Here's my story of my Arizona bike trip this past month. You may want to
print it and sit on the couch to read it .
Jerry
In search of the sun.
It's 3: 15 AM in the morning and I can’t sleep. I'm obsessing over this trip I'm going to take. Idaho is a great place to ride, but in the winter in North Idaho with the grey skies, snow and cold weather get to me. I'm thinking spring and getting on the old airhead and riding. It's been 25 years since I got married, 25 since I have set foot in California and Arizona, and 25 since I have traveled by myself. It's been 50 years since I became one of the last of the baby boomers. So what am doing going on a three-week ride by myself in the middle of winter? I've already had my midlife crisis, I'm happily married, and I still have a job of sorts. I guess I think of myself and/or my life as a little dull and so I need to have some adventures. My goal was to get sunshine and warmth to charge up my batteries. I envisioned myself at a desert campground sitting in my camp chair, wearing my shorts, and reading a magazine while sipping a cool one in the warm Arizona sun.
I have been preparing for this trip for half the winter. Servicing the bike, getting my utility trailer converted to hauling bikes instead of hay, household items and manure. Last but not least is the planning that keeps my mind occupied on something more productive than watching sitcoms?
The day before my planned departure, the weather called for snow. Gees, I don't even get another night to loose sleep about it all! So off I go towing the Bike over to the Portland Or. area and park the car and trailer at my father-inlaws.
My father-in-law, Paul couldn't believe all the gear I had to put on, my G suit, pressure suit, rain suit, and couple other layers besides! All those layers paid off in hours of 45-degree rain riding. Paul was kind of worried about my safety. I probably didn't help his worrying any when I pulled out of the drive, the engine dies, and I try and bump start it and skid to a wobbly stop.
This fully loaded bike is a handful if you get a bit out of step. A few hours down the road I was having fits with my earplugs not working well and took a lonely off-ramp to stop and adjust them. I pulled over to the shoulder that had a three-inch drop-off, got off balance and
over I went! My rain pant got caught on the center stand and before I could tear it away from there the exhaust pipe made that plastic pant look like my daughter’s puppy did a number on it. I quickly shut the gas off and looked up to see a guy in a car wondering if I needed any help? Not feeling too proud I yelled: "You bet!" I probably wouldn't have been able to pick it up as it was laying downhill. Nothing got broken but some scratches on the windshield and the hard bag. I left some of the mud on the mirror to remind me not to do that again!
I had intended to take I-5 over Siskiyou pass near the Cal. Wa. border, but Mother Nature decided to recover from her three-year drought dropping ice and snow at 3,500 ft on a 4,000 ft pass, and that makes me very nervous!
So I headed for the coast at Grants Pass on hwy. 199. This is a nice road for bikes and better scenery than the super slab. I stopped for the night at Cougar flats campground. I didn't have time to go looking for cougars; I figured they would find me. l borrowed a pen from the camp host. I was taken aback a bit, as this fellow was younger than me.
Hosts are usually old retirees. I think he had a day job, as he arrived shortly after me. They told me California was full of young people. Maybe the young people like the rain more than I do, because it rained all night, and quit when I got up. Riding in the rain isn't bad; it's living in the rain that's hard. Everything eventually gets wet. It may have been short on the dry side, but it was long on the beautiful scenery side. We rode through some redwood forests, and rode along the foggy surf. At Arcata we took 299 to Redding through the mountains again over three or four passes and the Trinity River gorge. The weather kept getting better and finally hit sunshine in Redding! I took my raingear and the heated chaps off. You really ought to try taking a pit stop with five layers of garments on!
I had to make a service stop as soon as I discovered that when I changed the front tire I didn't get the bead seated fully. I was cruising through a town today and noticed the front end was hopping. So I made it to Ozzies BMW in Chico about closing time. They got me in first thing in the morning and reseated it.
I'm at a state campground north of Chico. I got here in the dark and I think it's a pretty nice campground, but it smells like a swamp. It even has swampy type creatures like croaking frogs and hooting owls. This self-inflating air mattress is a hoot also. The second night in a row it's gone flat. It’s probably illegal to tell you over the paper-waves what brand it is. I’m slightly disappointed and only three more weeks on a flat air mattress. The good news is I have been accidentally, and subconsciously training myself for this predicament for six months. I have been having back problems for years and decided maybe it's the waterbed. So I got us a firm mattress. So now I toss
and turn trying to get comfortable just like this air mattress.
Almost like being at home.
A guy at the gas station yesterday saw me taking off my raingear now that sun was out and said: "Now it's going to rain because your taking them off!" Day three, in case I'm counting. The rain is following me. I feel like an IBM mouse stuck on click and drag. I followed hwy. 99 to Sacramento and then blasted down I-5 to make up time. I wanted to get to Phoenix in three days to meet up with some other Beemer riders to go on their run to Tombstone and then to Kartchner caverns. I'll go for the ride but the cavern tours are booked up two
months ahead already! I was bookin on I-5 with quite a tailwind that I could smell my own exhaust at times. Another rainstorm in my path to Bakersfield made me say the heck with tenting it in the rain for the third night. I made reservations and rode the last two hours in the gathering dark with a tinted visor. Thanks to several kind motorists who flagged me down to say my taillight was out! I quickly put on my night vest and drove with my brake light on. A nice hot shower and a good nights sleep!
Day four. It was another night of rain and now it's clearing and off I go. The weather radio says high wind warnings till 9:00am. Tehachapi pass is 4064ft. and by the time I got to the top there was a few inches of snow on the ground but the road was good and the electric vest is on. On the down side of the pass and down to the Mohave Desert the sight of cacti warms me. The Mohave airport is the scene of a down economy with all the passenger jets in mothballs. These are of course industrial strength mothballs. At a rest area I meet another biker. He told me he has been riding for 43 years and today was the worst crosswinds he had had ever experienced. He came through earlier where I had just been. I lucked out and had tail winds. Just across the Colorado River are Arizona and a neat chunk of Rt. 66. It winds through the desert hills and a great stop is Oatman. It's an old time mining town with wild burros plodding main street looking for attention. After Oatman it gets even more curvaceous and steep with beautiful valley vistas. I forgot to gas up in Needles so I'm running on reserve with thirty miles to the next station. So I'm idling in the low fuel consumption mode. I make it to a station and head north to Dolan Springs to visit my snowbird friends from back home.
They took me down the road a few miles to see the Joshua tree forest. This is the strange thing about Arizona, every five or ten miles the flora is completely different. I took off for Phoenix on rt.93 and thirty miles from Phoenix I could see the smog. Then I ran into the traffic. I guess I envisioned a medium sized easygoing town. It was a shocker for country boy! I probably spent two hours driving in circles and getting lost. I wanted to get to a campground north of Apache Junction, but I ran out of daylight and with only a tinted visor, I’ve shot myself in the foot and look for the Motel Six. At a stoplight I wait patiently behind some guy with his right blinker on. The light turn green and we take off and then he stops in mid turn and I slam on the binders and miss his fender by a couple inches. I instinctively, and immediately looked behind me to see if I was going to be a hood ornament and thankfully alert drivers were behind me. I was glad to know I did correct things instinctively instead of panicking. Riding down the Boulevard in Tempe I drive by a sports stadium and see there’s a game on, and my hopes of finding a room took a plummet. I found out later that a Promise Keepers convention was in town also. I did manage to get a smoking room, while not a smoker, it wasn’t too smoky.
Next morning I managed to find my way to the meeting point at Apache junction and about twenty of us headed out for breakfast at Kearny. Good twisty hilly roads and great scenery including a humungous copper strip mine fall before my eyes. This state is full of mines, of which keeps our country partially supplied with copper wire and gold for your electronic parts. We end the day in Tombstone. It’s a great old western town famous for Wyatt Earp and OK corral shoot out. In the morning we head for the Karchner Caverns west of Tombstone about thirty miles. I called a few weeks ago and the reservations for the cavern tours for the weekends were booked up two months in advance! Several people in the Rimriders club couldn't make it that day and they wouldn't let you take the tour if you didn't have a reservation and even if they didn't show up. They were quite militaristic about it. Fortunately for me Greg gave me his ticket saying he could come down anytime with his wife and that I wasn't going to come all the way from Idaho and not be able to make the tour.
He's a good man. The government put $38 million into this cave complex and has done a great job. The formations were very beautiful. One amazing thing about it is that no human had been in there until it was discovered in 1977. I don’t know they could be so sure. Some people are very neat and tidy.
They have gone to great lengths not to tread anywhere except where they had to build the pathways. After lunch we said our good byes, they are a great group. My plan now was to camp at Saguaro national park as the map showed a campground there. The ranger said: "There's no campground here." He gave me suggestions where to look and so I drove another twenty miles to see the "Campground full" sign. I started out for the next campground and figured they would be full by now also. There are just too many tourists and not
enough camp spots. So I ended up driving in the dark again to find a hotel. At the hotel I got out the BMW anonymous book and called a few guys in Tucson that were listed as providing a place to camp out. I would run out of vacation money pretty quick if I didn't get back to tenting it! The third one I called was able to help me out. He let me set up camp in his back yard. This was great as now I had a secure place to leave my gear and make day trips from there! I would meet him the next afternoon. Day umm--oh well it doesn't matter. The skies are partly cloudy and breezy. I like nature stuff so look for the Sonora desert museum. This is a real cool place. Live animals, mostly in cages, and the entire desert flora there with labels on it. There is some pretty weird stuff out there, but it’s beautiful also.
I had a nice lunch in their parking lot. The sun finally came out and I pulled my camp chair out and had a can of Progresso beef and barley soup. I probably looked pretty weird, but I’m almost beyond caring what I look like at this point. I chased the sun a few miles down the road to the San Xavier mission. It's a beautiful old church built in the 18th century. Gregorian chant music was playing as people quietly and respectfully admired its beauty. Another place that gets your attention and respect is another fifteen miles down the road at the Titan II missile base/museum. This is the only remaining Titan II missile left (unarmed). We looked down the silo and we looked up at it. They even went through a mock launch with all the bells and whistles. If one was ever launched you couldn't bring it down or destroy it. It would go on to destroy an enemy target. A city the size of Tucson would be obliterated. I hope I can sleep tonight. Wow! That Tylenol really made me sleep well. I went right back to sleep after the two times the police helicopter circled the neighbourhood looking for bad guys. The good guys at Iron Horse BMW balanced my front tire today in hopes of getting rid of the vibration at 75mph. The headwind was such today that my true air speed (TAS) for you aircraft buffs was probably 90 but my ground speed was 55 so no telling on the vibes today.
Aircraft buffs like me really enjoy the Pima air museum. It's next to Davis Montham Air force base right in Tucson. I spent the whole afternoon gawking and walking, and reliving my days as an aircraft mechanic. Which reminds me of the old Beemer at the shop this morning. It had a couple of aircraft constructed gas tanks on it. I asked the mechanic about it and he said the owner is an aircraft mechanic and they weren't both gas tanks. "You see this button here?" He said as I leaned over and he pushed the button. I was immediately squirted in the face with a mist of water. In the summer while he is riding on the blazing Arizona roads he just pushes the button and it's springtime! Us aircraft mechanics are a clever lot. I wouldn't say my meals are clever, but mostly basic. Breakfast is two packs of instant oatmeal, coffee, and some dried fruit. Lunch is usually a can of cold soup. (takes too long to heat it) Dinner has been Dinty Moore beef stew (heated), a box of fruit juice and more dried fruit. Tonight I splurged and bought a can of tuna and a can of baked beans and cooked them together, a new taste sensation. Tuna is a quick meal and fairly tasty, and when I saw the fast moving Road runner in the wild the other day I wondered what he would taste like? Probably like chicken. After watching Roadrunner cartoons since I was a kid, it was a real thrill to see him in person.
I was just a bit disappointed he didn't stick his tongue out, "plittle little little" ping! and off in a cloud of dust. You wouldn't think the weather could get worse here in the land of warmth and sunshine, but it did. But no use sulkin’ so I headed north to the Biosphere. It is the home to scientists from around the globe studying the earth sciences. It as featured on Scientific American with Allan Alda. They are trying to make models of what is causing the changes in our atmosphere by having this enclosed area that they can change the variables and chart it all. All these places I go to are full of senior citizens. I was impressed that they are out there in this crappy weather and enjoying it! Probably anything is better than sitting in that motor home tarring at each other. Tomorrow I will zip up to Phoenix to get some personal earplugs made before I ruin my hearing with all the noises at 70mph. Then I'll go to the dinner meeting of the Rimriders while I'm in town. I got in contact with my riding bud that moved down here and says he'll be there also. I woke up to sunshine and birds singing, that's almost heaven. Phoenix was a little over two hours and ran into a storm just as I got there. No problem as I had the raingear on anyway. I stopped in at Jack in the box for a bite and made phone calls. The earplug man was five minutes away and came over in his van and made my custom earplugs.
They sure are nice, no more noise and pain. A couple of nice folks from the Rimrider group let me stay over night at their place and gave me a lift to the weekly Rimrider meeting and dinner at Boston market. There was a pretty fair turnout for a cool rainy evening. Luckily these friends brought me to the meeting in their car. You wouldn't want to ride with me in a strange town like this. I tend to make left turns from the wrong lane and leaving the blinker on and getting lost. Rick from Idaho did show up and we planed to ride the next couple days together. We retraced some of our route from last weekend and ended up back in Tucson in the rain. Tomorrow they promise partly cloudy. Seems like they've been holding that carrot in front of me for a week now. I listen to this 24-hour weather radio for the forecasts. There is something strangely reassuring and soothing about her synthesized voice when she says "partly cloudy", like I want to believe her everyday. She was 99% correct today as we made our way to Organ pipe cactus National park. It's a pretty cool park with camping, hiking, scorpion hunting, etc. We opted for the gravel road GS loop around Ajo Mountain. It was a nice run with beautiful desert scenery and mountains just like we were in a John Wayne movie. The BMW dealer in Tucson was telling me that they had had three
incidents of people gassing up their bikes with diesel fuel.
I said it is probably because the gas stations are marking some of the gas nozzles with green and people were being lulled into thinking green is ok. Well today I filled my bike with #2 diesel! The handle was green, and the sticker next to it said 87. I didn't notice it said diesel on the other side of the nozzle. I got the tank full and noticed it didn't flow like gasoline. I had to drain the whole tank. Something else I didn't notice that evening was that I left my new rain jacket on the back of my bike and drove off. Someone has a nice rain jacket in the middle of the desert. The border patrol is very busy down here. They are stopping anyone who looks suspicious. They stopped us and the officer says: "What state are you from?" I yelled " Wisconsin!" He let us go. I'll have to remember that the next time I get stopped for a speeding ticket. I'll tell him I’m from Wisconsin. Before I forget I noticed that a good number of the pickup trucks around here have small diameter fat tires that are sticking out farther. Up north we put on thebigger tire the better! So I don't know what this little tire stuff means, probably some large social picture thing. We made it to Painted Rock Park in the desert near Gila Bend where we will camp and check out the petroglyphs in the morning. All settled in and we're sitting around the fire fed by mesquite brush and a slug of leftover STP gas treatment.
We're contemplating the world’s problems and watching the stars. My campmate thinks all the little shrines and monuments along the roadside should be outlawed! I tell him they may not all be for deaths. They might be from immigrants put out to say thank you to God for getting them to the USA in one piece! Rick is not an early riser, but I need to start heading for home, and we're burning daylight--as soon as it comes up. I got him up to see the sun come up over nearby hills to a clear blue sky. He said: “The only time I see the sun come up is
when I ride out of a very deep canyon!" So we get packed up, see the petroglyphs and head out. Rick is always looking for "alternate routes" so we head down this dirt road toward Gila Bend. Now they must have had a good downpour as you could see where it washed through our campsite and on this road. It must have been the third large muddy section when Mr. Anonymous fell down and flew into that mud. I've seen this before on TV but real life is more exciting I'd say. I helped him pick up the big GS and got some of the primordial
ooze off him. This was a good experience for me, as I've never ridden in much mud before. When we got back to the pavement he found the nearest puddle and washed off the rest of the now crusty Arizona terra firma. He informed me this is what they call a GS bath.
After breakfast in Gila we have to go our separate ways.
I take an "alternate route” and find it got me a bit lost. Maps and lack of road signs don't help much sometimes. I head west on I-10 and run into a sand storm while going across the Mojave Desert. It was sort of like driving through drifting snow only not so slippery and definitely warmer. The crosswinds and headwinds were batting me around. I turn off at Joshua tree National park. It's a beautiful place albeit cold as it is about 4,300 ft. I pull into Jumbo Rocks campground and find a nice site right by some jumbo rocks of course. Very picturesque! I got here early so I have time to walk around. I've been in the saddle so long I need to get the biorhythms going. Walking in the desert is neat experience, as long as it's on a marked trail or you have visual reference points. I took the skull rock trail at the campground and learned much about the local fauna and flora. At one point the trail became a bit vague. I started looking around and noticed that a lot of it can look the same, and which way do you go. This entire trip I've been singing to myself this old Son's of the Pioneers tune. Some of the words go: "Riding down the canyon to watch the sun go down. A picture that no artist ere could paint! Cactus plants are blooming, sagebrush everywhere. Granite spires are standing all around. I tell you folks it's heaven to be wandering down the trail when the desert sun goes down."
This campground was recommended to me and was told that it was like waking up in the Flintstones town of Bedrock. It' very similar, but I could use one of those dinosaur bird powered can openers, mine doesn't work very good. It was another cool and windy ride after leaving Joshua, but to compensate for it I pulled into Mercy hot Springs near Mancato, Calif. and got into the hot tub and warmed those I-5 blues. Larry and Steve who run the place are slowly rejuvenating the old resort. In the night the Coyote's were maybe 100 yds. away and were howling a few times. An owl was hooting from before I went to bed till almost dawn, every two seconds, "who". I figured that to be about 180,000 hoots. Now I know every who in Whoville. The birds outside the tent are making quite a din. It reminds me of Alfred
Hitchcock’s: "The birds". If you don't hear from me again you'll know what happened. I think I'll put my helmet on before I go outside. Having escaped an aviary attack. I rode on to breakfast at the junction of road J-1 and 25. It's an old general store and cafe run by a Mexican family. I ordered a breakfast burrito and shortly the senurita brings it out. "Wow! It's huge!" I said. I don't think she knew what I said as the owner lady said the word "Grande" to her in the back of the room. It was Grande, and tasty. The gringo word grand is more suited to the road I was on next. Hwy. 25 is a twisty and hilly road through the winery country.
It ended up in Hollister, famous for the Marlon Brando film: The wild ones" which gave motorcycles a black eye that has never healed. My route took me through the bay area. The only problem besides the non rush hour traffic was that I accidentally got off 101 and ended up in downtown Oakland! I thought the “Bay Bridge” was the “Golden Gate”. Guess I didn’t watch enough episodes of “Streets of San Francisco”. I’m told Oakland has the highest homicide rate in the country. Lord, please help me out of this! I'm trying to follow the signs back to 101 but they aren't very good. I asked a cabby if I was going the right way? He said: Yeah, yeah, just keep on going. And so I kept going, up and down these steep hills expecting Steve McQueen to come flying over the crest of one of those hills. Finally I came to the ocean and I new I was done fore, when I spotted the postman walking his route. I yelled: "How do I get out of this town!" He said to go back a couple miles and turn left on Valencia, go down there and you’ll hit 101 north. After thanking him and vowing to myself not to complain
about my mail being late again, I struck off for Valencia, Valencia, Valencia, burning it into my deteriorating grey matter. With a big sigh I spotted Valencia, and Gull Dang it! which way did he say to turn?!
After the gears clanked around a few turns I made my decision for the right direction. Thanks to the postman and the good Lord I'm able to write this. I was wondering how I would get a picture of the golden gate while being locked on the freeway when Valencia emptied right next to the bridge entrance and viewing area! Going over the bridge was a bit scary, but everyone was driving a sane 45mph. It was smooth sailing after that with a run through more redwoods on 128, and beautiful seaside scenery on hwy. 1. I pulled into a state
campground on the beach and settled in for another cool evening. I used my last match tonight to get my camp stove going. I need one more for coffee in the morning. So I started walking around the campground to bum some matches off someone. And here's this old man who just started his campfire and asked him for matches and he gives me some. Then we get to talking and find out he's a retired blues musician. He started singing an old gospel song and I was impressed as his voice was perfect. Then Timothy got out his harmonica and started whaling on it. I have never heard anyone play like him. He said he used to play with a lot of the big blues people. I asked him if he ever meet Taj Mahal. He said: "Yeah and I blew him off the stage one night." He had quite a story to tell and I'm glad I asked him for a match, at least I’d have coffee in the morning!
That was my last night in the tent. I'm looking forward to getting home to my wife, family and my warm bed. But on the road in the morning it's severe clear and cold enough to make me uncomfortable at times. But when you cruise through those redwood forests, and deep tree lined river valleys the pain is worth it. But when some idiot tries to pass you on a blind curve and nearly runs the other guy off the road then your eyes get a bit wider. Tonight I'm staying with Daniel and Suzanne in Ashland, Or. Daniel is French and Susanne teaches it. So of course we had a delicious French dinner! Next morning they sent me off with directions to I-5 and a banana. The banana stayed drier than me. My last stop was with some old friends from my time in Anchorage. Like my wife and I, Jan and Denny moved out of Alaska to be closer to family. For breakfast they made hot cereal made from wheat that they stone ground. It was a good hot start for the worst weather of the trip. They sent me off with another rain jacket and offers of oranges, a cow, chickens and a duck to take with me. I took the jacket and a rain check on the rest. I needed that jacket as the rain went from sprinkles to near pouring. Getting into traffic near Eugene, Or. A van ran over a chunk of 4 by 4 and it landed in my lane. Luckily it wasn't right in front of me, as it could have been upsetting,
literally. Another 20 miles further it happened again. My guardian angel, Frank was doing his job. One hundred feet from my father in laws house and the end of my bike trip I sighed: "I made it!" when two barking dogs ran out to attack me and I almost dumped it right there. I loaded The R65 onto my trailer and droned back to North Idaho. I arrived home and was greeted by the first snowstorm since I left, three weeks earlier, lucky me! Now that I am in my warm bed I think back of my impressions of Arizona 25 years ago and of these last three weeks. It’s been a fun time and I know that I have a closer relationship with the southwest state and it's people than I had before. So it's probably not to soon to plan for next years Arizona trip?