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- Joined
- Nov 7, 2004
- Messages
- 17,425
- Reaction score
- 5,575
- Location
- Sun Lakes & Show Low, Arizona
- First Name
- Brian
I did a multiple event yesterday. I rode the IBA Memorial 1000, combined it with the SPANK Rally, and set it up to receive Breast Cancer research funds for every mile ridden.
Originally this was to be a three state SaddleSore 1000, starting and ending in Chandler AZ but also encompassing CA and NV. But when my rally packet arrived from SPANK http://spankrally.com/ and I saw that I could garner points by changing my SS to an In-State ride it was a no-brainer.
Friday was spent setting up all my postcards for the rally; stamps (extra points for using the Aloha stamps), proper formatting, signatures, etc, and getting the bike ready. Some of my prep work went out the window when Brenda got home from work and announced that she was going to do the ride with me. So off came the sleeping pad and on went the storage bag and the Geigerrig, her Gerbing jacket, her rain jacket, and my Gerbing gloves (she gets cold easy).
This put me 1.5 hours behind schedule so I didn't get to bed until 7:30 pm. I woke up at 11:30 to perform that task that men of advancing age tend to do when drinking too many fluids, and at that point it would be pointless to go back to sleep as another 1-1.5 hours of sleep would put me right in the middle of a sleep cycle and I'd be groggy. So 11:30 it is. I start getting ready and soon Brenda gets up and I tell her I'd like to be on the road by 1:30. We close the garage door and head out at 1:29.
The first stop is the post office to drop off my "start" postcard as well as some other bonus postcards that did not require any riding, just writing. And due to my superb planning skills (yeah, right!) there is a gas station right next door to the post office. We fill up and I grab my first receipt with a time of 1:37. Within five minutes we are on I-10 East headed south (I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson runs SE). We made the turn at I-8 and head south to Yuma, our first planned rally stop. Between the I-10 / I-18 merge and Dateland we pass one truck and one car. That's it. Oh, and we brake hard to avoid one small coyote. But that was it. There was not a lot of traffic on the road at 2 am.
At Dateland we fuel, pee, eat, and get back with it. About 1.5 hours later we reach the Yuma Armed Forces Memorial, a site on the Tour Of Honor ride I did earlier in the year. Visiting past rally/tour locations garners me bonus points so I hit my check-in button on my SPOT to mark the location and then begin backtracking on I-8 to Fortuna / 95. Half a mile south of I-8 is the post office so I drop off my two bonus cards plus my card marking my "corner" and then head to the nearest gas station to satisfy my corner requirements for the IBA certification. The receipt doesn't print so I have to go inside to get another copy. More wasted time. Doesn't this guy understand that I'm a LD Rider? I'm on the "clock", darn it, and his equipment is slowing me down!
Actually, the extra 60 seconds that it took me was no big deal.
Now we're northbound on 95 out of Yuma heading for Kingman. 95 takes you past the Army Proving Grounds where they play with lots of big guns. GM has also moved its desert facility here. If you look closely on the east side of the road you'll see an aerostat floating at between 1500 - 3000 feet. This is one of the "birds" maintaining a radar fence of the southern US border. Now, aside from the blimps, the Army dudes, the GM dudes, and some jackrabbits/coyotes, there really isn't much between Yuma and Quartzsite other than one Border Patrol inspection station so "brisk" speed can be obtained on this good road.
A quick stop in Quartzsite to see if a friend was waiting at the Love's. He wasn't, so a splash of gas, a quick unloading of fluids for me, and we were back on our way. Riding through Parker and up to Lake Havasu is always nice unless you're doing it mid-summer when the temps are 110+. Rolling through Havasu City I came up on an ST-riding Moto Cop. He gave me a thumbs up and asked where I was heading. We conversed for a minute, I got a recommendation for a local place to hit for breakfast and went our separate ways. We ate at a place called Rusty's, and while it's not the best breakfast joint I've every been to, you could tell that this was a favored location by the locals. 30 minutes or so and we were back on the bike.
A few minutes later and we were fueling at the intersection of 95 / I-40 to obtain my next "corner" receipt and off we rode to Kingman. Exiting at Beale we quickly found the local PO and since they were open for business I stood in line to get my cards postmarked by hand (preferable but not always possible for purposes of the rally). We then rode to the Doxol Disaster Memorial, another location on the TOH list that I had hit previously. A few minutes there for Brenda to get some photos and then off we go again.
This brought us to our only encounter with an #%%&*!$ on the entire trip. He was hogging the left lane so I dropped into the right to pass and he sped up. I didn't give it much effort so I let him pull ahead and I dropped behind so we could pass a series of semi's. After passing the line of trucks he remained in the left lane and I once again moved to the right lane and he immediately began to pick up speed. The first time I wasn't sure but this time it was noticable. So without even downshifting, I twisted the handle and squeezed past him and the semi we were coming up on. After that he hung back from me and didn't try anything else.
From then on it was uneventful and we stopped in Williams, just south of the Grand Canyon for our next fuel stop. Wow! $4.29/gallon. I had stopped there because it was a quicker off/on than stopping in Flagstaff but I sure paid a price for the convenience. Our next planned stop was the Walnut Canyon National Monument, just east of Flagstaff. As many times as I've ridden that road I've never noticed the sign but since it's a bonus location we make the stop. I get my Park Stamp on my postcard and they are even willing to mail it for me.
Next stop will be the Petrified Forest, east of Holbrook and just west of the AZ/NM state line. However, as I'm riding I see two large arrows sticking out of the ground and recall that this is a location from a game of "tag" that we play on www.southwestrides.com I turn around and get the photo and then return to I-40.
As we pass Winslow I can feel the lack of sleep catching up on me and Microsleeps are battling my eyelids so I know I need to get off the road. Remembering that Holbrook has a nice rest area somewhere near the interstate I exit at Gila Rd and sure enough, there is it. Shady, cool grass, verandas to park the bike under, far enough from the highway to not be noisy. I pull off my helmet, tuck my rain jacket under my head, and within minutes I'm cutting logs.
I wake a few times to the noise of Brenda taking photos of me sleeping and of her calling to a bunny rabbit in the bushes, but what woke me the most was the BNSF freight rolling by at 60 mph about 50 feet behind those bushes in the photo. Laying on the ground when that freight went by was like laying on one of those massage beds in a cheap motel room. 30 minutes went by as if it was 5, but when I woke up I was very refreshed and ready to go. A total of 45 minutes off the bike and then we were back on the move.
Reaching the Petrified Forest I took another photo and this one becomes the new "tag" location for anyone willing to put some miles on their bike. We play both a city tag game and a statewide tag game. Obviously, the state game has very few players. Slackers.
Inside I get my card stamped with the Park Stamp and discover that if I place the card in their mailbox outside it will get a Petrified Forest postmark. Done! I submit both the Park bonus card and my "corner" card, we gas up, and head back west to Holbrook. Upon reaching town we turn south and head for Globe via Show Low. We rode through a freshly oiled Salt River Canyon at dusk so there was no peg scraping going on this time.
After reaching Globe and gassing up (and off-loading my own fluids) I make a decision to skip riding down to Willcox for my final corner as that will add about 200 miles to my route. 200 miles that I really don't need. So we go to the Globe PO to drop off a "corner" postcard and then head west on 60 back to Phoenix but knowing that I need more miles (not just 200 more) I detour south on the Florence Highway (79) and then after passing Florence we turn west to Coolidge and then south again to Eloy and once again reach I-10. This time we turn north (west) and head back to Phoenix. It's about this time that Brenda's helmet is pressing against the back of mine and I know she's sleeping. I wake her a couple of times but I know she's really bushed at this point.
As we make it back to the metro area we stop at Rudy's BBQ three minutes before they close so that I can pick up some sausage for yet another bonus. There is a Waffle House bonus less than a mile away but I can tell that I need to get Brenda home soon so we head to the final destination... the original post office and gas station.
I drop off the food bonus card and the "final" SS1K card, run next door to put some gas in the dirty fat girl and get my last receipt with 3H 10M left to spare. Total mileage is only about 1026 (gps) so I'm cutting it close. We ride the 2.5 miles home, get a quick shower, and then Brenda is in bed fast asleep in a matter of minutes. I stay up to check emails and respond to some forum posts and then I too hit the sack.
8.5 hours later I'm up and working on my paperwork. A friend down the street rode a BBG on his ST1100 yesterday and got home a couple of hours after me, so I ride over to his place to get my documentation finished. Now it's just a matter of compiling everything and getting it mailed off.
Planned route:
Actual route:
Originally this was to be a three state SaddleSore 1000, starting and ending in Chandler AZ but also encompassing CA and NV. But when my rally packet arrived from SPANK http://spankrally.com/ and I saw that I could garner points by changing my SS to an In-State ride it was a no-brainer.
Friday was spent setting up all my postcards for the rally; stamps (extra points for using the Aloha stamps), proper formatting, signatures, etc, and getting the bike ready. Some of my prep work went out the window when Brenda got home from work and announced that she was going to do the ride with me. So off came the sleeping pad and on went the storage bag and the Geigerrig, her Gerbing jacket, her rain jacket, and my Gerbing gloves (she gets cold easy).
This put me 1.5 hours behind schedule so I didn't get to bed until 7:30 pm. I woke up at 11:30 to perform that task that men of advancing age tend to do when drinking too many fluids, and at that point it would be pointless to go back to sleep as another 1-1.5 hours of sleep would put me right in the middle of a sleep cycle and I'd be groggy. So 11:30 it is. I start getting ready and soon Brenda gets up and I tell her I'd like to be on the road by 1:30. We close the garage door and head out at 1:29.
The first stop is the post office to drop off my "start" postcard as well as some other bonus postcards that did not require any riding, just writing. And due to my superb planning skills (yeah, right!) there is a gas station right next door to the post office. We fill up and I grab my first receipt with a time of 1:37. Within five minutes we are on I-10 East headed south (I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson runs SE). We made the turn at I-8 and head south to Yuma, our first planned rally stop. Between the I-10 / I-18 merge and Dateland we pass one truck and one car. That's it. Oh, and we brake hard to avoid one small coyote. But that was it. There was not a lot of traffic on the road at 2 am.
At Dateland we fuel, pee, eat, and get back with it. About 1.5 hours later we reach the Yuma Armed Forces Memorial, a site on the Tour Of Honor ride I did earlier in the year. Visiting past rally/tour locations garners me bonus points so I hit my check-in button on my SPOT to mark the location and then begin backtracking on I-8 to Fortuna / 95. Half a mile south of I-8 is the post office so I drop off my two bonus cards plus my card marking my "corner" and then head to the nearest gas station to satisfy my corner requirements for the IBA certification. The receipt doesn't print so I have to go inside to get another copy. More wasted time. Doesn't this guy understand that I'm a LD Rider? I'm on the "clock", darn it, and his equipment is slowing me down!
Actually, the extra 60 seconds that it took me was no big deal.
Now we're northbound on 95 out of Yuma heading for Kingman. 95 takes you past the Army Proving Grounds where they play with lots of big guns. GM has also moved its desert facility here. If you look closely on the east side of the road you'll see an aerostat floating at between 1500 - 3000 feet. This is one of the "birds" maintaining a radar fence of the southern US border. Now, aside from the blimps, the Army dudes, the GM dudes, and some jackrabbits/coyotes, there really isn't much between Yuma and Quartzsite other than one Border Patrol inspection station so "brisk" speed can be obtained on this good road.
A quick stop in Quartzsite to see if a friend was waiting at the Love's. He wasn't, so a splash of gas, a quick unloading of fluids for me, and we were back on our way. Riding through Parker and up to Lake Havasu is always nice unless you're doing it mid-summer when the temps are 110+. Rolling through Havasu City I came up on an ST-riding Moto Cop. He gave me a thumbs up and asked where I was heading. We conversed for a minute, I got a recommendation for a local place to hit for breakfast and went our separate ways. We ate at a place called Rusty's, and while it's not the best breakfast joint I've every been to, you could tell that this was a favored location by the locals. 30 minutes or so and we were back on the bike.
A few minutes later and we were fueling at the intersection of 95 / I-40 to obtain my next "corner" receipt and off we rode to Kingman. Exiting at Beale we quickly found the local PO and since they were open for business I stood in line to get my cards postmarked by hand (preferable but not always possible for purposes of the rally). We then rode to the Doxol Disaster Memorial, another location on the TOH list that I had hit previously. A few minutes there for Brenda to get some photos and then off we go again.
This brought us to our only encounter with an #%%&*!$ on the entire trip. He was hogging the left lane so I dropped into the right to pass and he sped up. I didn't give it much effort so I let him pull ahead and I dropped behind so we could pass a series of semi's. After passing the line of trucks he remained in the left lane and I once again moved to the right lane and he immediately began to pick up speed. The first time I wasn't sure but this time it was noticable. So without even downshifting, I twisted the handle and squeezed past him and the semi we were coming up on. After that he hung back from me and didn't try anything else.
From then on it was uneventful and we stopped in Williams, just south of the Grand Canyon for our next fuel stop. Wow! $4.29/gallon. I had stopped there because it was a quicker off/on than stopping in Flagstaff but I sure paid a price for the convenience. Our next planned stop was the Walnut Canyon National Monument, just east of Flagstaff. As many times as I've ridden that road I've never noticed the sign but since it's a bonus location we make the stop. I get my Park Stamp on my postcard and they are even willing to mail it for me.
Next stop will be the Petrified Forest, east of Holbrook and just west of the AZ/NM state line. However, as I'm riding I see two large arrows sticking out of the ground and recall that this is a location from a game of "tag" that we play on www.southwestrides.com I turn around and get the photo and then return to I-40.
As we pass Winslow I can feel the lack of sleep catching up on me and Microsleeps are battling my eyelids so I know I need to get off the road. Remembering that Holbrook has a nice rest area somewhere near the interstate I exit at Gila Rd and sure enough, there is it. Shady, cool grass, verandas to park the bike under, far enough from the highway to not be noisy. I pull off my helmet, tuck my rain jacket under my head, and within minutes I'm cutting logs.
I wake a few times to the noise of Brenda taking photos of me sleeping and of her calling to a bunny rabbit in the bushes, but what woke me the most was the BNSF freight rolling by at 60 mph about 50 feet behind those bushes in the photo. Laying on the ground when that freight went by was like laying on one of those massage beds in a cheap motel room. 30 minutes went by as if it was 5, but when I woke up I was very refreshed and ready to go. A total of 45 minutes off the bike and then we were back on the move.
Reaching the Petrified Forest I took another photo and this one becomes the new "tag" location for anyone willing to put some miles on their bike. We play both a city tag game and a statewide tag game. Obviously, the state game has very few players. Slackers.
Inside I get my card stamped with the Park Stamp and discover that if I place the card in their mailbox outside it will get a Petrified Forest postmark. Done! I submit both the Park bonus card and my "corner" card, we gas up, and head back west to Holbrook. Upon reaching town we turn south and head for Globe via Show Low. We rode through a freshly oiled Salt River Canyon at dusk so there was no peg scraping going on this time.
After reaching Globe and gassing up (and off-loading my own fluids) I make a decision to skip riding down to Willcox for my final corner as that will add about 200 miles to my route. 200 miles that I really don't need. So we go to the Globe PO to drop off a "corner" postcard and then head west on 60 back to Phoenix but knowing that I need more miles (not just 200 more) I detour south on the Florence Highway (79) and then after passing Florence we turn west to Coolidge and then south again to Eloy and once again reach I-10. This time we turn north (west) and head back to Phoenix. It's about this time that Brenda's helmet is pressing against the back of mine and I know she's sleeping. I wake her a couple of times but I know she's really bushed at this point.
As we make it back to the metro area we stop at Rudy's BBQ three minutes before they close so that I can pick up some sausage for yet another bonus. There is a Waffle House bonus less than a mile away but I can tell that I need to get Brenda home soon so we head to the final destination... the original post office and gas station.
I drop off the food bonus card and the "final" SS1K card, run next door to put some gas in the dirty fat girl and get my last receipt with 3H 10M left to spare. Total mileage is only about 1026 (gps) so I'm cutting it close. We ride the 2.5 miles home, get a quick shower, and then Brenda is in bed fast asleep in a matter of minutes. I stay up to check emails and respond to some forum posts and then I too hit the sack.
8.5 hours later I'm up and working on my paperwork. A friend down the street rode a BBG on his ST1100 yesterday and got home a couple of hours after me, so I ride over to his place to get my documentation finished. Now it's just a matter of compiling everything and getting it mailed off.
Planned route:
Actual route:
