Day 28: Cedar City UT -> Cortez CO

No, you dunderheid, if you take the scenic route it is not 330 miles, but rather 450.  Which means your not leaving Cedar City until 10 am was the act of a clot.  But I'm here now, so that's OK.  First port of call for any sojourn in Cedar City is east up Cedar Canyon and turn left to Cedar Breaks National Monument.  Because this:

They've built a new visitor centre since I was last here so it's harder to sneak in without paying.  Not that I would do such a thing because the National Park Service has been leading the resistance since 2017.

Continue along UT-14, a brief trip north up US-89 then right onto UT-12.  Which leads mostly to Bryce Canyon National Park and thus gets very empty afterwards.  In "Raw Spirit" the late and much missed Iain Banks wrote extensively of "daft wee roads" and they don't come much dafter than Utah State Highway 12:

View of UT-12 from another bit of UT-12

Later it runs through Capitol Reef National Park and runs headlong into UT-24, which offers more of the same but with the added bonus of a BRIDGE!!1!

The muddy trickle is the Fremont River

Eventually Highway 12 runs headlong into UT-24, which offers more of the same until it reaches Hanksville.  Whereupon 24 wanders off vaguely northwards until it hits I-70 while UT-95 goes east through even yet more of the bonkers rocks for which Utah is justly famous:

and across the Mighty Colorado at Hite Crossing Bridge.  This:

is supposed to be part of Lake Powell but, as any fule can see, that's really more of a river.  While strolling around the bridge I discovered this:

What do you mean, you haven't read Edward Abbey's "The Monkey Wrench Gang"?  Tch!

Cheese Box Butte

I've been trying for years to get a pic of that ^^^^ but there was always someone behind me when I wanted to stop.  Not today.  From just past here you can actually see the Mesa Verde about seventy miles away and just the other side of Cortez, at least until it got hidden behind the rain.

UT-95 stops dead when it reaches US-191 in Blanding.  North for twenty-odd miles to Monticello then left onto US-491 which rolls across a region that look very much as though it should be a long way further north on the prairies instead of 7000' up in the SW corner of Colorado.

Did I mention the rain?

BOGOF...

Finally got here at 19:00.  Thunderstorms all around but stayed dry while fetching the luggage.  Cracking sunset too:

Last full day tomorrow o noes o waily waily.