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| Day 1 - Santa Clara, CA Day 2 - Lee Vining, CA Day 3 - Baker, CA Day 4 - Las Vegas, NV Day 5 - Las Vegas, NV Day 6 - Grand Canyon, AZ Day 7 - Durango, CO Day 8 - Glenwood, CO Day 9 - Highlands, CO Day 10 - Highlands, CO Day 11 - Estes Park, CO Day 12 - Craig, CO Day 13 - Jackson, WY Day 14 - Cody, WY Day 15 - Mammoth, WY Day 16 - Choteau, MT Day 17 - Kelispell, MT Day 18 - Sandpoint, ID Day 19 - Omak, WA Day 20 - Anacortes, WA Day 21 - Anacortes, WA Day 22 - Poulsbo, WA Day 23 - Poulsbo, WA Day 24 - Poulsbo, WA Day 25 - Astoria, OR Day 26 - Lincoln City, OR Day 27 - Bandon, OR Day 28 - Eureka, CA Day 29 - Anchor Bay, CA Day 30 - Martinez, CA FINAL THOUGHTS |
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| Up and at ‘um at 0500 hours. Wait a minute; Linda
says belay that last command. We’re sleeping in another hour. OK,
we finally leave Las Vegas at 7:25 a.m. and head north on I15. We
are commenting that we are amazed that there is so little traffic
on I15 during the morning rush hour. Wait a minute, this is the Fourth
of July, Independence Day; we’ve lucked out again. About an hour later, we pull into Boulder City, NV to take on gas. This puppy has given me a low of 34.8 to a high of 40.8. m.p.g. This and riding two-up, all bags loaded, pulling a trailer and averaging 70 mph for most of the trip. It’s not as good as my BMW R100, but the R100 never had to do what we’re doing.
As we come over the hill, we see some new subdivisions being built and have a nice view of Lake Mead. I wanted to take a picture because it would be my best chance, but because of the holiday we are stopped by security going into Hoover Dam and there was no other place to stop until after we were on the other side of the damn, which has a security checkpoint there also. Anyway, I find one small place to pull off and take the only picture I got of Hoover Dam (photo 1). From there it was into Arizona and on to the Grand Canyon (photo 2). One of the things I’ve been wanting to do for some time now, is to travel some on the old U.S. Route 66 (photo 3). So, since I’m driving, we pick up old 66 at Kingman, AZ. It is hard to believe that this was the major highway, the “Mother Road” as it was called, for so many years. There is little left to show of all those “Okies” and others that traveled this road. That’s not entirely fair to say, since we only traveled a small part of the original 66, which went all to the way from Chicago to California. We traveled it once when I was a boy, going to St. Louis, but I remember very little, except that it was hot. My dad actually preferred old Hwy. 40, which went through Wendover, UT and, for the life of me, I can’t see why he thought that was better than 66.
Much of this part of old 66 follows the railroad track, since the track was here first. As we’re heading east with nothing around but the wide-open spaces, we see a Santa Fe freight train heading west. As they pass us we wave, just to be friendly, and the engineer gives us a couple of toots on his horn. Another flashback to when I was a kid and we were going back to Missouri; if you could get a train to toot his horn, you were tickled for the next hour. All of a sudden I’m feeling tickled again. Memories can be wonderful things. We haul down the Goldwing, and pull over for pictures at a nostalgia stop called the Hackberry General Store. This place is cross between the Route 66 café and gift shop and the local museum. It has more memorabilia than Carter has Liver Pills (photos 4, 5, 6, 7, & 8). Hey, this place is fun just to see all of the stuff they’ve collected from the 50’s and 60’s and anyway, at least they’re making a living. That seems to be better than a lot of the folks we saw around here seem to be doing. It’s only natural, as you’re driving along, to look on the side of the road for the “traditional” US 66 road signs. Forget it, you won’t find any. It seems that so many of them were being stolen by tourist that the AZ highway department started painting the signs on the road itself and finally came up with a different design for the sign itself (review photo 3 again). You can still buy replicas in that Hackberry store if you need one in your home.
We intersected Hwy. 40 at Seligman, AZ, where we stopped for gas and a cool drink. Wouldn’t you know it; California has followed us to the middle of nowhere. A woman approaches us as we are filling up with gas and tells us she is from North Carolina and was in Oceanside, CA where someone stole her husband’s wallet in a phone booth with all of their money. They need someone to give them some money so they (and their child) can get back home. Just about that time, a Deputy Sheriff pulls up to pump gas in his SUV. We refer her to the sheriff but she says they don’t provide money. To make a long story short, I give her two bucks and tell her I’m from California and have heard this before but maybe 2 bucks will help her call somebody. Meanwhile, Linda has gone over to the Sheriff and tells him that this lady needs help. The sheriff says not to give her anything since this is a scam that is pulled at that station all the time. Too late. Hey, she could probably use the two bucks for a short beer. When we get on Interstate 40 East, we start cooking and are in Williams, AZ, in no time flat. There we hook a left and 51 miles further are pulling into our motel. We do a quick clean up and are off for the Grand Canyon. This road takes you into the South Rim. They tell me the North Rim is more spectacular, but I find that hard to believe. If you’ve never seen this hole in the ground; you cannot appreciate the magnitude and beauty of this place. Pictures cannot do it justice, and believe me everybody and his brother, have tried (photos 9, 10, 11, 12 & 13). They always end up saying the same thing, “Well, that doesn’t really show it like it was. It was so much bigger than this picture shows.”
We take too many pictures, go to the Grand Canyon Village to get something to drink, drive back to the south rim, and meet three people traveling on two Goldwings, Doyle, David and his wife Elizabeth. They have come all the way from Alabama. It turns out they are doing almost the reverse of our trip and the day we left Baker, NV, they had to pull into the same motel because Elizabeth was suffering from heat exhaustion and was losing touch with reality. She has no memory of getting off of the motorcycle. When they pulled into the “Bun Boy” motel, that 134’ thermometer read 104 degrees and it was 11 o’clock at night. David and I had a nice chat about Goldwings, touring, etc. He has over 100,000 miles on his present 1500 and says unless they make one of the new GL1800’s in his favorite green color, he’s going to put another 100,000 on the one he’s got. We parted ways and Linda and I waited for the sun to set and I took even more of those pictures that won’t show you just how spectacular the Grand Canyon really is. Oh, well! Tomorrow we should make the corner of Colorado and the Four Corners Monument, if we’re lucky. |
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