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Get out of the heat

Joined
Apr 5, 2005
Messages
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Location
Yuma, AZ
First Name
Adam
Last Name
McCreight
I read about a trip a few years back called the centipassi. They were to cross the continental divide ten times in one day; all on Italian bikes. Sounds like a good excuse to go for a ride to me. I attempted it a few years back but after pushing my bike through west texas in the July heat I gave up and headed home. 840 miles in one day and I didn't go anywhere.

A few months back I sold my Honda VFR to a buddy, Butus in Dallas. When he came to Tucson to pick it up I found out that this was his first time west of Ft. Worth. Our local mountians were the first real mountains he had ridden on. So the trip was then set, what better way to start to understand the west than to take some Colorado roads. The trip name would need to change since the bikes were to be a VFR, my wife Terra on a F650CS and me on a R1200GS. How about keeping it simple and calling it get out of the heat, 07!

Today, Tuesday the 3rd, I wake up at 5:30 ready to go. Bags are packed, clothes laid out, but there is a snag, 8 hours of work. On the 8th hour I now sit in a meeting writing this. I do not need to be in the meeting, I wonder if they will notice if I step out? Current temp is 105 outside. Lets see if I can make it out of the desert before I melt!
 
I do not need to be in the meeting, I wonder if they will notice if I step out?

Pretend to get an important call, step out just far enough so they can hear you say "IS SHE OK???" in a flustered voice, then excuse yourself. :trust:
 
Oh, and let the adventure begin! We want pics and stories as soon as you get back! :thumb:
 
I have a pager. We also have software to send alpha-numeric messages. It also sends timed pages. ;)
 
Pretend to get an important call, step out just far enough so they can hear you say "IS SHE OK???" in a flustered voice, then excuse yourself. :trust:

That would be good, but the she everyone knows is also the she that is in front of me in the meeting. Yeah, Terra works about 10 feet from me and does a similar job. SHE just said, if you ever walk out of a meeting sayind "is she ok?" there will be more problems than just leaving a meeting :rofl:
 
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We are in Pagosa Springs drinking a few beers right now. Bad news is that I do no have the camera USB cord so I will not give up too much now except that I love Arizona.

60 miles from my house we start to cross a mountians, the road becomes curvy and eventually a canyon forms. The best switchbacks I have ever seen (not that I have been too far in this world). Too bad it was all in the dark so we are going to have to go back there on Saturday so you all can see what I think is there.

Adam
 
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We are back. For Terra and I it was just under 2000 miles door to door. We left out after work on the 3rd and came back last night at 12:30. I will say sorry for the bad pictures in advance it was my first time to use a camera mount on the bike.


Like I said above we left after work on Tuesday just to cut some miles out of our trip. I am used to having to drive through the pan handle to get out here but driving through AZ is a little different, we went though canyons, mountain passes and saw all kinds of beauty. Too bad I do not have the real camera yet so you get to only see some straight roads with my back up camera.

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Bet you had a lot of fun. The canyon you speak of is indeed great. You'll see a lot of sportbike videos in that particular section. Did you notice the old bridge as you crossed over the new one?

My mom has spent the summers in Show Low / Pinetop for the past 25 years or so and my recently deceased stepdad spent almost all his summers there as he grew up. His cousin is the Wildlife Manager for the White Mtn Apache Tribe and he leads world class Elk hunts up there as well.

You were very close to one of the best roads in the country but according to your GPS map it doesn't look like you made it over far enough. Look for the road to Hannigan's Meadow the next time you're up in that area.
 
Day 2

Day 2 was interesting. Driving across an Indian Reservation in AZ isn't like Oklahoma, no Casinos and a lot of space. The US Gov't gave them the driest land available. We didn’t see a cop all day and took advantage the freedom.

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That night we enjoyed fireworks and a camp fire in Pagosa Springs.

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Bet you had a lot of fun. The canyon you speak of is indeed great. You'll see a lot of sportbike videos in that particular section. Did you notice the old bridge as you crossed over the new one?

My mom has spent the summers in Show Low / Pinetop for the past 25 years or so and my recently deceased stepdad spent almost all his summers there as he grew up. His cousin is the Wildlife Manager for the White Mtn Apache Tribe and he leads world class Elk hunts up there as well.

You were very close to one of the best roads in the country but according to your GPS map it doesn't look like you made it over far enough. Look for the road to Hannigan's Meadow the next time you're up in that area.

It does look like a good road! I will be back soon, that is only 150 miles from the house. I cannot wait to hit the road again!

As for the bridge, I did see two, but it was dusk when we went by and I was trying to get out of there before it got dark. And on the way home by slave driver of a wife kept us going and we ended up driving through the canon in the pitch darkness of AZ with lightning all aound us. I wish I had a way to take a picture of that! Oh yeah, there are bats all over the place in the canyon and Terra got hit in the leg by one.
 
The next time you're up in the Four Corners take some time to do the tourist thing; go to Chinle and see the old Anasazi ruins, then go up to Monument Valley (looks like you were right there) and stay at Gouldings Lodge... http://www.gouldings.com/english/index.htm This is where John Ford and John Wayne made so many of those memorable Westerns.

This image is a sunset looking out over the valley from the front of our cabin (built sometime in the 20's I would guess) at Gouldings.
 

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I had one of the best times of my life on the ride with Firstman and his wife. Never been up in the rockies and having grown up in WV I thought I knew what mountains were! The first day on the way to meet them I stopped in Taos, NM, but I was on the bad side of town. I was trying to figure out what Firstman was raving about until the next day when I headed east through town. Really pretty town, all the adobe buildings were really cool. But I get ahead of myself.

The ride out of Texas was pretty quiet with the exception of one ticket after which I became a good boy and pulled it in a little bit. The officer pointed out my safety inspection was a bit out and suggested I stop in Sharp's motorsports in Amarillo which I did. Very nice helpful people got it done nice and quick and I was on the road in no time.

Once in NM I got attacked by what I thought was a swarm of something, there was a sharp sting inside my jacket up by my neck, then another and another. I was close to a rest stop so I pulled off and got my jack off, expecting half a dozen hornets only to find one lone green bee! But he did sting me about ten times which I didn't think was possible but a trip to the restroom verified a number of decent welts on my shoulder and chest and I could feel a number on my back. While I was at the rest stop cleaning my visor an older gentleman asked me where I was going and informed me that there was hail up further. I started wondering exactly what I'd signed up for and what was going to be coming my way! For some time I'd seen a huge rain storm off in the distance and I wasn't worried about that, the road seemed to wind around it anyway. Off from the rest stop I did indeed hit the hail, not big stuff and my leather jacket caught most of it. The occaisional shot to the neck was nice though, followed by a nice little trail of melting ice down my chest.

After that it was pretty quiet until I hit the first National Park north of Cimarron, NM, Ute Park. That was an amazingly beautiful place, the road is nice and twisty with fantastic rock formations surrounding you. I was tempted to stop there but Firstman was pretty clear that Taos was a great place to stop. After Ute you hit Eagle's Nest and then Angel Fire. Absolutely perfect riding (at least I thought so until later when it kept getting more perfect!).

My GPS was telling me that I was a couple miles from Taos and I was getting a little nervous because night was setting in. I'd passed a number of camping sites and a warning from Firstman about riding at night in the mountains being a little dangerous with the deer coming out was setting in a little bit. So where was the town? Was this his little joke of the day? I kept remembering that one of his favorite Jeeping towns, Clayton OK, is pretty much a postage stamp with one motel in it and missing that motel could make for a very fun night! With just 0.4 miles to go finally the hints of civilization showed up in the form of a police cruiser, fire truck etc. There was an accident and they were turning people back. Excellent, I am within half a mile from town (and a bathroom!) and they are turning me around. Well in GPS I trust and as advertised it routed me back through a residential area to the other side of Taos. As Firstman later asked, "are you on the Walmart side", and yes, yes I was. Hence my disappointment with Taos until the next day. I got a motel room and got to resting to get ready for the next day. A very nice day of riding covering about 700 miles.
 
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Day 3 the Passes


We woke up from our first night of camping and I wasn’t sore and I slept well. This was a great start to the day. The heat was gone, it was in the low 50s, so we decided to find a place to eat in town and that would give us another hour for the world to warm up. At 6 am the roads were empty it was cool, but manageable with the windshield and heated grips. After breakfast we hit the road. To keep it short we were able to cover 9 passes, 6 divides. The major mistake of the day was at 11 I asked are you both hungry, they said no. So, I didn’t stop again until the next gas stop. I asked again, are you hungry, and the mob almost lynched me!

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At the below pass a van pulled up and a man came out and said he had a 99VFR. I saw the plates were from Texas so I asked him where he was from. Huntsville.... Are you on TWTEX? Turns out he is our own 99VFR! Small world. Also, this valley echoed. It was wild, either side was 1/4 mile away it seemed and my voiced bounced off of the walls like I was in a big cave.
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More to come later.
 
The day flew by, You do not need any pictures of this day, every mile had beautiful curves. The first half of the day was going over the Rio Grande. I would say we went over it 10-12 times; maybe more. I was leading most of the day so any animals that were on the road were seen by me first. 1 marmot, 2 ground squirls, and one dumb dog. This day did beat the heat. At 4pm it was raining and the temps at ledville were 50 or so degrees. Due to being at 10,000 feet we were freesing and having issues finding a parking space in Leadville. We found a steep one and we parked the bikes being careful they would stay rubber side down while we were gone.

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This is the late lunch I spoke about in the previous post. It was good. I love old towns that are on a side of a mountain. I have several replacements for Eureka Springs AR now. After lunch I help Terra pull her bike out of the parking space and look back at Brutus since I hear %$#$%! I see tires, a side of a bike and almost no Burtus. Like all good bikers, at a 0 mph fall he put his body between him and the bike. Nothing much happened to the bike, just a scrach on the faring. Good job Brutus! I took it slow after this to make sure he wasn’t shook up. He wasn’t and the pace picked up again

We got up to I70 and wow, this is the only interstate that I have enjoyed. The highway goes over the contintinal divide. While it was not 15 mph curves, it wasn’t I-10 either. At the top there is a nice tunnel that you go through, sorry, I took the picture late and I a picture of the inside of the tunnel. Then we turned north towards winter park. Wow, a whole town made up from a ski slop. I became squiddish here and started to pass people on blind curves. However, I got to the divide right as I passed the last people and had miles of curves to coast down and enjoy. We slept at Kremmling RV park that night. What a flat piece of earth in the middle of CO.

Dang, I should have got a fire/food shot. Several hundred miles before we stopped for gas In Gunnison and bought some BBQ. Where I live now doesn’t have BBQ. We started a nice fire and laid out some foil and soaked the ribs, sliced beef and turkey in BBQ sauce. It was great. Terra and I went to bed early, Mark said up and watched the fire go out.

Map of the day!
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There is some video of this day, but few pictures. Sorry.

Tomorrow is 1 more divide, a few passes and my favorite town Ouray.
 
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Yep, I was pretty mad at myself for not getting more between my bike and the curb, this VFR is 10 years old and the two previous owners managed to maintain her with nary a scratch and I put a couple on in the first month and a half. Not major, just hurts my soul to know they are there even if you can't see them from ten feet away.

But other than that I have to concur with Firstman, absolutely beautiful area and coming from the 90 (feels like 100) 80% humidity of Dallas it was shocking and excellent to be in sub 60 degree weather! No heated grips on the VFR so team BMW had a slight advantage in that department. Firstman graciously did not put on the heated vest!
 
Day 4


We woke up well, but a little later. Brutus had deems that the on horse town didn’t have food, but not to worry, less than 50 miles away was I70 and food would be had there. We packed up and headed out. Our goal for today is only to get to Ouray, I picked the most direct route, which also takes us across 2 divides, one being Monarch pass again. Then we would go across the lake. Lakes in the mountains are nice. They dam up a valley and then cut the road out of the side of the mountain. Curves and views. Too bad the camera was out of batteries, I missed half of yesterday and the first half of today taking pictures yet nothing was happening. Technology. But we got it figured out at some point and I have a video or two of Mark and terra taking Monarch Pass heading west. Maybe Mark will post up a link to it.

I was ready to get to Ouray, the hot springs were calling my name. We got to Ridgway State park later than we wanted to, set up camp and headed south 10 miles to Ouray. The hot springs stayed open until 9 pm. We were good. They have concreted in pools and you can go from 102 degrees to 98 to 70 something. I didn’t take any pictures of the inside. Some of the outside and the non bikini views.

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Park outside the hot springs. This is a Jeep comunity.

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Next was food.
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And Beer.
And Music
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We decided to walk the town afterwards to let the beer filter through our system before heading back to camp. Terra and I went to be early yet again. Good day, beautiful scenery, and great food. This is a good life!

The town is beautiful. The picture below is just a random mountian in town. Do you see the water fall?
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It is right here
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Last picture. VFR on gravel, will the gravel and Mark get along? Maybe we should see throw him into the deep end, if he swims to Dallas he can now swim. Tomorrow could very well be the best day yet.

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Map of the day
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Ouray is freaking awesome. It's inconceivable that a town would be there in the middle of these mountains and the hot springs were very relaxing except Mrs Firstman suggested that we go from the 106 degree pool to the artic one and my heart stopped for about 30 seconds. I don't think I will ever be anatomically the same again. The camp site we stopped on was a national forest run one and it was really nice and spread out. The closest neighbor was about 50 feet away. The only negative was that we didn't have time to get firewood but the stars were amazingly bright and we saw one shooting star after another.

The beer was good! A very old and inebriated lady suggested it was the best she ever had in her life and I figured she had the experience to make that judgement call so I had one and as the picture suggests I was pretty happy with it. Not to worry, we walked the length and breadth of the mountain town looking at many things before mounting up again and heading back to camp.
 
Oh, and I didn't realize that the little trip into the gravel was the qualifying run for the next day...
 
I forgot to say I had another squid moment. After heading to the beautiful lake and down another mountain pass some Beemer boxer came flying by with a passenger on back. I tired to keep up then figured they were too agressive in the passing. Then gridlock. Speed slowed to half of the posted limit and there were cars bumper to bumper 20-40+ in front of me. The BMW was only 10 or so cars ahead. What could it be? I guess I can play that game and see. There were a few bad passes in my book, but I got to the front, a looging truck. Earlier at the base of Monarch pass we saw a semi crushed by loosing its load on morarch pass, so I do not fault this guy for taking it slow. After I passed him it was open roads for 15 miles until we got to Montrose. The BMW saw me getting close and started the passing game too. I was behind him for a while, but when the road opened up he must have had that bike near wide open and left me in the dust.
 
Day 5


We woke up refreshed and great. Packed down and headed to Maggies in Ouray for breakfast. This would be our last day of riding together and sometime around lunch, we would go our separate ways, us south and Brutus East. Our plan was to go from Ouray to Cortez to 4 corners and then split. We had a choice back track 10 miles and take road a, or forward a few miles to road b. Road b looked grayish black on my map, gray being dirt, black being asphalt un-divide. Brutus’s GPS said the road was 2 miles long then took us to the “main” road. Road B it is. We get to the road and it is dirt, but packed dirt, no rock.
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We are crusing along, beautiful scenery some steep up hills, nothing much. GS, CS and VFR are happy; we are going slow and are able to really take in the sights. This is hiking for the fat and old
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Some Jeeps pass us, not following the law of the land they make us stop on an up hill and then tell Mark that he is stupid for being on that road and that the other side is bad. I dislike people who like to tell others what to do when they obviously do not know what to do themselves.

We get to the top, it is beautiful and for July 7th, there is snow.
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Snow ball in July
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If any of you know my wife, you know her zest for life, This picture hits home to me.

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The other side was tougher, but still doable/easy for Terra and me. Mark had to work, but is dual sporting suppose to be easy all the time?

From my point of view, the hard part was the 1500 foot fall, not the road.
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Check out the views.
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From town, that line in the background is where we came from!!!!
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And, the map.

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Cortez is flat, and that is about it. While we were eating a 3 pm lunch Mark realized he had an exhaust bolt missing and was tired. He decied to stay in town and leave in the morning. Terra told me "we are making it home tonight." So south we head. Miles and miles of south.

In Show low it is now dark, the canyon we took on the way up is just south of us. I tell her I am tired and lets find a room. Cool. Ooops no rooms in town. 2 motels sold out to the guy in front of us!

So we get on the bikes and keep of driving. Nothing much happened, thankfully no deer on the road, life was good and we shut the engines off at 12:30 that night in our garage, life is good and we had a great trip.

I thought I would be tired of curves but that didn't happen, last night I made a quick trip up Mt Lemmon here in Tucson just to enjoy another curve and cool mountian air. :rider:

Then second map.
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Ophir Pass was a bit of work on the VFR, she was loaded pretty good and the short handlebars, larger weight and zero ground clearance made for an interesting ride down. Oh and the low oxygen was something new for me too. Firstman also got me into Jeeping and I kept hearing his voice in my head telling me to pick the more interesting line (read harder) and terms like airing down and armor all of the sudden applied to my bike. Funny stuff. When we got to the bottom Firstman aired me up and we couldn't find the pressure guage so I ran down the road and back to qualitatively determine is I had 36psi. It was then I realized that there was an exhaust leak. At the nex stop I found the missing bolt on the exhast flange and a little dent in one of my pipes on the bottom. No biggie. After we ate Firstman lent me his bike to run to Napa to get a new bolt. They gave me a 6 and 8mm free which was mighty nice. Upon returning I found the 6 was my man BUT the spacing was too tight for an open end and the fairing too close for a socket. In addition to being somewhat tired, needing a shower (the ones at the campground were coin operated!) and needing to fix this exhaust issue before blowing the exhaust doughnut, scoring my valves and finding myself spending hundreds of dollars to fix something that was literally free I decided to grab a motel room. There was a nice little crappy place like I like (park my bike right by the door, small, A/C that you can crank and a TV which I can watch cops on) right next to the restaurant. Shower, sleep and get up for the next day.

The next morning I pulled the fairing to get to the nut and do a visual over the rest of my bike to make sure the DS adventure didn't have other consequences. While there I realized that I had 900 miles in front of me and getting the headphones working with the GPS (Zumo which BTW is a VERY VERY good one) which was loaded with music would be nice. Playing around a little with that I found a little strip of duct tape on my tank bra did the job. It was still about 2 inches too long for sitting which means I couldn't lean back or stand up. But I had music! And another thing I didn't realize is how nice the GPS turn by turn vocal instructions really make it so much better. No looking at it all the time. Worry free riding.

While I was working on the bike I ended up talking to two Goldwing riders, a German couple, a couple who were from about 70 miles from Cortez, two of the housekeeping staff and various other people. Everyone was positive and there weren't any stories of the mother's cousin's brother's friend who had a friend killed on a bike which was really nice because it's annoying to justify your life to other people. However bewteen the work and the conversation it was going on 11 am Dallas time by the time I had my kickstand up. GPS was saying 12:49 for arrival, adding in five fuel stops and I figured I would be home by 2 am Monday.

First stop was in Shiprock in the UTE reservation. Every one I saw was either emanciated or morbidly obese (two emanciated, rest morbidly obese). I noticed a sign coming in saying that home cooked family meals were more nutritious. I saw something on Discovery where a lot of Native Americans are obese and have diabetes because they eat a lot of junk food and fast food and their bodies were used to a hunter/gatherer diet and never adapted in the relatively short time, I don't know if that's what I was seeing here but I remembered seeing that show. Anyhow I gassed up there because the next town would be right around 190+ miles. After that I gassed up at 190+ miles every time. My mileage was right around 40mpg so I was pretty happy about that. Also using the GPS for music was fantastic! The headphone cord was a little short but it really added something to the ride. Keep in mind that for 20 years I have wanted music on my bike and the best I ever had was a yellow Sony walkman that was “weather proof” and ended up eating a tape and then water got in it. So this was pretty much a life long dream, music on my bike. The headphones I have are the ear bid type and with the flip face I had before the Arai I couldn’t hear them and it was so open that they came out continuously. The Arai is AWESOME! The dark shield also keeps the inside temp down and probably kept me from being sunburned. Not only is it quieter and very cool inside, it holds the headphones in place perfectly. The only downside is it does hurt my ears every time it starts pulling on the cable. But an extension which costs $1.79 at Fry’s would fix that. Also the whole reason I missed a couple of turns using the GPS is that you have to look at it and when you are enjoying the ride you forget to look. With headphones on that never happens. It tells you when to turn, so I never missed a turn.

As I was heading out of Shiprock I decided to keep within 5mph of the speed limit and I was going to do the whole 891 miles that day. The GPS was saying I could be home by 12:39 and I figured I would have four more stops spending about 20 minutes per putting me home by 2. Adding another 5mph in and I would cut that back again by about an hour to 1. At the next stop I ended up being there about 40 minutes. There was a huge line for the bathroom, I had to ask twice for my receipt and I got a couple of hot dogs and a bag of chips for lunch. It was like 107 out so as I ate beside my bike I stripped off the jacket. Some Harley guy with his bike on a trailer was talking with me and started the conversation with “pretty hot for riding” and I told him I was really comfortable when moving which was true. Leather jacket with vents was working very well.

Between the second and third stop I hit a long straight section that had a sign saying dangerous crosswinds. That got me thinking what they could mean, I had been pushed around before by wind and heard stories about bikes pushed odd the road, into barriers or even tractor trailers. I don’t know how hard these winds were blowing but it seemed way more than the 80mph I was heading into! My shoulders were getting a good workout correcting for the wind pushing me back and forth. Cars were going about 10 mph lower than the speed limit except the occasional one going about 10 mph faster than me. In true west fashion the towns were spread way apart but by the signs I got that right around 190 I would be hitting one. That was nearly a mistake! The winds were not just taxing me, but the VFR too. I passed the first off ramp because I didn’t see a gas station right off the highway. The second had one within half a mile so I stopped there. I put in 5.468 gallons (in a 5.5 gallon tank) at 192.5 miles! That wind cut back my mileage an insane amount to 35 and I almost ran out. The VFR ambient was showing 109 degrees and as I sat and drank powerade (you have to pay for the ice cup full price so I put powerade in the ice), filled up my sippy cup, changed to the clear shield after cleaning the dark one I was sweating more without the jacket than I was on the bike! I was about 42 miles from Texas at that point.

The next stop was a little town in Texas, I still had my sunglasses on as the sun went down. I pulled in and gassed up, this time it was cooler so I didn’t take off my jacket. Went in and did the bathroom thing, which was pretty much a non issue because I think I was sweating out what I was taking in and the jacket was drying that off for a nice A/C effect. But not in the head, the Arai keeps me plenty cool there. I grabbed an energy drink because it was about 10:30. I had an estimated 3 hours left and was supposed to be home around 1:30. As I was cleaning my shield a guy on a CBR600 pulled up and we got to talking. I nearly bought one of these instead of the VFR (bike fever hit and Firstman saved me by selling his VFR to me). That is a tiny bike for my size and desire to ride all over the US. But it’s also a very pretty bike. I have never looked at one up close and if I had gone to the Honda dealer I would probably have walked out with one and regretted it often when putting hundreds of miles back to back. We were talking and there were pretty girls driving up every five minutes, they would come over and ask about our bikes. I don’t know what’s in the water in that town but I mean every car had one or two really cute girls in it and they were really friendly and most were wearing really little shorts and a tank top. At least ten of them came up. Then a trooper came up and started talking to us, turns out he’s into riding. We all talked for about an hour and a half about everything from chatterboxes (we REALLY need those, the CBR guy has one and he loves it) to rides. When I left that place I had a good time so the new estimate of 3:30 didn’t really upset me. I had one more stop and then I would be home. Plus I wasn’t feeling tired or really sore. Liberal application of talcum powder seemed to chase that monkey away (if you know what I mean).

The ride to the next stop got me thinking about my next ride. I don’t know when it will be but I am thinking of either New Orleans or the beach again. Something that would be a day there, Saturday and Sunday camping and a day back. Also I was thinking of things that we should get for the big trip. The chatterboxes sound excellent. That really would have made this trip cool if we could all talk while riding. Adding in the GPS to mine would be sweet and I think I will sell the GPS I have and get the next model up for the Bluetooth. The one thing that was kind of a **** was when I was in Pagosa waiting because I was afraid I would miss Firstman's call and then we would be playing phone tag all afternoon. With the Bluetooth that’s not a worry. Another thing would be a seat upgrade. I wasn’t getting too sore but for a longer ride I could see it. And I was thinking about the camera/storage thing. I think the answer is a really small PC with a huge hard drive They have new tablet PC’s coming out that are half the dimensions of a sheet of paper, you could download pictures on that PC and not carry a freaking full size laptop which takes a whole saddlebag. Also I thought about what I should be carrying tool/spare part wise on the trips and other stuff. So I got some thinking done and it was pretty exciting to plan ahead for future trips.

The next stop was about 143 miles from home. After that I started seeing the occasional deer. I would hit my horn, their head pops up and they ran away. The Goldwing guy back at the motel had the deer whistles and he said he sees them look up when he is coming but they don’t run away. So I took to hitting the horn every so often as preventative deer maintenance. After I started that I didn’t see any more. The rest of the ride was pretty easy and gorgeous, my bike creating a little bubble of reality from my running lights, stars overhead in an insanely black sky and occasional flashes of lightning. Cool non humid air rushing over me felt good too after the desert heat.

I ran out of music just as I pulled off 380 to 35E. About 10 more songs and I would have made it door to door! I have plenty more room I just didn’t add more than 149 songs. Now that I have the Arai and my headphones work I will be adding a lot more!

So it was an excellent ride home. I could have rode a bit longer but I was where I lived so I stopped. I did hear Key West calling me though.
 
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