I slept a bit fitfully as every so often the wind whipped around sending my tent flapping. I was lazy about setting it up so it's my own fault. I also didn't really pick a good place, if it had rained for real I would have had a lot of mud to deal with. But it was dry all night and I woke just before sunrise and felt rested nonetheless. I had a quick breakfast and got going as quick as I could to hopefully beat some of the heat. I rode across the state line without knowing. It was at a dirt road crossroads and I didn't realize till a bit later. I took a pic of the first county road sign I saw for evidence. Eventually I reached Monticello, and bought a bunch of food and Gatorade and left with nearly 8 liters of fluids on my backpack and bike. It seemed like water would be non-existent and no stores or towns for over 100 miles. It was a bit slow going up the first climb out of town but I made it fine. The air at 8700 ft felt so good. I descended down into a very hot canyon and turned down a road that leads to Newspaper Rock only a couple miles off my route. Problem though, a crew was in the middle of repaving the exact section I needed to get to. So I had to wait about 15 minutes for the follow car to make it through. Thankfully there was a short pine tree for shade. I visited the rock and ended up waiting for the follow car to come back through again. Only this time I had about 500 feet to climb so I would be a lot slower than the cars. And I'll add that it was already hot enough outside by this point to cook eggs but I had to climb on this fresh, hot black asphalt. I could just hear the rubber wearing fast off my tires. I climbed as best I could without going really deep. I had offered to start my climb right after the convoy passed me the other way to cut down on time but was informed I had to wait behind the follow car. That's fine, I suppose they must care a little about my safety, cool. Only while climbing up they sent a semi loaded with two normal sized trailers of asphalt and he didn't slow down one bit, didn't get out of my lane either (other side was fresh, I guess he couldn't drive on it yet), so I had to quickly get off the road. So they were worried about an SUV hitting me but didn't care about a 100,000lb semi flattening me. Safety third. Right after progress and profit. At least it was cool seeing the rock and 2000 year old petroglyphs. After finishing up the climb I came to a bigger highway which I had to follow for about 5 miles. This was the main road into Moab from the south. Most of the traffic was huge campers or big trucks. I had a halfway decent shoulder but this was still one of the scariest stretches of highway I've ever ridden. NO one got over even a little bit, even if there was no oncoming traffic. I had a bright light flashing too. Speed limit was 65 and people were doing much more. I had about 2-3 feet of space for every vehicle. Super scary at such speeds. And all those wide trailers piloted by rank amateurs sliding to and fro. On two occasions cars oncoming made overtaking passes, coming right for me, despite my waving arms. 80% of these people were visiting the area for vacation.... As evidenced by the campers... and stickers about enjoying the camping life... Insane. I was so relieved when I finally turned off. I flipped the highway off for good measure and continued on my way. The next road was paved but absolutely deserted. In both senses of the word. It looked like it hadn't rained there in years. But the scenery was jaw dropping. Huge spires of bare rock reaching into the sky like enormous chimneys. It was approaching 2pm and very hot. I decided I needed to stop to let the heat of the day fade a bit. And somehow I actually found a little cedar that had decent shade underneath. I actually dozed off for a few minutes there. When I awoke I felt raindrops. An approaching cloud had caught up. It blocked the sun and cooled things down dramatically so I got going again. I had a very gradual climb up to a tiny town called La Sal. I was pleasantly surprised to see an tiny open store so I got some snacks and a couple drinks. It really worked out great as the way forward for me was right into another, huge storm and while I ate my snacks it faded and pushed on a bit. I began another climb with much cooler temperatures and high winds. I ended up stopping at a nice stealth spot that had been used before. Flat under a large pine and an equally large aspen. When I made my last turn a sign warned Geyser pass was closed. Didn't say why and I can't look it up. I figured I can make it by anything with just me and the bike. So I'll just deal with it in the morning.