North of Glendale, UT, we passed through some roadwork. The road was limited to one lane for a several-mile stretch; flaggers and a pilot car were ushering traffic through one side at at time. We'd been through this situation before but never had a problem; when oncoming traffic comes, we'd just get off the road and wait for it to pass. This time, a flagger let us through like normal, but a work truck eventually stopped us and insisted we let them carry us the rest of the way.
With our path broken, we had no choice but to find an alternate way to connect it. Paige looked at the map and saw Stout Canyon Road, which turned out to be a beautiful unpaved road through the Dixie National Forest.
Hoodoos, a taste of what we'd see at Bryce Canyon in a couple of days
We crossed into Arizona, then back to Utah for the night, then back to Arizona for a few hours the next day.
Near Apple Valley, UT
Paige's picture (obviously). We did not do roads like this very often. But the only paved options away from the Zion/Springdale area are the way we came (and we didn't want to backtrack that far) and the Zion-Mount Carmel Highway, which unfortunately has a tunnel that's closed to bikes. That left this steep unpaved road.