Spring 2009 Ride About

Rather than do a blow by blow description of all my travels I think I will just capture a few highlights, post a bunch of pictures to the gallery and post my routes in GPX format.  Here is a link to the file with all the routes.  If you don’t know what a GPX file is then you can look HERE and check their “Who supports GPX?” to see many different ways to work with them.  Each route name in the GPX file starts with a “#” followed by a number. That way they should be listed in the order that I rode them in.  The total trip was 5571 miles.

Spring Ride About 2009.gpx

My trip down the California coast while interesting from a ride perspective was pretty disappointing from a weather perspective.  It was pretty much moderate to heavy rain for much of it.  Because of that I really didn’t take any pictures.  My schedule was tight so I didn’t stop to take in any attractions.  I wanted to maximize the time I was going to have with my dad and I had seen most of these areas on many occasions though not always on a motorcycle.  So my dialog really starts in Cathedral City where my dad lives.

I was only going to have five days with my dad before I had to head to Moab to meet up with the MTF gang.  Dad and I did a couple of driving side trips during the time I was staying in Cathedral City.  One day we went out to the General Patton Memorial Museum located at Chiriaco Summit, CA.  It’s not a large museum but there is a lot of militaria from many wars that they have collected over the years.  There are a number of tanks and military vehicles both in and outside of the museum.  It was only 104 degrees on the day we were there.  Yeah I know, but it was a dry heat .  We also drove a loop into the nearby mountains (CA-74 & CA-243).  There are some great looking motorcycle roads up there and it was a little bit cooler.  Unfortunately I wasn’t riding, maybe some other time.  Pictures from those two side trips can be found in this gallery.

One of the big events I was tying into my trip was my youngest son’s graduation from Loyola Marymount University. My dad and I drove to LA and met my wife who flew down to meet us.  That’s my dad and son in this picture taken after the graduation ceremony.  More pictures of the commencement activities are in this gallery.  We were able to sneak my son away for a couple hours for a private lunch then we were all off to our various destinations.  My wife had to fly back home, my son had parties to go to and my dad and I drove back to Cathedral City. 

My original plan was to get back to my dad’s early enough on commencement day to get a few hours riding towards Moab which was 800 miles away.  I wanted to be there for the initial Moab dinner gathering the next evening.  I had actually hoped to get about half way then get a motel and do the interesting parts of that leg, aka the twisties, in the morning.  Unfortunately when we got back to his house it was after 6:00 PM and the temperature was still 106 degrees.  So I went with plan B and caught a couple restless hours of sleep in one of his easy chairs and headed out at 2:00 AM.  It was still 90 degrees but I knew I was climbing into the high desert and things would cool off pretty rapidly.  The riding on my route from Cedar City, UT to Hanksville, UT was very enjoyable with lot’s of twisties.  I managed to get well off the beaten path in some spots.

I got into Moab, UT in the early afternoon.  My home for the next three nights would be the Adventure Inn.  For the next two days I ended up riding with three other riders from the MTF group.  There were over 50 people there altogether but the MTF discourages large group riding for safety reasons.  All I can say is the scenery in that part of the country is awesome.  I don’t have the time to describe all that I did and saw so pictures will have to do.  The pictures from my arrival through the first days ride and activities, which includes the Colorado National Monument, can be seen in this gallery. 

The second day we rode in the La Sal Mountains, Castle Valley and Arches National Park.  The pictures from that ride can be seen in this gallery.

The third day I ended up riding alone because most of the other MTF riders were staying one more night in Moab. I needed to move on to my next destination to keep to my schedule.  My destination for today would be Mexican Hat, UT in a round about way.  I actually followed part of the suggested route for the day down to Natural Bridges National Monument.  From there I fulfilled a silly urge to put my foot on the Four Corners Monument. The pictures from this days riding can be found in this gallery.

Mexican Hat was just the closest hotel I could get to Monument Valley.  While the riding in this area isn’t particularly exciting the scenery in Monument Valley is well worth the trip.  When I was paying to get into the tribal park I learned there was an added bonus.  The Navaho and Hopi “Honor Run” was going to be finishing up  there on the same day.  After my tour and a brief participation in the Honor Rally festivities I headed to the Navaho National Monument and eventually Page, AZ.  The pictures from Monument Valley and the Navaho National Monument can be found in this gallery. 

OK, I changed my mind and decided to tell a little story on myself .  I did have a sort of humorous event occur, at least it was humorous after the fact.  I pulled up to the entrance of Monument Valley on Rufus, stopped at the pay booth and raised the front of my modular helmet.  I paid my entrance fee and then asked the Navajo woman who was at the booth where I could get a tour of the Valley.  I was a little concerned that I didn’t make a reservation, no pun intended .

So she tells me that wasn’t a problem and that I should take the first left and go out to those buildings.  By this time she was pointing to two shacks about 100 yards off the road that look just like the shack, I mean pay booth, that she was in.  Now don’t get me wrong, they have built a new lodge and the new visitor center was still under construction.  Just the out buildings were in serious need of some TLC.

So I take the first left and head down the dirt road to the buildings doing all of 5 MPH.  For some stupid reason I was looking at the buildings and tour vehicles parked by them instead of the road.  That’s when top loaded Rufus weighing about 1000 pounds, not counting the lard ass in the saddle, meets six inches of Monument Valley sand covering the full width of the road.  North was already heading South before I even knew what was going on and onto the left side did we plop.  Unfortunately my left foot and leg rolled under me and I felt something pop in my ankle. (Not to keep anyone in suspense but the x-ray taken after I got home didn’t show anything was broken)

So I managed to pull my leg out from under Rufus and get to my feet.  For a few seconds I am just testing my left ankle out but when I finally take look around I saw that just about everyone in the area was watching me.  The good news was nothing came off Rufus and I was able to put some weight on my ankle without screaming.  The bad news was nothing came off Rufus so how was I going to get the bike off the ground.  Actually I got plenty of help from the super nice folks working there.  We got it back up and Rufus started right up.  I was soon back in the saddle gingerly paddle footing my way through the sand to my destination while everyone there watched JD’s travelling sideshow come onto the scene.

I pulled off next to the shacks and got dismounted.  One of the folks working the tour booths came over and I told him I was looking to get on a tour.  So he points over to one of the tour trucks, the one that happened to have three people sitting in it, and says they were just about to leave and I could take that tour.  So I start rushing to get road gear off and stowed.  Then rushed to gather the photo gear, hat, sunglasses, water, lip balm and sunscreen I needed for the 2 1/2 hour tour in the desert.  Of course it felt like I was taking forever and when I look over at the truck, sure enough, everyone is still watching me.  I am finally ready and hobble over to the truck, climb in and go back to the last row of seats figuring they couldn’t possibly look backwards at me for the whole trip . 

So I am arranging my gear and getting ready to put on some sunscreen when I look up and, as you can probably guess, everyone was still staring at me.  So the driver/guide, who is also staring at me, asks if I was OK.  I told him I had twisted my ankle a little but I was good to go.  Strangely that didn’t seem to be a good answer because everyone continued to stare at me.  Finally the guide said “What about all the blood?”.  So I reach up, wipe my hand across my face and it comes away solid red .  The good news is I discovered that my beard was just as good at catching blood as it is catching the food that I don’t manage to get into my mouth .  The blood hadn’t start dripping on my chest yet.

The other three people on the tour were a couple and one of their lady friends from Tokyo, Japan.  The only one that could speak any English, as I was to find out later, was the lady friend and she proceeds to take a packaged alcohol pad out of her bag and hand it to me.  With one swipe it was saturated with blood and I had just managed to smear things around a bit.  So I decided I needed a little higher level of first aid and hobble off the truck.  I told the guide I had a first aid kit on my bike and I was going to clean myself up.  He told me not to bother and that they had medical supplies in the booth.

So we go into the booth and there is a first aid kit, a bottle of alcohol and some paper towels.  So I begin cleaning up and I happen to mention that it’s nice that they have medical supplies there.  The guide tells me they needed it because a lot of bikes seem to go down on the road .  Of course my first thought was why the #$@^ don’t you fix the road but in reality not keeping Rufus vertical was totally my fault.

After I had gotten most of the blood cleaned up I discovered I had about a 1/2” laceration on the left side of the bridge of my nose and a smaller one further down on the right side.  Because the front of my modular helmet was raised I must have hit my nose on something, I suspect it was the previously mentioned Monument Valley sand.  Like a scalp laceration the larger one was bleeding like a stuck pig.  The other one had pretty much stopped bleeding on it’s own.  The only bandage they had that would cover the 1/2” cut was a full size Band-Aid.  So I manage to position it across my face and nose so the gauze pad would just cover the cut.  Then I looked in the mirror.  Unfortunately all I could see was this dufus looking fellow squinting back at me.  So I put on the sunglasses and hat then hobble back to the truck and up into the back seat of the truck.  I have no idea what those poor Japanese tourists were thinking .  Then we go on to have a great tour of Monument Valley . 

I would end up using Page, AZ as my base of operations for the next two days.  So after a good nights sleep I decided to take a day off from riding and do a local photography tour into Antelope Canyon.  I was able to arrange the tour right from my hotel and I was picked up right outside the lobby.  This is truly an amazing place, particularly for photography.  I wished I had brought one of my Nikon D70s but I just didn’t have room for the big gun camera equipment.  I hope to get back there and get a second chance at it.  The pictures from Antelope Canyon can be found in this gallery.

The other destination I would get to from Page was the North Rim of the Grand Canyon.  It’s over 130 miles from Page to the lodge at the North Rim and a good chunk of it is at 35 MPH.  So it’s a full day event.  I left Page at 5:00 AM so I could have a chance of beating the crowds.  It actually worked pretty well because I was leaving the main viewing areas about the time 20 bus loads of school kids and tourists showed up from who knows where.

The Grand Canyon is magnificent but it’s really difficult to capture the scale of it with a camera.  My wife and I will be spending a week in Sedona in late August so I will likely get to the South Rim then.  The pictures from this days activities can be found in this gallery.

The last three days of my trip were basically making tracks back home.  I tried to route through as interesting looking roads as I could without making a significant detour.  I found a few fun roads here and there.  The scenery after passing through Cedar City, UT became increasing less inspiring to downright boring.  My plan was to get to Elko, NV and that is what I did.  For what they are worth the pictures I took during this leg can be found in this gallery.

The plan for the second day kind of went out the window because of my rear tire.  While there wasn’t any chord showing on my rear Metzeler ME880 there wasn’t any tread left on it either.   I decided to divert to the West side of Oregon so I would at least be closer to a source of a tire if I needed one.  So once I got into Southern Oregon I headed West on OR-66 rather than turn North on US-97 as was in my original plan.  As it turned out OR-66 was a kick ass ride.  The other benefit was I wasn’t on the most worn out part of my rear tire very much.  If you go through Adele, OR you might want to check out the Adel Store.  It’s a real piece of Americana.  I didn’t take any pictures past Adele and this days pictures can be found in this gallery.  I finished the day in Medford. The next day I rode I-5 the rest of the way home at conservative speeds to help save whatever was left of my rear tire.  I managed to make it home without incident .

I would definitely like to spend more time in the Southwest.