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Albuquerque NM to Seligman AZ – 425 miles
El Rancho Hotel, Gallup, New Mexico
Continental Divide, I-40, NM
Petrified Forest National Park, I-40, exit 285, AZ
Wigwam Motel, Holbrook, AZ
Standing on the corner, Winslow, AZ
Meteor crater, I-40, exit 233
Twin Arrows, Off I-40, Exit 219, north side Torrential rain, thunder, lightning storm!!!
Historic Route 66 Motel, Seligman, AZ. It’s a very old motel but everything seemed to work. The decor is totally Route 66!
Nevada apparently is having a covid surge as we were required to have a mask to walk into a restaurant to be seated and the employees were wearing masks. Funny thing was, nearly empty restaurant, but we were seated across and right next to others, lol.
We both crashed early last night and Ricks alarm went off at 3:30 and we were rolling at 4:33 am, which was the plan. It was in the 90’s still as we pulled out of Mesquite.
Up to this point since we finished three flags, Rick and I have only been on the interstates . maybe 10 miles (excluding the Sturgis days). Today will be all interstate to beat the heat!
I’ve crossed this desert so many times on past Sturgis trips that I have planned gas stops. Stateline and Barstow, each about 120 miles from us right now, and that is all we need to get home.
Rick took the lead as we had about 80 miles to get to Las Vegas. We witness hot spots, cool spots, scrapes of daylight, Orange glow, dawn, sunrise and truck traffic as we approached North Las Vegas at about 5:30. The traffic into Las Vegas was heavy, but moving as we passed downtown and past the airport.
We stopped at Terrible Hearst Gas Station to gas up at this massive gas station, with tons of pumps and a funny bathroom. I snap some pictures in the men’s restroom of the funny sayings on the wall.. luckily nobody calls the police….
We got started again and headed to Stateline where a large series of solar arrays are that produce electricity with the panels plus focus the reflection to a tower in the center to generate steam for a turbine to generate electricity. Well, that is what Rick told me-never new that, pretty nifty…
From Stateline you have a 10 mile climb into the desert mountains where as a rider, you are greeted with cooler weather for about 30 or 40 miles. From there you drop back down the mountain 10 miles where it heats up to the tiny desert town of Baker…
Now Baker CA is home to the Mad Greek Cafe and the worlds largest thermometer. Baker is also one of the gateway cities to Death Valley. Sounds nice but it is just a gas/food stop for some and in reality, a hot hell hole this time of year. When on a bike though it can be a life saver to stop to cool down, or heat up in winter months. Today’s game plan is pass.
After Baker is a 60 mile stretch to the larger desert town of Barstow CA.
Barstow is a major transportation hub for the Inland Empire. Several major highways, including Interstate 15, Interstate 40, and California State Route 58, converge in the city. It is the site of a large rail classification yard, belonging to the BNSF Railway. The Union Pacific Railroad also runs through town using trackage rights on BNSF’s main line to Daggett10 miles (16 km) east, from where it heads to Salt Lake City and the BNSF heads to Chicago.
Well, I got all that info from Wikipedia, and I reality, it has a pretty Interesting history if your interested.. Barstow History. For us, it’s another gas stop at a truck stop on the right hand side, easy off and easy on. Temps were in the 80s here and we make a quick stop to gas up and wash hands and boom, back on the highway.
From here you already feel like your in LA as the freeway is three lanes and more the rest of the way. From Barstow you climb again and then drop down into Victorville about 30 miles later, and you fight traffic and slowly keep climbing to the Cajon Pass, a massive interstate pass downhill into the LA basin. The pass is always exciting as it’s fast, has long curved downhill grades with lots of trucks, scary drivers, and it’s death defying.
We survived the Cajon Pass and in the distance we are greeted with a familiar LA sight, a layer of brown smog. We bust through the smog barrier and are greeted with another LA favorite on Route 91, stop and go traffic for about 10 miles. After keeping an average speed of 80 mph, we are splitting lanes at 5 to 10 mph negotiating between the cars hoping we don’t clip anyone. Sure enough, we see the culprit of the slowdown.. a construction truck stalled in the number 1 lane.
We survived that and we are on the final tollway to head home. At the split Rick and I part to our respective homes. I get home by 10:15 am and my house has survived the time I was gone.
Now it’s time to see what is growing in my fridge and see if I have any fines from going through the tolls in all those states…
I’ll follow up with another final post on some trip stats and final thoughts , but I really appreciate those that followed and those that commented, it makes this blog worth it.
Thank you!
Today’s goal was either St. George UT, Mesquite NV or Las Vegas NV. Heat is our concern now as we get closer the crossing the desert. Our clearing weather here in UT is also bringing on the heat in the dessert to the highs in Vegas being 111 degrees. Our plan is to at least get to St. George,, see how we feel, and try to progress to Vegas if we can as it will make the next day shorter. Where ever we stay, we will be getting up and rolling by 4:30 am to cross the desert.
Watching the news last night I’m glad we did not push for Torrey UT by Capital Reef as the news showed the flash floods from the monsoonal rains flooding the roads
We left Green River at 7:00 am without a cloud in the sky and morning temperatures about mid to high 70’s- beautiful morning!
The rock formations in the distance are amazing out here in southern Utah, which is the home to Moab, Canyon Lands, Capital Reef, Bryce Canyon and Zion NP. We witness in the distance giant jagged rack formations that look they we thrusted upward from within the earth. I could not capture this on a picture as we head south towards Capital Reef National Park.
The rock formations start getting interesting at about our 50 mile mark. We also notice this area was getting water from yesterday’s rains as small pools of water were apparent in the ditches on the side
We then turn west and start heading into the park. Again, so many amazing views that the camera cannot catch. Also, the road get pretty curvy – hard to snap pictures on the bike 🙂 bottom line, you need to witness this whole area.
While riding through the park, I’m glad we didn’t attempt to get here last night as plenty of dirt on the road at spots.
After Capital Reef we climb as pass to 9,500 feet and descend into the Escalante Staircase region. Again, you need to be here.
After that area we enter into Bryce Canyon National Park area with scenery like your in a cave looking at stalagmites, but your outside and the color of the rock is amazing. Again, you need to be here.
Then our last part of the journey take us through Zion National Park. Slot canyons, checkboxes canyons, rock tunnels, steep descents, tight turns… couldn’t take my hands off the bars but the scenery is amazing riding through this canyon. Again, you need to be here…
But as we decent down the canyon temps increase and by the time we get to the other side and are about 100 degrees.
We makes it to St George and the temps are 107 degrees, We stop for gas, assess that we can make it to Mesquite and proceed through another marvel of Mother Nature and mans need to drive through it, Virgin Canyon. Interstate 15 drops right through this canyon with some amazing views but you fight for your life on your bike with the trucks hauling ass through the curves.
We get to the Mesquite and the temps are 115 degrees, and coolers head prevail and we decide to stay out, cool off, and we will do our last push tomorrow morning at 4:30 am to try and beat the heat.
I checked again if the interstate was still closed and yup, it was. We started at 8 am and it was cool and crisp as we started the backtracking. First time I was wearing gloves so not too many pictures for the vid during the morning hours.
As we headed back over our tracks and back up into the Rockies, this truly is a great stretch of road. We reach Steamboat Springs at 80 miles. At 120 miles in Craig CO, we stopped to put on rain gear as our detour was taking us right into showers…
Sure enough, as soon as we turned off of US-40 and onto CO-13 to head down to Rifle CO, it started to rain. But we were in it only about 15 minutes, then our direction kept us away from rain. Co-13 is a fast two lane road with enough passing lanes and plenty of passing opportunities. My restless night worrying about the detour traffic soon revealed that I over though this. Although there was definitely more traffic, it was bit a traffic nightmare.
200 miles later, we were back on I-70. It would have been 60 miles if the freeway didn’t experience the mudslide. So we had to do 200 miles to get the 60, and 4 hours to get 1 hour.
The plus side was two additional mountain passes and an interstate that didn’t have the crazy traffic on it. It was like how the traffic was 30 years ago.
The weather was great at this point, off came the rain gear, the white puffy clouds look like the jumped out at you. And it was a great ride to Grand Junction CO and to Green River UT.
As we approached the Green River area, you could see the big thunder head clouds over the nearby mountain ranges. Since I didn’t get much sleep due to my stupid worrying and the heat was starting to get me sleepy, we decided to hang at a nice little spot we have stayed at before on the river and call it a day. We didn’t want to get rained on again, plus what’s the hurry?
Sunday 8/2/21 Team 60s Video Summary Eagle COo to Green River UT via Steamboat Springs CO
We got started pretty early today and we were rolling by 7:00 am. First we road to the dealer to see if we could get another omelette from a vender, but they were not open till 8 so we left.
It was cold but sunny and not as smokey as we climbed up back into the Black Hills. Out initial goal was to get to Laramie by 1pm and probably get a room there to wait to cross a cross the Rockies the next morning. It’s the season the monsoons moisture from the gulf surges north and you get afternoon thundershowers in the areas.
As we progressed from the Black Hills the scenery changes back to prairie and grasslands. We co time past Lusk WY , Wheatland WY and finally into Laramie. Weather looked good so we continued and committed to cross the plateau to Grand Junction CO.
Once on the plateau we stopped to gas’s up at Walden CO and decided to book a room in Eagle CO because it was very sunny and warm in Walden. After all, we only had about 85 miles to go to get there.
Well, In about an hour into the leg, we see lots kore cloud gathering and getting darker.
Sure enough, we had to stop and put our rain gear as the rain was definitely coming. For about 30 miles to go, and on our decent down to our hotel we had rain….
When we finally get down from the mountain, the rain stops and we pull into the hotel…
After dinner we talk about what we do tomorrow and I pint to Rick and point to the news I the tv and they report about traffics jams around the mountain towns as I-70 is closed through Glenwood Canyon due to mudslides…
Ugh, we are only about 15 miles from that canyon and that was our route, so we now have to go back where we came from for 50 miles and then do the detour and back down to I-70…
Oh well…
We wanted to see a vendor, so we decided to hang one more night in the Rapid City/Sturgis area. The vendor we wanted to see was out stereo vendor SoundZ at the Black Hills Harley Davidson.
Rick and I arrived there about 8ish as they had a couple of morning appointments and they couldn’t see us till about noon. No problem as we could have breakfast here and check out the additional vendors that opened up today, the first day of the pre-rally days. Of course we ended up getting some additional upgrades and continue the drain on out credit.
We pretty much hung out there till about 3ish, then headed to Sturgis for dinner and wrap up some additional shopping and for me, a few more beers.
Just before heading back to rapid city, I wanted to check out the new Full Throttle saloon as they rebuilt it in a new location. It is about 10 miles outside of Sturgis. The layout was similar to the old place, but nicer of course.
Then we headed back to Rapid City to get ready for our continued March back to SoCal
Well the weatherman was right last night. There were thunder showers last Nate and rained until early morning. I woke up once about 1:30 am to thunder and saw it was raining outside. When I woke up in the morning it was wet, but not raining and the streets were already starting to dry. but also as the weatherman stated, smoky and poor air quality do to the winds pushing smoke from Canadian fires. Amazing how bad it was here as Rapid City is far from the border.
After having out morning breakfast Rick and I payed out a game plan for when to return home, based on weather observations. We decided to stay through Saturday night in Rapid City and start final push towards SoCal. But again, out plans can change.
So today was a ride through some of the black hill via the old towns of Keystone, Mt Rushmore and the faces, Deadwood, Sturgis and then back to Rapid City.
The roads were great as there were not so many bikers riding them. Instead of bikes lining the small towns, it was choke full of cars and family, with a handful of bikers around. That will change in each of the towns as the days progress to the kickoff of the rally next weekend. The biz is starting to happen around the area.
In the morning we had to switch hotels as this current one didn’t have rooms for another night. We wanted to check out what is going on in Rapid City and Sturgis and we wanted another night. We found a hotel around the corner.
The official Sturgis rally dates for 2021 does not start till Friday, August 6th. Vendors are telling us the start of pre-rally is Saturday 7/31/21.
Today Rick and I rode to the Black Hills Harley Davidson dealer is in Rapid City. Typically the parking lot is jammed with bikes with a constant flow of bikes coming and going. The parking lot in front of the dealer is usually filled with vendors like a swap meet.
It is before pre-rally, so a lot of vendors are here already set up, but closed. There are also a lot that are setting up today, and more will set up Friday. And there are quite of few vendors opened for business before pre-rally, so it was nice to shop without the crowds.
Unfortunately for Rick and I, the vendor that was opened was able to drain our credit.
The same goes for downtown Sturgis. Some vendors working, some ready, some setting up. Town is quiet with more cars than bikes. Most of the bars are open or starting to open although not fully at this point. These bars are huge, so only a small sections are open for now, with the help still arriving.
It was great to walk around for shopping for t-shirts, but the small vendors with the interesting items are not yet here, and nether is the root beer guy. Could have used one today, so I settled for the real beers.
Today was a ride of straight lines as we head into the prairie states. The scenery changes to a dryer climate, so as we progress west there will be fewer and fewer trees and eventual grasslands till we hit the mountains in the west.
It was very humid in Okoboji in the morning and quite a bit of heavy dew on the bikes. As we rolled west the humidity started to drop and the skies cleared to a sunny day. Once we left Platt and crossed the Missouri River the scenery makes a more noticeable shift to prairie land.
It was hot and over 100 degrees at noon and we were in the heat until we arrived in Rapid City.
Hotels are unreal in prices and availability this summer. The rally in Sturgis doesn’t start till next weekend yet the prices are like the rally is here. Oh well…
This was a day of transitioning environment. We are starting the transition into the plains states over the next couple of days.
We left Lake Geneva after having breakfast in this resort town about 9 am. Rick and I have been avoiding the interstates since leaving Rhode Island, and today was no different.
As we head west the farms are much bigger and the trees become less scarce as we head west. In the late morning we encounter some drizzle and clouds, but by late morning we are on straighter roads, and the sun is out. All we see are farms that are for miles…
By 6 pm we arrive in Sprit Lake area in the Okoboji IA area, and it’s hot, humid and the fires from the west are affecting the air quality here.
