Check out the new Pics links to the left! Day 12: Made it home! Hit a small storm on the way and got a little wet. Rolled into the driveway just before 12pm. Over 3600 miles in all. I will try to get more pics/videos loaded soon. Day 11: Headed into Iowa and pulled over just across the border into Iowa. 99 degrees with about 80% humidity. Pulled into the Iowa welcome center to enjoy the A/C. Ended up getting overtaken by a storm. This dropped the temperature by nearly 20 degrees so we headed out again. Pulled over in Atlantic, Iowa for the night when we started getting blown around by 70-80mph wind gusts. 210 miles from home. Will start out in the morning, should be home by noon. Day 10: Had a late start this morning. Went to get oil for the bike and ended up helping a couple of motorcyclists with their trailer lights. Ends up they were from Cedar Rapids, IA and Ely, IA. Small world. The heat was brutal today. Saps the energy right out of you. Not looking forward to more of that tomorrow. We ended up in North Platte, NE. 538 miles left to Cedar Rapids. It is amazing how north-east Colorado resembles Nebraska and Iowa. Once you get to Denver the mountains are just a distant skyline. Not much worth taking pictures of on the super-slab (I-80). Onward... Day 9: Rode on to Denver area. Ended up in Castle Rock, Colorado. Met my senior prom date and Jody's cousin for late lunch/early supper at the Rockyard Brewing co. Hadn't seen Renae in years.The 3 of us gabbed like school girls for a couple of hours. Caught-up and talked about old times in high school. Heading out for Nebraska tomorrow. Looks like we may be home a day early. Day 8: Started raining this morning as we left and never stopped until we were about 1 hour outside of Grand Junction, Colorado. Stayed in Grand junction, didn't take many pictures due to the rain. Skipped Moab/Arches area due to weather. 12 was very twisty and not fun. High altitude, temps in the 30's and rained all day. Glad to get a clean/dry room. Day 7: Great sunrise. Got up about 4:30 and started packing/making breakfast. Rode north into Utah. Stayed in a little town called Tropic, Utah. The whole town was owned by the Clarke family. (Hotel, diner, gas station, hardware store.) Pretty pricey and full of Mormons who had strong Russian or slavic accents. Route 12 was beautiful! Day 6: Jody had a strange sound in his bike and we took it to a Yamaha dealer to get it checked out. Turned out to be nothing but it set us back a couple of hours. Headed out to the Grand Canyon. Picked-up souvenirs at the Grand Canyon village in the park. Took lots of pics of the canyon at sunset. Ended up camping in the national forest. Park rules require you to camp more than 1/4 mile from the main roads. This meant we had to find a logging trail to take the bikes down. Took my bike down a bad trail and sprained my big toe. Finally found a good road and set-up camp after dark. Gorgeous starry skies. Could see the milky way with the naked eye. Day 5: Went to Horseman's Haven for breakfast again before heading out to Flagstaff, AZ. Got a hotel for the night and ate dinner at Salsa Brava. Stuffed sopapia's. Not bad, however Jody and I agree they they were not near as good as the ones we had in Santa Fe. They had a salsa bar with different varieties of salsa. Everything from pico, to hot to habenero/pineapple. Good, but not great. Day 4: Went to Horseman's Haven for breakfast and had more carne adovada. (Even got the Recipe). Washed the bikes and then went up Artist Road in Santa Fe to ride up to the ski basin again. This time we got it on video coming down. I'll try to get it edited and posted today. Doing laundry, packing, and giving the bikes a maintenance once-over, then we go to Frank & Rachel's for dinner. After dinner everyone is coming back to the hotel for a swim. Day 3: Spent the day in Santa Fe. Met Frank for breakfast at Pasqual's downtown and walked the plaza. Toured the church of Loretto and took lots of pictures of the church staircase. Spiral staircase built with no nails and no supports. Amazing! Here is a link to more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loretto_Chapel Went up to the ski basin - 16 miles of the curviest roads you have ever seen. Hoping to go back up tomorrow and get video of the ride. Ended the day having dinner with Frank, Rachel, Lucas, Emily, Jesus and Lisa at La Choza - mmmm, Carne Adovada burrito! Day 2: 540 miles today. Beautiful morning in Pratt Kansas. Turns rough in Oklahoma - 40+ miles of 50 mph winds... gas mileage went from 47mpg to 29! Dodged desert storms most of the day. When we hit Las Vegas, NM we hit a giant hailstorm. We pushed through it - it was about 4 miles deep with pea sized hail. Just as darkness fell we hit another near Pecos wilderness outside of Santa Fe. Needless to say we were ready for rest when we arrived. Day 1:Put just over 610 miles behind us and ended up in Pratt, KS. First 6 hours of the trip was wet and cold. Raining when we left home. Weather didn't break until we hit Kansas. Then it was smooth sailing. Rained again last night but we seem to have a small break in the weather so we will have to head out soon. Just some small storms SW on the way to Santa Fe. Not many pictures, only excitement was watching a car pass Jody only to slow down right in front of him... about a mile later the car swerves off of the road suddenly to avoid a "road gator". There was a piece of tire tread laying sideways across the whole lane of traffic. Jody was right behind and had to go into evasive maneuvers. Ended up clipping his boot heel as he swerved around it. No damage, no pain. Since I was following behind Jody I had more time to react and got out of the way. Other than that lots of people have been coming up to talk to us. (Mostly motorcyclists.) So far they all really like Jody's basket design. The baskets have been great and handle really well. Gas Prices: So far Iowa has been the most expensive... most places have been just a little less. Gas mileage has been great. Averaging between 43-47mpg fully loaded. Well, that's all for today. I'll try to post more in Santa Fe.  |
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