Days 20 & 21 - not quite the last post (about 1,100 km)

Crescent City to Portland, by the coastal route we had planned to take, meant riding for more than eight and a half hours, not including stops for fuel or food. Taking the US 199 and the I-5, however, would take less than six hours. It was going to be our 20th day on the bikes. We were tired. We took the interstate.

I have no regrets about that decision, boring as the I-5 often is. There was nothing new to see on the 101. I've ridden and driven the route before, and it's fantastic, but after California, it would be just more of the same in Oregon. 

The US 199, however, turned out to be a great ride, with lots of twists and turns, tall trees rising on either side of the road, a steep drop to a river on our right. With the exception of the moments stuck behind timid Harley riders, it was a fantastic start to the day.

The I-5, as I said, is often dull, but it does have the advantage of being fast. We reached Eugene in time for lunch, and Portland in time for dinner. It was hot and muggy, and we were dripping with sweat by the time we checked in and unloaded the bikes.

After quick showers, we headed to Henry's Tavern for dinner. The food was excellent, and the beer even better. Henry's is like Mecca for beer drinkers, with roughly 100 taps devoted to microbrews and ciders from the West Coast. We ended up staying till just after last call, then walked back to the hotel.

The last day of the ride, we exhausted and missing our partners. We chose the I-5 again, reaching the border by half past two. We gassed up the bikes one last time in Blaine, then shook hands and went our separate ways. Colin wanted to re-enter at the Truck Crossing. It was closer for me to use Peace Arch.

I was a little sad the trip had to end, but everything does. And I was, at the same time, happy to be coming home. After a relatively short, but seemingly interminable wait in the queue, I was waved through with only a few questions.

Between the border and downtown Vancouver, I encountered more driving idiocy than I had in the previous three weeks. There are some things about home I really didn't miss.

Looking back, here are some stats about our ride:

11,000 kilometres ridden

21 days on the bikes

12 states traveled through

10 National Parks visited

4 pairs of sunglasses lost or destroyed

1 iPod lost and replaced

Here is a short video Colin produced of our California ride. As always, we hope you enjoy.

We are in Oregon. We have been at Henry's Tavern, and I am in not in any shape for a full post. So, the top five things I'm looking forward to after I get home tomorrow:

5) Resuming my workout routine. It's been three weeks since I did any serious exercise.

4) Seeing my cats. Meow.

3) Catching up on Breaking Bad.

2) Seeing my mom and my friends again.

1) Being with Adele.

That's all for now. Tomorrow we'll be home again. I'll have a final post in the next few days.

Day 19 - Fogging around in Northern California (600+ km)

Up early and on the road by shortly after nine, we rode US Hwy 101 North from San Rafael to Petaluma, a pretty little town about fifteen or so miles North of San Francisco, just inside Sonoma County. It looks like the kind of place you'd want to settle down in. It had an old, historic looking downtown, and neat old houses, well-maintained for the most part. The weather was cool, but sunny, and we rode calmly along a country road that ran between Petaluma and Bodega Bay, on the coast.

We had a quick (sort of ) breakfast in Bodega Bay, and then were slaloming up California State Hwy 1 - a mecca for motorcyclists.

The twists and turns are so relentless, you often feel more like your are skiing than riding. And the turns get so tight, you have to lean your bike much further than you'd really like to just to stay on your side of centre. And that's if you're a somewhat cautious rider like me. If you're a maniac, (not, most assuredly, like Colin), you just dive in and go, and when things straighten out, you go even faster.

This lasted, with very few interruptions, for about five hours. We did, naturally, have to stop for gas once or twice, and another time pulled over just to take pictures of the surf. It's so rare to see the tides not tamed by an intervening island.

The water pounded and crashed repeatedly against rocks the size of a large-ish house. In a strange way it was a soothing break from the road.

Eventually, Hwy 1 winds its way up to Legget, which is little more than a gas station and a couple of houses, for all I could see. There you merge back onto Hwy 101, which has its own twists and turns, and leads through unnumbered small towns and through what will be our last National Park on this trip, Redwood. Sadly, there was no place to purchase a sticker for my bags, which are now nearly covered anyways.

Before reaching the park, though, we had to pull in at Eureka for gas. The whole town was blanketed with low, cold clouds, which weren't quite fog (yet). We talked briefly about calling it quits for the day, as it was already half past five. It would be at least another hour and a half till we reached our target destination of Crescent City, just North of Redwood National Park.We didn't like the feel of the town. It was even sketchier than Vallejo - sort of like Greybull on a much larger scale. So we decided to push on.

The clouds lowered to ground level just a little ways past Arcata, and they settled there for pretty much the rest of the ride, with only brief, teasing moments of reprieve, where the dimming sunlight threatened to burn the clouds off. By the time we reached Redwood National Park, the fog was hung in the trees like disused curtains, or a sepulchral tinsel.

When we reached a place called Elk Meadows we found, of course, a small heard of Elk in a meadow. About twenty or thirty of them. A little ways past that was Lost Man Creek, where I supposed we could find a creek, and where at some point, I'm sure, a man had become lost. The place names are nothing if not imaginative.

We rolled into Crescent City about five minutes after sunset, and checked in to the first available place for the night.

Tomorrow we continue homeward, stopping for the night, likely in Portland. It should be a good ride, and Portland is one of my favourite cities in the Western United States. But with Hwy 1 and the last of our ten national parks behind us, the rest will be a sort of denouement to our three week (mis-)adventure. It's been a great ride, but it will be nice to come home to our partners, and our families and friends.

Colin is working on another video, which I'll post a link to as soon as it's available.

Day 18 - Sierras, Yosemite, Groveland and, finally, back on the coast (585 km)

We were up early, and on the road before ten, which is pretty good for us. After gassing up the bikes, we set out on US 395 into the Sierras. It was already pretty warm, for Northerners like us, and bound to get warmer.

The road snaked its way up the hills into mountain passes, a steady incline of roughly eight degrees. Cactus gave way to oak trees, and we re-entered Inyo National Forest. The temperature lowered as the altitude increased, but I had no regrets this time about not putting on my cold weather gloves. It was still warm enough.

Eventually we left the 395 for California State Road 120, a.k.a., Tioga Pass Road. Fortunately, the road was open, or we'd have had to sweat our way through Death Valley - and today would prove to be hot enough without that.

The 120 is brilliantly serpentine in its design. Which is good, because the scenery, breathtaking as it was, lacked the strangeness that we'd experienced over the past several days in New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. Anyone who has traveled much in the Rockies won't find the Sierras strange.

Tall oak and pine trees, high rocky peaks of grey stone, waterfalls descending in a rush over cliff edges from pent up lakes. If it weren't for all the curves in the road, what would have held our attention for the hundred-odd kilometres traveling through the park?

Aside from a quick stop at the visitors centre, where I purchased yet another sticker for my bags while Colin adjusted his video camera, now affixed to the top of his helmet, we rode more or less non-stop through the park, occasionally frustrated by the timorous four-wheeled travelers impeding our progress.

Eventually we left the park, and continued on the 120 to Groveland, a small town in the Western Sierras, where I once waited for close to two hours for a tow truck, which was stationed about a mile away, to carry me and my old bike to a dealer in Modesto. Today's visit was less stressful. We stopped for lunch at the Iron Door Saloon, both of us, apparently, craving grilled cheese sandwiches.

The Iron Door is a fantastic place, with wadded up dollar bills stuck to the ceiling throughout. It is an old-style saloon - it's not just a bar - that has been there for more than 150 years. A stuffed bear cub and coyote cavort above the bar, and a buffalo head is mounted above the entrance. I remembered it having been recommended on my previous visit to the town, but then I didn't feel like eating.

After refueling ourselves, we did the same for the bikes, then continued our descent from the high point of the Sierras, some 9,800 ft, down to the small plain that leads from the mountains to the sea. All the while, it got progressively hotter. By the time we reached Oakdale, it was well over 40 C (that's 'freakin' hot!' in Harenfeit).

We slogged our way between date and almond farms, wilting in our gear, until we reached Manteca. There we turned off of the 120 onto Interstate 580, bound for San Francisco.

We had already decided, though, that we were going to bypass San Fran, since we a) wouldn't really have time to see much of it, arriving only at around six p.m., and b) wanted to avoid paying any tolls. In the past, the Bay Area Transit Authority exempted motorcycles from bridge tolls, but, alas, no longer.

We soon discovered, however, that you can run but can't hide from BATA. After bouncing from one interstate to the next, we finally did have to pay $5 for the pleasure of entering Vallejo, a working class suburb of San Francisco. We stopped there just long enough to agree not to stop there, and then were on our way to San Rafael, speeding past San Quentin Prison on the way. I began to sing 'Folsom Prison Blues' to myself in my helmet.

We arrived in San Rafael at about half past six, checked into a hotel, and settled in for the night. Time now to rest up for tomorrow's ride, along the brilliantly and insanely twisty Hwy 1.

*****

Thanks to everyone who's visited this blog. We've had people sign in from Canada and the United States, Greece, Germany and Peru. I hope you've been enjoying this so far.

*****

Here is the link to Colin's video of our visits to Bryce and Zion. As always, please enjoy responsibly.

Day 16 & 17 - Cold and Hot in Utah, Nevada & California (1,000ish km)

I couldn't post an update yesterday, as the hotel we stayed in didn't have free Wi-Fi, and frankly, we're too cheap to pay thirteen bucks for it. Well, I know I am, anyway.

*****

We were up early and on the road to Bryce by half past eight. Our recent good luck with weather was holding, and it was sunny and cool as we set off.

A block from the motel we turned up a street that became UT Hwy 14, connecting the sleepy by pleasant town of Cedar City, home to a Shakespeare Festival and Southern Utah University, with US Hwy 89, from which one can access not only such well known metropoli as Panguitch and Kanab, but also, and more importantly to us, the entrances to Bryce Canyon and Mount Zion National Parks, both of which we intended to visit before heading to Vegas.


Colin had warned me that it would get 'very cold, very fast.' Still, I couldn't believe I would need more than my leather gauntlets and heated grips, and the lining zipped into my leather jacket. He was right, I was wrong. Hwy 14 ascends to some 10,000 ft above sea level, and at just after nine on a September morning, that means cold. Most of me was ok, just a little chilled, but my fingers were numb before we reached the summit.

Aside from that, and the occasional moment of blindness coming round a corner out of shadow into glaring sunlight, the ride was excellent. There were almost no other vehicles to spoil it either, a sign near the entrance to the highway proclaiming it was 'not recommended for semi trucks.'

In a much shorter time than foretold by Google Maps, we arrived at the entry gate to Bryce Canyon National Park. After a quick visit to the gift shop, to pick up another sticker for my bags, we headed into the park. I'm pretty sure we saw more deer in Bryce than in all the previous days of our trip combined. Thankfully, none were on the road. We rode to a trailhead for a couple of viewpoints, and hiked to them. Like Arches the day before, the scenery was out of this world. Tall spires of sandstone carved out by wind and rain over millennia, with arches high in the cliff walls.

We encountered wildlife on the trail, too: chipmunks and salamanders scurrying through the scrub. One of the chipmunks posed for several photos for us before scrambling to safety.

We could have spent hours there - some of the hikes would have required us to - but we needed to keep moving.

Next up was Zion National Park, a few dozen miles down Hwy 89 from Bryce. The ride there was enjoyably uneventful. The sun was higher in the sky now, and the temperatures were increasing. Never mind the gauntlets, it was time now for my warm weather gloves! The liner was out of my jacket, too, and I opened all the vents in my jacket and helmet. Let the air in! Breathe!

By the time we reached Zion it was approaching 'hot'. Proably 30 or more Celsius, if I were guessing. The landscape here was different from either Arches or Zion, although still predominantly sandstone. Here everything was oversized. This was a place made for dinosaurs, not people. Boulders whose diametres were measured in scores of feet were strewn casually about ravines like forgotten toys. We rode through a long, dark tunnel, with windows allowing the light to peak in every 500 ft or so.

We were stuck for long stretches behind insanely insecure drivers who insisted on going 15 mph if the signs said 25, 10 or less if they said 15. There were times I thought I would have to get off my bike and push it. Eventually we reached the South entrance of the park, and I ducked in again to the Visitors' Centre to pick up some stickers. It was, by now, well and truly baking. We rode into Springdale, pushed hard up against the Southern flank of the park, for lunch at a little Mexican place. I couldn't finish the taco salad, although it was easily the best I've ever had.

After lunch, we were back on the bikes in scorching heat of the Southern Utah desert, making our way to even hotter Las Vegas. I seriously considered taking off my leathers when we stopped for gas along the way. There were just too many drivers, though, who were more interested in their cell phones than the road to make that seem like a decent calculated risk. The two biggest issues on the road in America, from my casual and unscientific observations, are the preponderance of drivers who talk and text while driving, and the crazy everydayness of motorcyclists without helmets. I can't think of many combinations that could be worse.

We arrived in Las Vegas around 6 p.m., thoroughly exhausted and overheated. The 'secret hotel' that Travelocity picked for us is a few miles south of Mandaly Bay, at the Southern end of the strip. It's a nice enough place, but we might as well be staying at the airport, or in Henderson. We ate at one of the hotel restaurants, if only to avoid the additional cab fare of eating anywhere else. The casino is largely filled with largely filled-out Americans, and a large number of Phillipinos, too.

****

We were up early, and out of the hotel by half past eight. I wanted to stop and pick up a replacement iPod for the one I lost in Utah, and we wanted to look at boots at CycleGear.  By the time all was said and done, we managed to clear the city limits at about one in the afternoon. The traffic was amazing. People in Vancouver should stop complaining. (Although I will join them when I'm back.)

We took the laser straight US Hwy 95 North from the City of Sin, pulling off for gas in Beatty, NV, immune to the siren song of Bikinis brothel, a few miles South of town. As neither of us were lashed to our bikes, we'll have to assume it was the earplugs that saved us from that ruination on the rocks. (If you don't know what I'm on about, go read The Odyssey.)

There was a sign leaving Beatty that read, 'Next Services 95 Miles'. I remembered a few years earlier, on my trip with Scott, that we had seen a similar sign at the Big Pine Junction. I also recall running out of gas 40 miles from Beatty. But we had full tanks today, and we should have no trouble making it a mere 155 km.

We continued up the 95 for another 83 km, then turned Westward on Nevada state highway 266. We continued on in a more or less straight line until reaching the state line. Then the now California state highway 266 began to change character. First, the pavement became much older. Then, after a total of 72 km on the 266, we switched over to the 168. And that's when the twisties began.

I didn't take pictures today, so here's another of Bryce Canyon.

California is twisty central. I'd almost forgotten, though, just how perversely this 61 km of road is. You crest a hill to discover a nearly 90 degree turn just past the rise. You're in a sharp upward turn, and find the apex is at the crest of the hill. This becomes especially challenging when you enter the thirteen miles of Inyo National Forest. Colin and I decided that the road designer was a frustrated modern artists, who thinks roads should resemble a Kandinsky. Either that or a roller coaster. In any event, our thighs - and buttocks - ached by the time we reached the junction with the US 395 to Bishop. About where the infamous sign had read 'No services for 97 miles' all those years ago. But looking at my trip metre, which I re-set when we filled up in Beatty, we'd traveled over 240 km. No wonder I ran out of gas! Oh, well. It wasn't much of a vindication. Better that I didn't repeat the mistake.

We took the 395 to Bishop, only to find the first three motels we tried to check into were booked up. Finally, we got the last room at the Comfort Inn. I asked why it was so hard to get a room on a Monday night, and the woman at the desk said, 'Why are you here?' Point taken.

Tomorrow we will cross the Sierras, passing through Yosemite National Park as we do. We hope to spend the night in San Francisco, before the rest of our journey becomes Northward. Homeward. It will be good to see our families again, and our other friends. All journeys have to have an end. But not yet. There are still four more days of riding. We have miles to go before we sleep, to borrow a phrase from Robert Frost.

In the meantime, here is Colin's latest video, featuring our rides through Mesa Verde and Arches National Parks. As always, we hope you enjoy.

Day 15 - Rain, rain, go away (approx. 675 km)

Today began with Colin doing an excellent imitation of one of our better known local weather forecasters in Vancouver, Mark Madryga. 'A bit of low-level cloud resulting from marine air, but not likely that we'll see any precipitation.' An hour later, the imitation proved to be perfect, as an absolute deluge accompanied our breakfast. The rain eased off a little after our third or fourth (who's counting?) cup of coffee at PJ's Restaurant, which is a good little no-frills diner, if you ever find yourself in Monticello, Utah. We ran back to the hotel to finish packing up and check out.

Unfortunately, just before we were ready to hit the road, the rain came down in buckets again. If we hadn't been on relatively high ground, I'd have been worried about a flash flood. It was no good trying to start out in such a mess, so we sat and waited until it eased again, at around ten - a good hour later than we'd hoped to start.

The rain was steady until we were about half way to Moab, then it began to trail off. As we rode between towering Mesas, our gear and our bikes slowly began to dry. We reached Moab, on the sunny side of the storm, a little before eleven, and pulled over on a side street to shed our rain-proof layer. I was warm and dry, except for my feet. I really have to replace these boots. They're great when it's dry, but crap in the rain.

We rode to Arches in warm sunshine, and our moods were definitely much improved from the time spent in Monticello, which is not a bad little town, playing the sort of role in relation to Moab that Castlegar does in relation to Nelson.

After stopping at the visitor centre so I could pick up some more stickers for my bags, we rode into the park on a narrow, winding road that, once again, would be brilliant if there were no cars on it. We pulled in at the Courthouse Tower Viewpoint to take photos. The immensity of the mesas is stunning, as is the copper red of their sandstone.

After a few minutes of walking around taking pictures, we got back on the bikes and rode till we reached the turn-off for Delicate Arch. Unfortunately, when we reached the parking area we found the trail had been flooded by the rains the previous night, and we had to turn back.

We continued along until we got to the parking area for Sandstone Arch and Broken arch. We pulled in and got out of our riding gear so we could hike in to the arches.

Sandstone was first, and was hidden between to narrow, towering mesas. We hiked in between them to the arch, took some photos, then hiked in further, until the path became too narrow for us. (Big shoulders, you know.)

We hiked back out, and headed off for the more distant Broken Arch, which we could see in the distance. We followed a very recently dried creek bed, which looked like it would be thigh or waste deep on me in a flash-flood, picking our way between sage and prickly pear, careful not to step on the beetles that occasionally scuttled across our path. There were many people on the trail, though not the tour bus loads of them that were at Mesa Verde yesterday. One of the best things about Arches is just how uncommercialized it is, especially compared to Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore and Mesa Verde.

Ringo?

After a decent, but not overly strenuous hike, we arrived at Broken Arch, so named because it appears to have a fracture in it. (The creativity is astounding, no?) It was much larger than Sandstone Arch, and large enough to be visible from at least a half mile away.

We climbed up the sandstone to the base of the arch, and walked through it, taking pictures both of it and the surrounding landscape. It was astonishing. The whole park makes you wish you were riding a horse in a Western movie, six guns in your holster, squinting into the sun like Clint Eastwood.

After riding and hiking around Arches for a couple of hours, we headed back to Moab for lunch at the Moab Brewery, before gassing up the bikes and heading North to the I-70.

I could have spent another week just in Moab, exploring the two National Parks and two State Parks they have handy; mountain biking, off-roading, sky-diving, river rafting. But there is only so much time, and I'm just grateful the weather cooperated with us today, so we didn't have to miss this like we did Chaco.

Once on the I-70, we made good time heading West. The speed limit is 75 mph, which is fairly reasonable, and we kept close to it for most of the way to the junction with the I-15.

Most interstates are not known for their scenic splendour, but the I-70 is an exception. Towering mesas, on either side, the road has sweeping curves, and is a great ride when you need to make time without making you feel like you've missed out on scenery.

We pulled in at one of the many viewpoints to take some photos of Black Dragon Canyon, but otherwise we were all business. It's a four-and-a-half hour ride from Moab to Cedar City, where we'd booked a room, and we didn't leave Moab till half past three. Sunset is around half past seven now, and we didn't want to spend a lot of time riding in the dark. Not only are there deer, which seem to have suicidal ideations involving motor vehicles, but it also gets cold at night. Even colder at 80, I mean 75 mph.

We arrived here in Cedar City at about eight, and checked in to our hotel, exhausted but happy that, after an initially dismal start to the day, we had such good luck with weather. Tomorrow, we'll try to get in Bryce Canyon and Zion National Park before heading to Las Vegas for the night.

Colin is currently working on the next video, which will feature Mesa Verde and Arches. Stay tuned for that!

Oh, and yesterday Google miscalculated our mileage as just over 240 km. It should have been roughly 325 km.

Day 14 - What the Thunder Said: Roll with it in Mesa Verde, Durango and Monticello (325ish km)

On the road, you just have to play the cards you're dealt. So much is contingent, provisional. The idea of being proactive, of planning, of strategizing, is almost laughable. Or, as my late father's favourite poet once put it:

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley.... 

Today began, as usual, with a look at the weather forecast. These had been more or less reliable when we were in parts where 'hot and dry' is pretty much a sure thing. Of late, though, they have been understated at best. Yesterday, for example, they forecast scattered showers for our route, with no mention of lightning storms. And if you don't remember what happened yesterday, scroll down to that post.

Today's forecast for Cortez, Colorado, and Mesa Verde National Park was mostly sunny in the morning, with no chance of showers till the afternoon, and then only isolated showers, and only a 40 per cent probability. When we set out, there was an occasional hint of sunlight peeking through the clouds, which hung low over the mountains.

Google maps was no better, (mis-)informing us that Mesa Verde was half a mile down the road. In fact, the park gate was 10 miles away, and the points of interest a further 23 from there.

You can't choose the weather, though. Neither do you get to choose how far you need to travel to get where you're going. We wound our way through the mountains of Western Colorado, to the park gate, and up the brilliantly twisty road to the top of Mesa Verde. We had to slow down for a deer along the way, who skipped off the road an down an embankment at the sound of my engine gearing down.

The deer, however, did not slow us nearly as much as motorhomes and Harley riders, which in combination make the Amish look like speed demons. Are we seriously going to slow down to less than 15 miles an hour around this curve? Are you ****ing kidding me! Thankfully, they pulled in at the visitors centre, allowing us to pick up the pace from there to the archaeological sites.

The cliff dwellings were the homes of the Anasazi, and the sites date from around 600 - 1300 A.D. Not all that long ago, really. I remember being in a church in London that was built in the seventh century, and Dante sent all his enemies (and many popes) to hell in the thirteenth century. Still, although these seem primitive compared with London and Venice and Tuscany, they are fascinating. It's hard to fathom why anyone would choose to live on the side of a cliff, rather than on the top of the Mesa, or down in the valley below.

Anasazi Condo for Sale: a bit of a fixer upper.

Although, if you're going to, Mesa Verde is a beautiful place to choose for it. The scenery is phenomenal. And you have the intermittent entertainment of spectacular lightning storms. (Thankfully, not while we were atop the mesa!)

The only downside to our visit was the preponderance of tour groups. One group had a gaggle of Northern Englanders being toured through various viewing areas by an elderly Texan with a big, Western accent, like something out of an old movie. One of the group was kind enough, though, to take a picture of me and Colin - proof that we were there.

When we got to the part of the park where you can climb down a ladder to the level of one of the dwellings, we found out that you had to buy a ticket and join a ranger-led tour. But there was a catch. You couldn't buy that ticket there. You had to buy it back at the visitors' centre that we'd decided would best be left till the way down, some four miles away.

We weren't sure we had time - or gas, for that matter, as we hadn't filled up before leaving Cortez, thinking it was going to be a very short ride to the park. My trip-metre read 250 km by the time we got back down to the visitors' centre, which is about when I try to make sure I fill up. And we were about 20 km from the nearest gas station. On top of that, on the way down it had begun to rain. We'd kind of had our fill of storms.

The rain quickly fizzled out, but my tank didn't get any fuller until we reached the town of Mancos. It was on the way to Durango, where Colin was hoping the local Harley Davidson dealer would have some heated pants he could integrate with his HD heated jacket and gloves. We rode for a while in the cool clear air of the mountains, with occasional moments of sunshine, until about twelve miles from Durango we saw a storm cloud that towered what looked like a mile above the mountain tops. It was nearly black, and stretched across the entire horizon.

Thankfully, it seemed to be moving away to the Southeast, and was moving almost as fast as we were. A few sprinkles was all we saw from it, though the pavement was soaked and the water sprayed up from our tires as we rode into town.

The dealership was a bust. If the geniuses who run Harley Davidson want to know why they can't seem to make money, it's because they are more concerned with image than with motorcycling. Not only are their bikes badly designed, but their 'store' has more 'fashion' than gear on offer. And all the gear they have is HD branded. Most real motorsports dealers carry a variety of gear - and a variety of bikes, too! All Harleys are variations on a theme, while Honda, Suzuki, BMW, Motoguzzi and others develop more varied lines that reflect the diversity of interests in the market.

What saved Durango - a pretty town, nestled in the Animas River valley - was where we at lunch. Serious Texas BBQ also managed to save BBQ for Colin on this trip. The State Line, back in El Paso, had been disappointing, but this was truly good stuff. Colin got a combo plate of brisket and sausage with a side of cole slaw, while I had a pulled pork sandwich and a side of beans. The sandwich was incredibly good, especially the cherry chipotle salsa they put on it, and the beans were nice and spicy.

Now in our happy place, as far as food went, we were off to Moab, Utah, to visit Arches National Park. We had originally planned to arrive in the early afternoon, book into a motel, unload the bikes, and set off unladen into the park. But, as so often happens, things didn't work out that way, and the earliest we could expect to arrive would be half past five. Still, with the storm past, the weather was fine, and we were looking forward to the ride.

Were weren't far from the state line dividing Colorado and Utah when it became apparent we weren't going to be able to sneak in between the two storms looking in the foreground. We pulled into a gas station in Dove Creek, and took the opportunity to get our gear ready for the rain. A couple of other bikers, one on a BMW R1200GS, his partner on a Kawasaki KLR, had the same idea. While talking with them, we discovered that Moab was fully booked for the night. They rode off, and we followed shortly after. This storm had only a little lightning, and we only got a little wet and were quickly through to the other side and brilliant sunshine and fluffy white clouds as far as the eye could see (provided it was looking West).

Reaching Monticello a few minutes later, we pulled into a parking lot and called a couple of motels in Moab, but no luck. Not only were they full, but we were told the room rates had tripled this weekend. Something to do with a bike race. (We found out later it was a Century Ride.) We tried Blanding, a little to the South, but no luck there either. We decided we might as well see if there was room in town. Luckily there was, not 200 ft away, at the Wayside Motor Inn. Fitting, as Colin said, since that's just where Moab left us: at the wayside.

A few minutes ago, another storm past through. Chain lightning. Thunder. Pouring rain. Then, gone. The forecast this morning called for clear skies in this area for the next week.

We called ahead to Kanab and Panguitch, but they are full up for the weekend, as is Torrey. We'll ride to Arches in the morning, then down to Cedar City, where we've already booked a room. Planning much beyond that is likely folly.

Day 13 - The cure for death by lightning; Santa Fe to Cortez (450ish km)

Saigon... shit. (For Colin, that.)

*****

The beauty of motorcycling, for me at least, is the way it focuses the mind. What has already happened is no longer relevant. What might have happened instead, even less so. What may happen next is only important if it comes to pass. All that matters is the present moment. What is now. What is happening. All verbs transformed to the present participle.

This is especially true in when riding through storms. Four of them today. But more about that later.

We began the day in one of the prettiest cities in the Southwest, Santa Fe. After checking out and grabbing a quick breakfast, we rode to the 'old' part of town. Narrow avenidas running between adobe buildings. (Or buildings stuccoed in such a way as to appear adobe.) An old-style plaza at the centre, and a cathedral, St. Francis of Assisi Basilica, at one end of it.

We were hoping this was the church we'd heard of with the 'floating' spiral staircase, it's structural integrity the work of some saint rather than principles of engineering. Alas, it was not. But it was an impressive structure nonetheless. And I say this as someone not generally impressed by churches.

The most interesting feature was the baptismal font in the centre. It featured na obsidianesque font spilling water continuously into a large octagonal pool inset into the floor.

After looking through the various tourist-oriented shops, and poking about the cathedral - Colin's camera drawing the ire of at least one old lady - we took off down the highway, back toward Albuquerque.

Before reaching New Mexico's largest city, though, we hung a right onto US 550, bound for the Four Corners Monument. We had decided earlier in the day that the ruins at Chaco weren't going to work out for us. The rainstorms of the past couple of days would have transformed the already dicey dirt road to mud, and we weren't ready to risk two heavily laden street bikes in that terrain. It seemed like a recipe for disaster. Chaco will have to wait for another trip, like so many other things. For every fascinating thing we've seen in New Mexico, there are at least five we've had to pass up.

Along the way, we crossed the Rio Grande for what must have been the tenth time in the past couple of days. Each time I was struck by it's size: it is no deeper or wider than the Bow River in Calgary. I can only assume the name must have come from its length - unless it just seems big compared to all the other streams and ditches that qualify as rivers in the desert.

When we pulled in to Cuba, in the Jemez Mountains, for gas, we congratulated ourselves on our good luck in skirting around storms. Up to this point, none had managed to reach us, though we could see them not far off on either side of the road. Sadly, we spoke to soon.

A little way outside of town, the wind began to gust with much more strength than before, and the clouds darkened ominously overhead. We pulled over to put on some warmer gear, and asked each other, and ourselves, if we thought we could outrun it. I, for one, was keen to push through as quickly as possible. I think I've mentioned before my dislike of lightning while riding a motorcycle.We thought we probably could push past before it reached us, so didn't put on our rain gear. This was the first of more than one faux pas. Shortly after we were back on the road, the storm caught up with us, and it wasn't long before we were being drenched by the downpour.

We rode through it, and a little further on began to dry out again. Just then, we were confronted by yet another storm. This one looking even worse than the last, and moving faster. We quickly pulled over and began to put on our rain gear. As we did, the storm front reached us, lightning striking within a mile or so of where we stood. We quickly got ourselves back on the bikes and on the road.

This was to be the worst rainstorm I've ever ridden in. It was like riding through a car wash. The rain was streaming down my faceshield, and I could barely see anything but the lightning striking to one side and another at intervals of under a minute. A strong wind threatened to sweep me off the road. The only thing to do was to push everything except the task of riding out of my mind. Just focus on staying in my lane and staying upright and keep moving forward as fast as the conditions would permit, the sooner to be through it.

Two more storms followed, although they paled in comparison. We decided Four Corners wasn't happening today, and that it would be best just to push on to Cortez, where we'd planned to stop for the night. We rode through Shiprock, on the Navaho Reservation, a place of unspeakable misery from the look of it.

Soon we found ourselves in Colorado again, this time in mesa country. The change in weather was as dramatic as the change in geography. Great chimneys of rock thrust up out of the ground, towering over the high plain we rode on.

I already miss New Mexico, but if motorcycling teaches you anything, it's not to dwell in the past. For now, I'm happy to be back in Colorado, and soon I'll feel the same about Utah.

But that's looking too far ahead already. All that matters right now is right now. Tomorrow can wait until it becomes today.

*****

Of course, one should always take some time to reflect. Here is Colin's latest video. As always, we hope you enjoy!

Day 12 - Break(fast)ing Bad and bombing to Los Alamos (250 km, give or take)

We are sitting in Los Pollos Hermanos (which, for those of you who don't know Spanish - as if I do - means 'The Chicken Brothers'), which when it isn't a location for Breaking Bad is actually a burger & burrito joint called Twisters. The huevos rancheros are surprisingly good, as is, Colin tells me, the 'Rio Grande' breakfast burrito. We came here on a mission, of sorts. To find the fried chicken restaurant operated by Gus, the drug kingpin of very few words on our favourite show. Colin and I have hatched, as it were, a theory that Gus has a brother, perhaps a twin, who operates his 'business' with him.

There is an emu pacing in the lot next to Twisters, and a llama, too. I begin to wonder if they aren't destined to find themselves part of someone's lunch special.

After we've eaten (I'm so glad I got the red and not the green chilli!) and taken a couple of pictures, we are off in search of the car wash that Walt, the protagonist of the show that is our main reason for wanting to stop in Albuquerque, has recently purchased.

Our route from the hotel to Twisters had taken us through some thoroughly sketchy neighbourhoods, where I expected to find crystal meth tweakers digging holes in their front yards. The ride to the Octopus Car Wash is much more sedate. When we pull up in the parking lot next to the car wash, it looks almost exactly like it does in the show. Sadly, they don't wash motorcycles.

We had one more stop on our Breaking Bad tour of Albuquerque, and after riding past Walt's house, we heading back down to the highway to make our way North and West to the birthplace of the nuclear age, Los Alamos.

The ride up the I-25 was uneventful. The highlight was the cop who crossed road to get a closer look at us, but didn't bother to introduce himself.

After riding through Santa Fe, we reached the junction with the much more interesting state highway 502, which led us by twists and turns to Los Alamos. The scenery in the Jemez Mountains was spectacular.

In Los Alamos, we head to the Bradbury Science Museum, whose gift shop supplies me with more stickers for my bags. One, featuring a picture of Einstein sticking out his tongue, says, '186,000 miles per second isn't just a good idea, it's the law'. I wonder if that would hold up in court?

After touring the museum, with it's exhibits on genetics, the brain and, most pertinently, the Manhattan Project, we decide to head back down and go to Bandelier National Monument. Unfortunately, it isn't progammed into Colin's GPS, and there isn't a sign indicating where to turn on the way down the mountain. (There had been one on the way up.) When we reach the casino at Cities of Gold, we give up, and head back to Santa Fe. There have been so many long days on the bikes, a couple of short ones seem like a good idea.

After booking ourselves into the Best Western Inn (these have proven to be the most reliably un-nasty motels), we decide we're both due for oil & filter changes. (My last one was about 10,000 km ago.) As luck would have it there is a BMW dealership a mile and half from the motel, and a Suzuki dealer two blocks from that for Colin.

After getting our bikes sorted, and ourselves showered, we head out in search of dinner. The BBQ joint I found in Google is no longer where Google says it is, so we walk a couple more blocks to the Blue Corn Cafe and Brewery. Colin gets a steak, and I order the special, Tacos Satanicos, which are disappointingly devoid of chillies, considering their name.

All in all, we've had a good day. Tomorrow we'll explore Santa Fe a little more, then head to Chaco to check out the ruins there, before going to the Four Corners Monument on our way to Cortez, Colorado. I'll be sad to say goodbye to New Mexico. It's a fantastic place, and I'll be sure to return again soon.

Here's Colin's video of our visits to White Sands and El Paso, as promised. As always, enjoy!

Day 11 - Border hopping in El Paso, then Breaking Bad for Albuquerque (over 500 km)

After a reasonably good sleep we got ourselves ready and checked out of the hotel, then we were off to find breakfast, mail some postcards and hit the road for Texas. It was already 25 C or more when we started out, and was only going to get hotter as the day wore on.

We arrived in El Paso a little after noon, and rode around the city, trying to find someplace that a) had shade and b) looked like our bikes might still be intact when we returned. Alas, no such luck. Almost the entire city is on the wrong side of the tracks - unless you compare it Juarez, just across the Mexican border. Then El Paso, with its gun battles in the streets (although none that we witnessed) looks positively idyllic.

'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'

Colin's GPS found us a scenic route with a vantage point from which to look down upon the sprawling mass of one-story houses crouching behind their chain-link fences, after we'd selected our own route along a road that ran parallel to the border. The border looked like the boundary of a super-maximum security prison. Tall chain link fences topped with razor wire enclosed a road travelled only by border patrol vehicles. On the South side of the fences, the concrete slope down to the banks of the Rio Grande, and South of that, a similar arrangement patrolled by Mexican officials. It's impressive that with all this fortification, the drugs still find their way through the border. I guess where there's a few billion dollars to be made, there's sufficient will to find a way.

After our whirlwind tour of the most dangerous city in the Southwest, we set off in search of some Texas BBQ. We'd read about a place called 'The State Line' on the outskirts of town, so we headed there. Colin had a brisket and turkey combo, while I settled for straight brisket, washed down with unsweetened iced tea. Well, unsweetened till we added some sugar. Honestly, I don't know how anyone drinks it without adding sugar.

My friend Val asked for a picture of some BBQ

There was a liquor store next to The State Line, who advertised that 'Our address is in Texas, but we're in New Mexico.' We went in to scout some deals, and to ask about their odd slogan. They explained that the state line runs between them and The State Line. Their parking lot is in New Mexico, the BBQ parking lot is in Texas. They asked if it wasn't awfully warm for wearing all our riding gear. We agreed that it was, but that we were happier sweating than we would be leaving our skin on the pavement in the event of a crash.

After procuring some provisions, we set out for the I-25, intent on reaching Albuquerque at a reasonable hour. There was little of interest in the riding itself. It was just a matter of eating up miles. We did pull in at an apparently award-winning rest stop, but the vending machine was out of water. Or at least, it wouldn't take any money, but spat my American quarters back at me and staunchly refused to give me anything but attitude.

Just past the town of Truth or Consequences we started to encounter intermittent showers, and we could see dark clouds trailing rain down to the ground in the miles ahead. Before reaching the storm, though, we came upon a fantastic scene, watching a rainbow build a complete arc in the sky, little by little. Now, I know that this is just a function of my changing position in relation to sunlight and precipitation, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

New Mexico bills itself as 'The Land of Enchantment', and I've not found anything to contradict that so far.

We stopped to put on our rain gear at the side of the road, and then continued on as the sky darkened and the wind began to gust. A little further on we caught up with the storm.

Now, I like lightning, when I'm safely inside something that will protect me from it. Like a house, say, or a car. I don't think I'd even be all that fussed if I were on foot, or cycling. But when I'm riding through a lightning storm with a big metal gas tank between my knees, I find it a little off-putting. The lightning was striking regularly, too, about every 2 minutes or so for a while.

We finally rode through the storm, and made our way to Albuquerque, home to the best TV show ever, Breaking Bad. We checked in to our hotel, unpacked our bikes and made our phone calls home when the storm rolled in behind us.

Tomorrow we plan to scout some of the Breaking Bad locations in town before heading up to Chaco, Los Alamos and ultimately Santa Fe.

Colin's video of our ride through White Sands will be up in the next day or two, so stay tuned for that.

Day 10 - White Sands, white hot (only 109 km)

Got to sleep late last night (2 a.m., give or take), but woke early (7-ish). Took us a couple of hours to get mobile, then walked over to an IHOP near the motel in Alamogordo. There the waitress, giving blondes a bad reputation for forgetfulness and clearly bored with her lot in life, forgot 1) the 'creamer' (can't they just say 'cream'?) for Colin's coffee, 2) that we existed, 3) our breakfasts under a poorly performing hot lamp. By the time our food arrived - well after an adjacent table that were seated after we ordered - it was room temperature at best. She got the tip she deserved, considering we couldn't deduct from the bill.

By the time we left the motel it was already a good 25 C. We rode the short distance to White Sands National Monument, where it was already above 30 C. After a quick stop at the Visitors' Centre, we rode the 8 miles along the Dune Drive to a hiking trail called Alkalai Flats.

We dismounted and stowed our riding gear, and hiked into the snow white dunes like French Legionnaires. Without guns, though. Or those funny outfits they wear. Okay, admittedly, almost nothing like French Legionnaires, but I'm trying to entertain an audience here. Cut me some slack.

At a certain point, Dune Drive ceases to be paved. A group of Harley Davidson riders was pulled over just before that point, apparently unwilling to venture further. I saw no reason to stop, so we continued on through the hard-packed sand, tires occasionally sliding in the soft white sand.

To all appearances, we should have been wanting to wear our cold weather gear. The dunes looked like enormous snow drifts, and the packed sand of the roadway looked like the plowed streets of a prairie city in winter. That, however, was most certainly not the case. The temperature was easily into the mid- if not high-30s C. The heat of the sun was being absorbed by my mostly black leather gear and every so efficiently transferred to me. Possibly the same principle was at work as is used in convection ovens. Maybe microwaves. I don't know. All I know is it was ridiculously hot.

Getting out of the gear didn't help as much as I would have hoped. I still felt like a potato, wrapped in tinfoil and thrown onto the coals. Still, we'd come all this way. So I put a metal water bottle in my shorts pocket, and off we went, into the dunes.


I might have thought that I was just being a whimp about things. I'm sure that's occurred to some of you, too. But Colin, during his stint in the Canadian Forces, once served in Saharan Africa, and he was finding it a bit much today, too. And I double dare any of you to call him a whimp.

After a half hour or so of disorientation and dehydration, we headed back to the motorcycles, to put on the even more uncomfortably hot gear, and head back up Dune Drive.

It was only 2 p.m., and still scorchingly hot, when reached Las Cruces. We decided it was too hot to continue on to El Paso today, so we'll do that tomorrow morning, when with any luck it will be cooler.

So there you have it. If brevity is the soul of wit, then Day 10 was a riot. As I right this, a thunderstorm has just cleared, making me even happier about our decision to cut today short.

But, just so you don't feel ripped off, here is another of Colin's videos. As always we hope you, enjoy.

Day 9 - Spelunking the bat caves of Carlsbad; Tarantula, deer and turkey vultures; descent into heat (322 km)

First off, I want to thank everyone for the feedback they've given us on this blog. It is very much appreciated. And now, today's entry.

*****

When we set off this morning for Carlsbad Caverns National Park, it was already approaching (if not past) 30 C. I wore shorts beneath my leathers for the first time this trip (but almost certainly not the last). And the only reason I wore the shorts is that I knew we'd be getting off the bikes and walking around a fair bit, and that I'd want to shed the leathers for that. (And no one would want me to do that without at least the shorts. It wasn't comedy night, after all.)

The ride to the caverns was a dull affair until we'd made the turn off of the highway. Then, suddenly, it was amazing. The hills that flanked the twisty road were covered with the charred remains of burnt yucca and prickly-pear. You could see that there had been a lot of life here, before whatever fire made it a wasteland. For some reason, it always brings to mind T.S. Eliot:

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
 .....
Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.
 .....

 Here is no water but only rock
Rock and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains 

Education can be crippling. It makes you think things other people don't.

It does seem a dead land, though. For most of the day, the only sign of life we saw, other than dry grass and cactus, was the odd vulture circling over the sand on either side of the road.

The caverns themselves are marvelous. And I mean that very literally, in that people marvel at them. At least we did. Once again, as was the case repeatedly in Wyoming, the focus of our trip was geological in nature. And yet, these subterranean calcifications would make any modern sculptor proud.

The path through the caverns descends 750 ft (just shy of 250 m, for those of you brought up using more rational & scientific measures), although the caverns themselves go much deeper. How much I'm not really sure, but according to the signs in along the path, at least 900 ft (roughly 300 m). The path winds its way amongst the various 'speleothems' - stalactites and stalagmites and 'soda straws' and 'columns'.

On our way into the caverns, we were warned by the ranger not to spit, chew gum (what is this, Singapore?), eat, touch the stone, walk off the path or speak above a whisper. Midway along the path we encountered an extended family of what looked like Mexican Hutterites, who spoke, at different times, but always loudly, French, German, Spanish and Russian. It was like being stuck behind a meeting of the EU. (Okay, I know, Russia's not part of the EU. So sue me.)

We managed to get past them, for a while at least, and to see most of the caverns in relative peace. I couldn't help but imagine a feminist critique of the largely (and I do mean LARGELY) phallic formations. Happily, I did find some that were more feminine in nature.

We spent a couple of hours hiking through the caves, taking pictures, before we got back on the bikes and started to make our way West to Alamogordo.

There were numerous signs along the road warning us to watch for wildlife, but the only hint of it for much of the day were vultures circling over the desert on either side of the highway.

We rode the ruler-straight road back through Carlsbad to Artesia, where we stopped for a quick lunch. Then we were back on the road again, turning off onto US Hwy 82, which wound its way through desert, gradually ascending into the Sacramento Mountain Range and the Lincoln National Forest.

Our backs, legs and get buttocks tired riding for long distances. Colin deals with this by sitting on the back seat of his bike. I stand on my pegs, which gives me a fantastic vista, although I can't watch the speedometer this way. We also get off and stretch every hundred-fifty or so kilometres.

We pulled off for a rest as the terrain was shifting from desert to alpine, cacti giving way first to juniper trees, then to pine and cottonwood and birch. As I was dismounting my bike, Colin pointed to a tarantula a few feet behind me and to the left. I must have narrowly avoided running it over as I pulled over to the shoulder. Imagine! If stepping on a garden variety spider is, as superstition back home has it, the cause of rain showers, then running a tarantula over with a motorcycle must bring on something almost biblical.

A short while later, we encountered several deer on the road. In each case, they smartly leapt away from our approaching bikes. Colin believes this is because of the deer whistles on his bike. This may be true, in spite of the fact that everything I've read about them says they don't work. However, it may also be true that they have the opposite effect on birds. I've seen swallows dive at Colin's bike as he rides by them, narrowly missing his helmet and windscreen. And just yesterday, a turkey vulture, its wings each the length of a motorcycle, swooped toward him, its talons outstretched, only to veer at the last moment toward the trees, having decided upon closer inspection that Colin was too large to carry off.

The mountains of New Mexico are apparently where all the state's clouds gather. In fact, at the peak of our journey today (some 8,600 ft - just over 2,600 m) was in a place called 'Cloud Country', a kind of ski resort for those not affluent or artsy enough for Taos. The temperature dropped from Carlsbad to Cloudcroft (the main town in Cloud Country) by at least 10 C (I have no idea what that is in Harenfeit).

But in the 16 miles from Cloudcroft to Alamogordo, the elevation drops and the temperature rises significantly. We rode down six degree inclines, and passed through a tunnel that starkly marked the boundary between alpine woods and desert. East of the tunnel, we were in pine forest. West of the tunnel, we were back to yucca and prickly pear.

We arrived in Alamogordo (where it was still 30 C at 8 p.m.) too late to visit White Sands today, so plan to do that tomorrow. We may also venture further South, to what Marty Robbins famously dubbed 'the West Texas town of El Paso'.

*****

On another note, Colin is working on the next video installment, so stay tuned.

Running hot and cold in New Mexico (Taos to Carlsbad, 540 km)

I woke early and plotted different routes on the computer for a while until Colin was up, too. It took a while for us to get going, me because I was still busy with google maps, Colin because his sinuses are draining him, but not themselves.

It was hard to leave Taos. It's a very pretty place, largely unspoiled, like Banff, say, thirty years ago, but with a Southwestern flavour. Adobe (or faux adobe) buildings are everywhere, the main street is, in places, quite narrow, as if made for burros rather than cars. The pottery galleries and other artisans' shops easily outnumber more traditional 'souvenir' shops. I wish we'd had more time to explore this place that was home to, at different times, D.H. Lawrence, Georgia O'Keefe and, more recently, Julia Roberts.

After huevos rancheros at El Taoseno (excellent place, mostly local patrons), and a quick fill-up at a local gas station, we were on the road again. It was cold and grey and damp, and we put on our rain gear just in case. Good thing, too, since we soon ran into rain in the mountains east of Taos.

State highway 518 is marvelously swoopy, and if it weren't cold and rainy, and if it weren't for some very slow vehicles who managed to get in front of us, it would have been a fantastic ride. We pulled off at one point to take a couple of pictures and to set up Colin's Go-Pro video camera. There was snow on some of the higher peaks! Not what we expected from New Mexico, to be sure.

Now, let me be clear what I mean by cold. I was wearing two pairs of socks inside my boots, a fleece under my leather jacket, with two shirts beneath that, a balaclava beneath my helmet and mountaineering gloves, in addition to my jeans, leather pants, leather jacket and rain-proof pants and jacket. My feet were still freezing and I still needed my heated grips to save my hands from the same fate.

The rain came and went all through the mountains, and I felt a little bad for the thousands of BMW riders who were attending a rally at a ski resort near Taos, many of them tenting. We heard about this from a woman we met in the parking lot of our motel. She and her husband, retirees, both ride BMWs: he a K1300GT and she an R1200RT. They were attending, but staying comfortably in a heated motel. The wisdom of age, I guess.

Eventually we rode through the rain, and just outside Mora, NM, we pulled over to the roadside so Colin could switch off the Go-Pro and I could remove my rain gear. (I don't mind looking silly if it's keeping me dry, but if there's no danger of getting wet, I'd prefer to forgo looking like an enormous rubber duck on the bike.)

A short way into the town, the local Sheriff took an interest in us - or at least me - and, after slowly u-turning his SUV around, proceeded to follow me for several miles. Having been down this road before, I simply kept my speed just shy of the limit and waited for him to lose interest (or jurisdiction). Then, safely round a bend in the road, I gave the throttle a twist and in very short order closed the distance that had opened between myself and Colin.

The rain threatened a couple of times to come back, but I never did regret shedding the extra gear. We rode on through Las Vegas, NM, which is not at all like its more famous cousin in Nevada. Beautiful brick houses lined the streets we rode through, and the whole place had the perfect small-town feel, like a Norman Rockwell painting come to life - only many of the faces were black or Hispanic or Native, rather than white.

We rode on, changing highways a couple of times, and I began to wonder if we were going to reach a town with a gas station before my tank ran dry. Back home, I generally see my 'fuel up!' light come on at anywhere from 180 km to 250 km. So far, on this trip, I've only seen it once, at 244 km, and then only after the bike had been on its side stand all night. (For those who don't know why that matters, the side stand tilts the gas away from the sensor that prevents the light from coming on. You can go back to not caring now.) We were now approaching 260 km, and while I hadn't seen my low-fuel light come on yet, I wasn't sure whether I should be pleased that I was getting better than usual mileage or worried that the sensor was on the fritz.

Thankfully, the little town of Vaughn had a gas station, although it didn't show up in Colin's GPS, which can find such stuff (as well as motels and BBQ restaurants, although we haven't found one of those yet). We tanked up, and I shed more of my gear, trading my fleece for my jacket's liner and my mountaineering gloves for my regular gauntlets, as well as putting away my balaclava. It was still cloudy, but it was significantly warmer by now, although there was still a cool breeze.

We continued on along US highway 285, and arrived around half past three in Roswell, NM, the mecca of UFO nuttiness, and home of the supposed 'area 51'. It was a fun looking place, and much bigger than I expected. We stopped only long enough to be asked for change by a couple of meth heads, and to get something to eat.

By now the clouds were long gone, and the landscape had changed utterly from the morning.We had started out in alpine forest and were now in semi-arid desert country, the vegetation sparse and stunted, joshua trees and cacti and sage.

We left Roswell and it's big-eyed alien lamp-posts behind, and rode the last hour or so down the highway to Carlsbad. Tomorrow, we plan to do some exploring at Carlsbad Caverns National Park and White Sands National Monument, and who knows what else. New Mexico has been full of surprises so far, and we're looking forward to more of them in the days to come.

Day 7 - Colorado; No Sandwich in Denver; Taos (737 km)

Today was fairly uneventful, so you can feel free to skip this post if you want.

We left Sidney after a disappointing breakfast at the disappointing restaurant attached to the hotel. We were very briefly on the I-80 before turning onto Nebraska state highway 19, a nice country back road flanked on either side by corn fields and running parallel to a railway track. The sky was domed with a thin veil of gauzy clouds that all but obscured the blue, and the air hung on the cusp of cool and warm, as if it couldn't quite commit to either one.

It wasn't long before Nebraska state highway 19 became Colorado state highway 113. Almost immediately we noticed that the towns we passed through seemed less desperate, more hopeful and in better repair. In Sterling we were delayed briefly at a light as police guided vehicles through from another direction. It may have been a funeral procession, although we arrived too late to see the hearse, and not everyone had their lights on. (Do they do that here? Or is that just in Canada? Or maybe no one does it anymore. How could you tell anymore in Canada, now that we have daytime running lights?)

We ate up miles very quickly on the I-76, arriving in Denver around 1 p.m. We ate lunch at a sushi joint called Tokyo Joe's, where all the staff were white and probably college kids. When we got back to where we'd parked our bikes, the meters had been bagged to indicate a tow-away zone. We talked for a while with the meter-bagger, who was easily the friendliest parking control person I've ever met. We talked about bikes, and whether or not we thought Denver was much like Vancouver (it isn't, in my opinion; more like a nicer version of Calgary).

We rode the I-25 South from Denver, through an interminable stretch of suburbs which actually did remind me of Vancouver. By now the blue of the sky was clearly visible, and enormous white clouds moved across it like a heard of buffalo migrating slowly across the plains.

Just a little South of Pueblo we pulled into a rest area, and talked for a while with very lean, black Harley rider. He was returning to Denver from LA and Phoenix, happy to be out of the latter. Too hot, he said.

We left the interstate a short while after that for US Hwy 160, which winds its way into the Sangre de Cristo mountains that straddle the border of Colorado and New Mexico. We stopped a gas station to fill up at the junction with Colorado state highway 159. While filling up, we were approached by a local who asked if either of us were from Vancouver.

We answered that we both are from Vancouver (more or less) and he said he'd just heard on NPR that there had been an earthquake there. He didn't have more details, but didn't think anyone had been hurt.

It was now actually cold, as we were, after all, in the mountains. (Colin's GPS pegged our altitude at over 9,000 ft at one point.) We put on our cold weather gear and set out for the 75 mile run down to Taos, each of us wondering how bad the earthquake had been, hoping our family and friends were ok, and thinking about how to get back as quickly as possible if it were serious.

Just as we reached the New Mexico border, the weather began to turn. We'd seen the clouds earlier, and now we were heading straight into bad weather. We pulled over again, and quickly put on our rain gear as well as the cold weather gear, and then set out again.

Luckily, the worst of the storm had already blown through by the time we reached it, and we just got showered on a little. We pulled into Taos around 7:30, and found a place to stay for the night, called home to get details about the quake and everyone's well-being (fortunately, the quake had actually occurred several  hundred kilometres from home), and then went out for dinner.(If you're ever in Taos and looking for a place to eat, Tequila's is not a bad choice for Mexican food.)

*****

And now, it's time for everyone's favourite part of the blog: Colin's latest video. Enjoy!

Day 6 - The Black Hills, Mt. Rushmore and Custer State Park (567 km)

We set out from Sturgis around 9:30 a.m. after a quick pit-stop at the local BMW dealer. It looks like yet another O-ring has failed on me, as there is a small amount of oil seeping out from the cap. This is more just an annoyance than a problem. The dealer in Sturgis didn't have the part in stock. The annoying thing is that I just had the O-ring replaced a few weeks ago. I'll keep an eye on my oil levels, and top up if need be. They did have some incredible deals on bikes, and if I were ready to buy a new one, I could have saved a few grand - provided I was willing to put up with the hassles with paper work.

We rode and South and then West to Mt. Rushmore, arriving a little after eleven. It's an impressive site, although smaller than I'd imagined. And you have to pay $11 to park before you can even go see it. I don't remember Carey Grant having to do that in North by Northwest, but I guess more than just fashions have changed since then.

Americans have an odd, cult-like obsession with their presidents. I remember noting this a few months ago, when I was in Washington, DC, and went to see the Lincoln memorial. The enormity of the sculpture, the design modeled on a Roman temple, suggest that some presidents, if they play their cards right, will be deified. This certainly holds true for Mt. Rushmore, as the transcendence many of the guests felt in the presence of this monument was palpable. I half expected them to genuflect and kneel.

 And they seem to make it a patriotic pilgrimage to visit every monument, every memorial, every national park, forest, historic site. A kind of rite of patriotic passage.

I can't imagine us doing anything similar in Canada. Who, other than party hacks, would go to see a monument to Mackenzie-King? Or Trudeau? Or Sir John A. MacDonald? Can you imagine a mountain with Mulroney's visage carved into it? (Hard to imagine one that could accommodate that chin, anyway.)

From there we rode down to Custer State Park, which required a very slow but twisty ride along Iron Mountain Road, just off of Hwy 16a, complete with single lane tunnels. Unfortunately, some idiots who have yet to grasp the truth of "four wheels good, two wheels better," insisted on stopping at the tops of hills, just beyond the apex of a curve, or at the very end of a tunnel, thus stranding the poor two-wheeled travelers in very awkward positions.

It was all worth it, though, when in our tour through the park (another $10 each, please) we encountered first a group of wild donkeys through whom we were forced to maneuver, followed by a herd of buffalo (yes, I said buffalo) straddling the road. One of them giving Colin the hairy eyeball as she escorted her sweet young veal calf across the road.

After leaving the park, we rode to the small town of Custer, and there availed ourselves of a couple of DQ burgers. We weren't yet over our experience in Greybull, so wanted something familiar, or at least predictable.

On the highway again just after one, we rode the 87 through the last of the Black Hills on our way to Nebraska. Now, some will ask, why the **** are you going to Nebraska? Well might you ask, well might you ask.

There is really no good reason, that I can think of, why anyone would travel to Nebraska, except as a means to arriving someplace else. On the sign welcoming us to the state was the slogan: The Good Life, but I have seen little evidence of that so far. Indeed, I have yet to encounter a place so devoid of hope since passing through the Blackfeet reservation in Montana.

And yet, here we are, in Sidney, NE. Tomorrow, we'll be off again, and expect to arrive in Wichita, Kansas or else Denver, Colorado, tomorrow evening. We'll decide which based on weather reports, forest fire warnings, and maybe a coin toss.

In the meantime, Colin is working on piecing together another video of our travels, which we should have up tomorrow.