Category: Posts from the Route

Leaving Taos Thursday, I stopped by the Earthship community along Hwy64, snapped some pics, and kept on trucking. I last refueled in Springer NM. This would later haunt me as I drove along 64 thru the Carson National Forest, not realizing there would be no gas for another 100 miles or so.

Hwy64 thru the Carson Forest was about as pretty as any national park. The road reaches 9000′ near Hopewell Lake, travels at that altitude for 10 miles or so, then goes on up to 10,532′ (per gps) at an unnammed, unmarked pass, surounded by for sale signs for large ranch tracts (5,000 acres and more).  I dropped into Tierra Amarilla and refueled at a place that was built by someone in the 50’s and kept as such since then,  a real time machine.

I connected with US84 to cross over into Colorado and into Pagosa Springs. What a cool town. Hot Springs, big 14,000 peaks surrounding the area.. great spot to get away and hide.

I drove thru Durango, it was hot down lower at 5000′. Then across the vast opens to Monticello UT.

The drive from Monticello to I-70 takes you thru Moab, and miles and miles of canyons, red rocks, and desert landscape. The La Sal Mountains loom large and green over the red and yellow landscape. Mt. Peale reaches 12,760′, a 6,100 rise from the bottom.

I linked up with I-70 for 20-30 miles. The posted speed limit is 80mph! There was a strong crosswind near the Green River exit that was shoving my bike all over the lane. I literally had to lean as if into a turn to keel the bike on a line.

Jumping off I70, I picked up Hwy 6 thru Price and Spanish Fork, taking me over Soldier Pass. The sun was setting, as I passed by the windmills at Spanish Fork.

Picking up I15, I had a 35 mile ride at high speeds. I thought people in Atlanta drive fast. These locals roll hard and crank their cars even though the Utah State Patrol was visible all along the route.

Around 9:30pm I landed at Tai’s house up near the entrance of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Long day. Start riding at ~8am. Stopped at ~10pm.  One long stop for lunch in Manco Colorado, several fuel stops, and that’s it.

It’s been a long couple of days since the last post.

Wednesday, I drove from Little Rock to Dumas Texas, about 50 miles north of Amarillo Texas.  That was long, but relatively uneventful in terms of mishaps! Just fast and hot riding. Read into that what you will.

I kipped at the Motel6. It was a pretty place to stay all in all. Dumas overcharges for hotel rooms, since it’s the only town in the area, and a major stopping over point for cross country travelers.

I left out around 10am. The day was fraught with family drama back at home. Phones are great and all, but the other side of that sword, is you are never really out of reach for any meaningful length of time.  Owing to this drama, I literally had to stop on the side of the road to 1- Take The Calls 2- Recover from the Calls.  Gotta love “Family Love”. Makes a body feel good. Makes a man feel mature and respected as such.

Not. and… Not.

I was able to enjoy the scenery without the infliction of more doses of “Family Love”.

I drove thru some beautiful country, and that was a nice contrepoint to the drama. I could see for nearly a hundred miles. I saw an entire thunderstorm, must have been 50-100 miles wide, and from the ground to the top of the clouds. Just at a glance you could see the entire storm. Endless fields of cows and horses, all on a high altitude plain. Luckily for me, mobile coverage was terrible. Texas secondary highways are pretty good. Nice wide shoulders, high speed limits, and very little in the way of traffic. You could tell when you reached NM. There was no actual state line sign. The road quality suffered, shoulders disappeared, and mobile coverage became even worse. I was within easy range of several towers. I guess they were turned off? (I am on Verizon..)

As pretty as that was, that all changed. I arrived in Springer, NM at a truck stop on I-25. I was heading across the expressway, not actually getting on it. In the distance a nasty dark thunderstorm, complete with lightning bursts stood in my way. So I dawdled a while, donning my rain suit, and waterproofing things just to be double sure. About an hour later, I mustered the courage, and drove into the storm.

I noticed a gap between the storm cells, and it seemed that the route I would take would thread the needle between them.

As I arrived in Cimarron NM, I figured I got it right. It was a bad storm, but not nearly as bad as what had just past, and what was coming along shortly. I entered Cimarron Canyon, and the smell of mountains, rock, and trees was welcome. Slick curvy roads with 25-35mph speed limits, and out of state tourists driving to their vacations made it slow going. Trout rivers alongside the road, big canyon walls, great views.

I popped out on the other end into a clearing the size of, perhaps, Atlanta. At an altitude of  8,500′, it was a high plain,  clearing large enough to have most of the downtown, midtown, buckhead.. heck I dont know.. it was big. This is aptly named Eagles Nest. A mecca for mountain vacations and fishing. I was going to fly fish, and discovered the night before that I left my fly reel back in Atlanta. Rather than forking over UPS shipping money, I found a fly shop in Eagle’s Nest, and picked up a Reddington 3 weight reel and American Angler line. Yeah, I know. Small tackle. The larger tackle would not fit in my luggage, so would likely have just been appropriated off my bike at some gas station along the way.

Better a small pole, than no pole. (There’s a joke in there somewhere that you can sort out on your own. 😉

I rode on through to Taos (El Prado) near the resort to stay with my friends, Andy and Nancy. They have a beautiful home, surrounded by gardens, and a 100 mile view from their back yard, and a view of the south face of the Taos Ski Mountain from their front yard. They live next to a full rodeo style horse farm with all the fixtures and critters.

We had a nice dinner at Medley. Our waitress was new, but super nice. She looked just like Sloan from Ferris Beuller! The food was great.

 

 

 

 

 

I will quickly dash this post off just as a quick update.
[Update: I got carried away and wrote the entire post.]

The ride was good, but it was a VERY hot day. I did not put on sunscreen. I had removed my left glove to be able to maniplate things more easily, like zippers, the camelbak tube, touch a button the gps or touchscreen phone.. etc. My right wrist was also exposed. Both got SCORCHED. Fun. New rule. Sunscreen whether or no I think I need it.  So there.

I tried to visit Wortmann in Highland Park Birmingham, but I missed the one and only exit off I-20 in downtown Birmingham, and a 4 minute drive off the expressway would now take 15-20 minutes to get turned around and back again.  I wonder how much economic activity is stifled by this road design? Something to ponder.

So, relying on my overpriced Garmin Navigator 5, I was trying to get on the relatively new I-22 to Memphis from Birmingham. That did not play well. The Garmin took me around 20 miles out of the way, and then mapped me thru a “tricky” neighborhood, putting me on Tin Mill Road to get all the way up to I-22. Miles of secondary road, thru some questionable areas.

So, I made a point of using BOTH the phone GPS (Android LG4 on Verizon) and the Garmin. Guess what? The Garmin continually fouled up routing procedures. Along I-22, it kept routing off into the middle of nowhere, backtracking northeastward into rural areas.. doubling the drive time from 2.5 hours to ~4-5 hours. I really did not need a GPS riding on I-22. I was simply product testing.

Brilliant Garmin. Great stuff. #fail

[I will write another article about Garmin/DeLorme Inreach. Horrendous product, requires activation before the device can be used at all, it was DOA, no tech support after M-F business hours for a Search & Rescue device (Wow, right?) and then they have a NO Refund policy even if the device was never able to activate. I smell a federal level ICC fraud cause of action. That’s just theft, pure and simple. From the articles I have read, Spot3 is NOT much better, so..it must be endemic to the culture of the GPS industry. ]

I digress. Moving on.

I-22 is a beautiful stretch of road, with no traffic, good services, and nice views. You can really lay down miles. I ended up driving through Oxford. A good friend’s family is from nearby there. I had him on the phone as I drove thru, and he gave me the low down on all the stuff around there. The phone is the only thing I can do on the bike in terms of communication. I can voice command the calls, and the call quality is pretty good. Folks really can’t tell I am on a bike doing “55mph”. 😉

Pitstopping for fuel and food at the Love’s Truck Stop in Jasper Alabama. There, I met some nice people. #ShoutOut to Charles Wilson and also to Oscar! Oscar was on his way to Florida to take delivery on an RV. They are taking that RV with his kids and grandkids up to Alaska for FOUR MONTHS. Small world, right? Oscar, drop me a line after I get back, would love to share the experiences for your trip planning.

The Garmin made a further solid effort to foul up my approach into Memphis. I-22 inexplicably ends before it connects to another expressway. So, it’s lights, and surface traffic for 5 miles before you are back on the Interstate highway. Luckily, the Google Maps GPS worked just fine.

I visited my cousin who lives near Germantown. She and I are in the same industry. I had a taste of my own medicine when I pulled up. She was tangling with a HVAC engineer for an office building she deals with. She had a crew of landscapers working late. And she had a relative dropping in out of the blue on motorcycle. I so laughed. I have the same thing happen in my life.. at 8pm at night.. and I wonder why I am stressed out!

Anyway, she is super cool, and we do not get to see each other much at all. We have a lot in common. We have similar dogs, similar colorings at least. We both like Ms. Pac Man, she even has a full sized vintage cocktail model. We are both perennially single. We are 4 days apart in age. We do a lot of the same things, and both work in commercial real estate in similar functions and capacities. She has started a burgeoning business making woodcraft products. Once she sends me a link to her Etsy.com store, I will share it here. She makes some neat stuff! Totally forgot to take pictures of her samples. (I am an #AirHead! lol)

We had a quick hello and good bye, then I dashed across town visit her mom Bunny, my dad’s cousin, and her partner Cee. It was great to see them.

I had been told Little Rock was only 1.5 hours from Memphis. Au Contraire. More like 2.5 hours, and there were about 2 dozen 55-60mph construction zones, and endless large semi’s generating dangerous turbulence, especially with the aerodynamics of my bike’s load. Given the highway is more narrow than most, this rendered a memorable white knuckle ride thru the darkness of rural Arkansas.

I arrived at Midnight shaving 20 minutes off the GPS ETA, even with a gas and body break at an exit that would give the Heeby Jeebies even to David Lynch. Nice folks, chatty even, but.. just a bit “differint”.

My destination was Buddha’s place, way on the other side of Little Rock. Cheron Valley Road was a nice treat, beautiful curved parkway. Great way to end a stressful day. Even better, Buddha had lined up a garage space for the bike, pizza, cold beer, a cushy spare bedroom, and two friendly large dogs that took a shine to me. He has this amazing “museum” of his rugby memorabilia. Buddha has served all of the Old Boys for a long while, orchestrating those ORBS Freeport Bahamas trips of fame and renown.

Here are some of their past exploits. An era of Atlanta Renegades heading to Freeport for Memorial Day seems to have petered out, the younger crew not joining in the tours every year. Hopefully, there will be renewed interest. It was a solid run, 15-20 years of Freeport Frenzied Fun.. I only went three times, but.. those weekends really were Memorable.

The 2008 Market Collapse really hobbled my travel abilities. It’s a funny thing, life. Then, I could no longer afford to book a flight and share a hotel room to go and make some amazing memories and play my favorite sport. Now, 10 years later, I am lighting out on a 30-40 day adventure with a big old bike and tons of gear. Life does have it’s changes and seasons. I am looking forward to this season!

ORBS Elvis Tour. Buddha is in red.

I woke up early, but lost my wall charger for all the gadgets. I had to mine thru all the gear, and repack. Actually, it was where I packed it, I just overlooked seeing, and kept on unpacking until I found it.

So many people have been jotting down the blog’s website, I also really need to get this blog filled in with some preliminary content.

Now,  it is fast approaching 2pm. I may just camp here one more day, and enjoy Buddha and D’s company. Still, the longer I linger here, means the less time I have to enjoy the Rockie’s on the way to Salt Lake

City BMW MOA.

However, that pool is looking good..