Zion to Park City - the Longest Day

Tuesday was to be the longest mileage day of the tour, at 330 miles. We were all looking forward to our ride through Zion Canyon, & shortly after 8am we were eagerly queing at the gate, park passes at the ready, while the lady Ranger tried to work out if she should let us enter or not. You probably know the type - a proper 'Jobsworth'. She delayed us for about half an hour, checking each pass & rider's ID, as the queue of cars wanting to enter the park steadily grew longer & longer behind us. The she made me go & get all the receipts for the passes from the van, which I did, smiling sweetly all the time while inwardly cursing her for making our group wait for no real reason. She studied the receipts, the passes, the ID's & our group before finally allowing us to go through, & she even had the cheek to wave & smile us through, after all that.
Then, there were more delays due to roadworks in the canyon, with unsurfaced roads, pilot cars, lots of red lights, & workers holding STOP & SLOW signs. But even with all of that, Zion Canyon is breathtakingly beautiful. The morning sun lit up the pink rocks, while the jagged mountainous peaks reached up to the sky, & our long line of flashing chrome snaked it's way upwards around the gentle curves of this awesome canyon.
The landscape began to flatten out & become greener as we reached the high plains, passing a small herd of bison & a llama farm, before coming across a welcome coffee/comfort stop in the shape of an old 50's style diner. The poor young girls serving didn't know quite what had hit them as 24 of us piled into the small cafe, our Englishness coming to the fore as we quickly formed two queues; one for the coffee, & one for the loos.
Relieved, refreshed & ready to go once more, our riders revved up their Harleys, & we were off again. However, we encountered yet more roadworks, often with red lights on so long that we had long enough to get off the bikes & wander about, chatting to eachother.
We stopped for fuel at a nice little town called Maryville, & we & arrived behind schedule at The Big Rock Candy Mountain, where we had booked lunch.
Then it was on to the I15, which was very scenic & traffic-free for a motorway, & steadily decreased our remaining mileage on the fast road to our overnight at the picturesque ski resort of Park City. Our longest day had been stretched to the limits with delays by an over-zealous Park Ranger, miles of unsurfaced roads, & more red lights & long stops than you could shake a stick at.