, we ended up riding through freezing rain, sleet and a little snow and we had to to stop and layer up again. After experiencing the extreme heat of Texas and New Mexico, one would think we'd be happy about cooler weather but we weren't! However, in spite of the bad weather, the ride through the Colorado mountains was gorgeous. 

Watching my GPS I could see that we were approaching the Utah border. Cross the border and seeing the "Welcome to Utah" sign was exciting. It felt good to be in our home State and it was warmer! Look at the beautiful blue sky in our photos, it was picture perfect.

Best sign ever!

From the Utah border, I sent and Instagram and posted our photo on Facebook to let family and friends know we were almost home.

Happy Faces & BIG Smiles

We're so grateful to have so many people, all over the the United States and the world, cheering us on during our journey.

More smiles...we're so close to home!

We were 44 miles from Moab and had about another hour to ride.  Our friends, Russ and Tanna Thompson, rode in from Salt Lake to meet us in Moab.  It was wonderful to see them!

Together, we cruised through Moab and it felt good to ride through a town that we were so familiar with. Riding by Arches National Park was inspirational because it's a beautiful park and we have fond memories of previous visits. 

Unfortunately, typical Moab, it was warm and extremely windy! Our ride to the highway was tough! I hate riding in wind as much as I hate rain. I kept thinking that we started our journey in the wind and now are ending in the wind. I realize that the wind may be a metaphor for our lives. I was reminded of a quote "Sometimes in the winds of change, we find our direction". This is what our coast-to-coast journey was about...finding direction. It's weird how random thoughts pop into my mind when I'm riding. Thoughts that often make sense.

We arrive at Green River to eat at one of our favorite diners, "Ray's Tavern". Ray's tag line is "A place for EVERYONE" which is so true. All types of people, travelers, locals, rafters, hikers, bicyclists, and bikers stop at Ray's.  If you are ever in Green River - STOP and go to Ray's, you won't regret it!



Ray's is an institution and they have the best burgers and fresh french fries! They also serve Bohemian Brewery "Viennese Lager" our favorite beer. Dinner at Ray's was a nice way to wrap up our trip: friends, burgers and good beer!

All  can say is YUM!

Riding home to Salt Lake was brisk! We cruised through Spanish Fork Canyon and I couldn't wait to get to I15, just because it was cold! Riding on the freeway towards our exit was more memorable than usual. Seeing our beautiful Wasatch Mountains was comforting and the majesty of the mountains is breathtaking. These aren't the best pictures but they give you an idea of the magnitude of the range and from our freeways the view is spectacular. I never tire of looking at our fabulous mountains.

Riding up Wasatch Boulevard I was giddy with anticipation of seeing our neighborhood. Driving down our street was exceptional, and as I rode onto our driveway, I let out a huge sigh. Home!

There's no place like home!

We had ridden 9300 miles, visited 20 states, had the opportunity to see the Pacific and the Atlantic Coasts and we had made it home safely. I said a silent prayer of gratitude, jumped off my bike, hugged and kissed Randy.

Home safely!  Woohoo, we did it!

The GURL and the YLD1 set out to have an amazing adventure and we did it! Best of all, we did it together and created memories that will live with us forever. In spite of everything that we've been through in the last few months, we're so grateful to have had the opportunity to go on this amazing road trip. However, we're not going to think of it as a once-in-a-lifetime journey because this trip is just the beginning of many.

Life is too short to only live once.