Eureka!

May 6, 2014

As the season warmed up I knew I would eventually make a trip to Eureka. Throughout the year I found myself there half a dozen times. The first time was in May with Jake. It was a Tuesday and we both had the day off.

May 18, 2014

Two weeks later I made the trip again with Aric and his friend, Jeff.

The other rides to Eureka were loops where I was just passing through. I may have taken a couple quick pics, but that's it. As I continue updating the rides I will cover the loops I took where I was just passing through.

Easter

April 20, 2014

Easter. I had nothing to do the entire day except dinner that evening. Everyone has the Wendover impulse at some time or another, where the idea of dropping everything and taking a short road trip to gamble away a couple hundred dollars is the most attractive concept in the world. When you add a motorcycle to that equation there is only one outcome.

I called Brad and shortly after we were on our way. Wendover is about a two hour trip each way and this was my second time going it on a bike. The weather was cool and comfortable, but one thing I forgot about was the sidewinds. They were tolerable at first, but at a certain point I got a throbbing headache and had no choice but to pull over on the side of the road. We stretched for a bit and the break provided immediate relief for my head.

Soon after, we arrived in Wendover, ready to make millions! Less than forty-five minute later we had lost our money and were turning around. We always expect to lose though, and the trip was mostly for the ride. Hella.

The Capitol

April 8, 2014

Last April it warmed up to the 60's. The first season for my Harley was still just beginning and I knew I would take every opportunity possible to ride. April 8th was a Tuesday, and for some reason Jake and I had open schedules. It was a good day.

Jake was new to riding, and now here he was riding my old Kawasaki Vulcan. I can't remember our exact route, but I feel like we maybe met up at my parents' in Riverton, and then left with no destination in mind. At a certain point, I guess the Salt Lake capitol building became an idea. We ended up crashing a middle school field trip and walking around the capitol grounds.

Shortly after, Jake made it an official date and bought us both lunch at Red Rock Brewing, which was quite delicious. I anticipate doing a repeat of this day sometime soon.

Starting The Season Right! 1.4

March 24, 2014

We had encountered a few cold moments up to this point. The day before was especially cold when we passed through Flagstaff. The seven thousand-foot elevation and time of year was the culprit. After freezing for a while we pulled off at a gas station and layered on PJs under our jeans and chaps to help stave off the cold. The morning of our last day topped them all, though.

Our first leg was a 75 mile trip from Paige, Arizona to Kanab, Utah. During the hour and twenty minutes we froze. Our hands were especially cold. I remember steering one-handed in the middle of my handlebars where the fairing covered wind chill, with my other hand close to my core for warmth. It didn't matter too much, though. By the time we arrived at the gas station in Kanab we were all extremely cold.

 

A customer overheard us discussing our planned route while we warmed up inside. He approached us and told us the highway leaving town was closed for a few hours. With no reason to kill time in Kanab, we looked for an alternate route. We discovered that if we backtracked eight miles we could take a dirt road that connected with the highway. After mapping it out we discovered the dirt road was fourteen miles. All we knew was it would be quicker than waiting for the main highway to reopen.

 

We backtracked and made it to the dirt road detour. By this time we were off road pros. At one point we pulled over and Aric suggested we separate by a few hundred yards to avoid riding in each others' dust clouds. I snapped a few pictures of our remote location since I forgot to on our first dirt road.

  

 

 

We successfully reconnected with the highway and followed it North. Every hour or so we would signal each other for a break to rest our back and stretch our legs. This continued until we were only fifty miles from home. We separated one by one off the freeway, each taking our exit to go home. I arrived home in the middle of the afternoon, completely satisfied with the trip, exactly 1,700 miles in its entirety.

 

 

In a little over two months I will be returning to Gilbert with the SL,UT Riders. This time each of us will have a passenger. The route is to be determined, but I imagine we'll be stopping in Las Vegas and at the Grand Canyon again.

Starting The Season Right! 1.3

March 23, 2014

The next morning we packed our things and said our goodbyes. Ten minutes later we were gassing up and eating gas station food before our first long leg of the day. On our return trip we would be visiting the Grand Canyon and staying in Paige, Arizona for the night.

 

I had never been to the Grand Canyon before this, and I wasn't disappointed. The three of us peered over the edge at the tiny river below and took in the sight before us. It was incredible. I thought of an early Nitro Circus episode where they rode motorcycles off jumps into the Grand Canyon and then pulled parachutes. I also couldn't help but think of Joe Dirt.

 

 

Before leaving the park we spent a good twenty minutes browsing through the gift shop. Eventually, we came across a taxidermized mountain lion on display that Brad immediately observed to have Down Syndrome. Judge for yourself.

 

 

Afterwards, we rode straight to Paige. We arrived just as the sun was setting and decided to stay the night rather than ride in the dark and cold. A few hours later we were in our motel rooms asleep, recharging for our the fifth and final day.

Starting The Season Right! 1.2

March 22, 2014

It was good to catch up with my brother and his family. Despite the long second day, I stayed up after 2 AM talking with Andy and then fell asleep watching a Bill Burr special on Netflix.

By day three, it all caught up with me. I had four hours of sleep the first night before being on the road for thirteen hours, and here I was with about the same amount of sleep on night two. This time I couldn't shrug it off very well. We were all pretty drained actually, and we figured breakfast would be a good pick-me-up.

We spent the early afternoon washing our bikes, lounging around, and catching up on sleep. A little while later we went on a short ride with Andy around Gilbert. His wife, Kim, and their kids followed us in the car. We waved and made faces at the kids as we passed them on the road. Before long we were all getting hungry, so we rode to a ghost town for dinner.

Later that night we visited Tempe and spent hours walking the streets. Even though we all felt tired and sluggish from the previous day, we were satisfied that we saw everything Arizona had to offer in the short time we were there. Andy and Kim were awesome hosts and we look forward to seeing them again this Spring.

Starting The Season Right! 1.1

March 21, 2014

The next morning was a rough one. I ended up only getting around four hours of sleep, and we had a long day ahead of us. Once we collected our things we left for Las Vegas.

...but not before stopping in Kayenta Village for breakfast. This place was a ghost town when we were here. We arrived just as the shops were opening and ate outside.

It was about 10 AM when we finally finished breakfast and got back on the road. We took SR-18 and met back up with I-15 in Arizona. From there it was a straightaway to Vegas. Originally, we were planning on passing through without stopping, but I had never been to the Harley-Davidson Cafe on the strip. We were glad we checked it out. It was something cool.

From there we traveled along Highway 95 for a couple of hours, passed through Boulder City, and then arrived at our next destination, the Hoover Dam.

It was amazing to see in person. I'm not normally afraid of heights, but this thing will give you the jitters. It reminded me of a video I had once seen of a tourist video that captured a suicide right where we were. The next day I found the video and it blew our minds (no pun intended for those who have seen it). On our way out we pulled off at the Lake Mead viewpoint and took this.

From there, we didn't have anymore sightseeing and it would be a straight shot to my brother's house in Gilbert, Arizona. Around the time we were ready to stretch our legs again we were near the Harley shop in Kingman, Arizona off Route 66. We spent an extra 10 minutes finding it, and then took a load off inside.

There are always a couple mistakes on road trips, and we made our first one here. We figured it was still early enough in the day to enjoy some leisure riding and maybe go out of our way a bit. None of us had ridden on Route 66 before and after talking it over we agreed to explore the historic road a little bit.

Our plan hinged on the road called Hackberry that cuts South from Route 66 and connects with I-40 and Highway 93. We left Kingman and followed Route 66 Northeast for about forty-five minutes before it curved Southeast. After another 10 minutes we flew by a dirt road with railroad tracks crossing it. None of us were sure if this was the road that was on the map and none of us wanted to take it. We decided it couldn't be the road and continued on. Just five minutes later we came to another dirt road, and unfortunately, it was marked as Hackberry.

We were all a little devastated, to be honest. We had ridden over an hour out of our way, only to arrive at a 20 mile-long dirt road. After considering our options, we decided it would be faster to take the dirt road than to backtrack and cut back over, which would probably take at least two more hours.

I've had experience riding dirt bikes off road, but riding a Harley in deep sand and dirt with mud spots and water puddles everywhere is a whole different story. At around fifteen miles per hour we made our way South, each with our legs out ready to try and save the bike if anything happened. At one point, our engines frightened a cow and it ran directly in front of Brad. From where I was it looked like he should have hit it, but somehow he didn't.

After riding for what seemed like an hour we stopped the engines and checked the map. We had only covered a little more than half of the distance of the dirt road. With no other choice, we continued on.

The only silver lining was the last third of the dirt road had patches of asphalt. We were able to increase our speeds at times, but just when we would get excited about it we would encounter another stretch of dirt road.

Finally, up ahead we could see the overpass for I-40. What we didn't realize was that I-40 passed over Hackberry and didn't connect at all. We wasted another 5 minutes investigating any possible entrances to the freeway, but there were none. That meant we had another 5 miles of fun ahead of us.

Later, we finally connected with Highway 93, and pulled off at the first gas station another thirty minutes down the road. We were glad we made it in one piece and that the dirt was behind us. As we refueled our bikes and bodies I called my brother, Andy, to let him know where we were. He informed me we still had at least another three hours of riding ahead of us.

The sun was going down, we were tired, and we had already been on the road for more than nine hours. It ended up taking us 13 hours to get from Kayenta, Utah to Gilbert, Arizona. I can honestly say that day two of this trip was a major adventure. It had ups and downs, but all in all, it was amazing.