Featured Rideout Costa Del Scotland

I recognise 'the pattern" - I've been to every one of those places!

 

Wow, what terrific road trips you did, Dougie! And really varied places, too. You've been to a few places that I've not been yet but hope to see soon, like Bryce Canyon. Hope you enjoyed riding here in the Western U.S. Yes, it is a shame that Moto GP doesn't go to Laguna Seca anymore. We have some very good friends who used to live in California and went there every spring. My husband and I got to go to Moto GP last year in Austin. So fun!

 

Thanks, Tigcraft! Yes, the photos taken were at a good time of day and look quite inviting. While our Sonoran Desert doesn't always look quite this beautiful all of the time, it does so more often than not and much more often than you would think! There's a national park (Saguaro National Park) about 10 miles to the west of our house and it always tickles me when we ride through it that I can ride through a national park on any ol' Sunday.

One of the most amazing things I love about the desert is our sunrises and particularly our sunsets. Of all the places I've been in the world, I think the sunsets here are the best. I've heard that it's because of all the dust in the air! Yes, seems there is a silver lining to most everything, even desert dust. We do also get some amazing lighting displays this time of the year during the monsoons. I watch those from the safety of the house, though, not the back of a motorcycle.

 

You've got me beaten by one city on that list Adie. And I live here! I've not been to Pueblo, CO. But...I'll be riding right through it right about this time next Saturday! Five of us are riding from Tucson to Sturgis, South Dakota for the big motorcycle rally there and our route through Colorado includes Pueblo.

 

Sometimes it can get windy on the Eastern slopes of the Rockies.

http://digg.com/2018/flying-port-o-potty

 

Holy crap!! Or more like---unholy crap. We'll make sure to stay far, far away from porte-potties, particularly ones that aren't bolted down. Ugh.

 

And here is the Arizona that the state promotes....





and yeah, we don't get sand storms...….. just occasionally a sandy gust while eating an ice cream at the beach

 

Great photos! The first one is Monument Valley and is WAY up in the teeny tiny corner of Arizona (and the monument extends into Utah) and is far, far away from my beloved Sonoran Desert. But Monument Valley is really a cool, unique place to see and to ride through.

That sand storm pic is wicked. I'd not seen that. Those storms go by the name "haboob" and are a newer phenomenon that happens only occasionally (thank god) nearer Phoenix which I think is the city in this photo. They seem to be connected to people buying up land and blading everything so there's absolutely nothing to stop the wind from wreaking this havoc. There are a few places on Interstate 10 where haboobs tend to occur--one is between Tucson and Phoenix but nearer Phoenix and the other is near the Arizona--New Mexico border. They are frightening, nasty storms. But I'm glad to say I've never experienced one personally and hope I never do.

Here are a few photos taken in Monument Valley when four of us did a trip up through New Mexico-Colorado, Utah, and Arizona a few years ago. If you've seen Forrest Gump, this view was in the movie. The first photo includes the bike I was riding at the time, a 2016 H-D Dyna Switchback. The second photo is my husband taking a photo of the classic road in through Monument Valley. You actually ride ride through the largest of these formations and they are HUGE! I threw the last photo in for good measure, figuring it might be appreciated by a number of the guys I've come to know a bit through this forum. There were (and to some degree still are) some polygamist settlements in these here parts.

 

I've done a LOT of touring of the US - mainly by motorcycle - and made a number of lifelong friends there. It's often said that I've seen more of the continental U.S. than they have - from the ground at least! My first trip was in 1979 when I bought a 1972 Commando Interstate, loaded it with my (then) wife and camping gear and set off from San Francisco - via Yosemite - to the USNOA International Rally in Colorado Springs.

You're probably not old enough to remember the "Gas Crunch" of '79 but it was very real at the time. From Yosemite, Route 6 across the Nevada desert was a beautiful but almost unbearably hot, lonely and unforgiving place to be when the bike is on reserve and you've recently passed a sign saying "next gas 124 miles"! We stopped at a one-pump desert gas station/diner and asked if we could get fuel but were given a very hostile "no gas" in response. I knew they had gas as there was a pickup truck beside the pump and the smell of vapour - sorry, vapor - in the air. I explained that I was on reserve and heading east and asked how far the next gas station was. I think the frosty response was "about 80 miles" and I said we wouldn't make it that far on reserve - to which I got a blank stare and the curt reply "can't help ya!". It was one of very few times that I've experienced outright hostility over there. I walked out of the place and started to prepare to get as far as possible then hope to get help if we ran out. The more normal hospitality of the 'merkin people very quickly showed up when a cowboy (a real one) emerged from the diner, came straight over to us and said he had a can of gas in his truck and I could have that if I needed it. I said we could probably make it on a gallon(even a U.S. one!) so he dumped at least a gallon and a half into the bike's tank, accepted our grateful thanks and reluctantly accepted a $10 bill before wishing us a safe trip! We did make it to the next station by the grace of God and that cowboy, and it became one of those abiding memories that defines a particular time of one's life. I have many others from my various trips out there!

I do hope your trip to Sturgis is a good and safe one - I assume you'll be on the Harley? Pictures will, of course, be required otherwise it didn't happen.

Ride safe and enjoy the trip - but keep the gas tank topped off!

 

If you’ve seen the movie?

This is the Gump Clone Club!

 

Hey, Adie! I do remember the gas crunch but vaguely. At the time I was in college driving a beater Ford LTD that was big as a house and guzzled gas so I didn't drive much. Haha! I'll bet you've seen more of the US than I have. Funny how that works. I got totally into scuba diving in 2003 and for about the next 10 years mostly organized travel to dive locales (none of which are in Arizona!). But when I started riding in 2011 I realized how much of the US I hadn't seen and how much of it I want to see. And what an amazing and diverse place it is! Plus--motorcycle trips are definitely less expensive than scuba trips.

What a fantastic story about your experience in Nevada. Thank God for the cowboy that bailed you out and that, for the most part, he's more representative of 'merkins than were the gas station/diner folk. It sounds like you have lots of other amazing memories and stories of your adventures too! I'd love to hear more. Do you have favorite places/rides in the US?

Yes, I'll be on one of my Harleys for our upcoming Sturgis trip--my 2017 Road Glide Special. I have it all tuned up and ready to roll. And I'm happy to say that my bike has a 6 gallon gas tank and one of the guys in our group of five has a 5 gallon gas tank so he's the weak (gasoline) link. I'll definitely share some pics upon our return...gotta provide evidence to this group!

 

I also remember the gas crunch, traded my 68 GTO for an AMC gremlin 6 banger. Cowboy story, driving my Foretravel motorcoach home from Laguna Niguel to Wichita. Stopped in Oklahoma to get some breakfast, entry door was not deadlock when I left and drove over a speed bump on Main Street and door flew open and struck a pickup truck bumper. Put the flashers on and climbed out to see if there was any damages to the truck and closed the coach door, there wasn't any damage went to get back into the the motorcoach and door would not budge and the coach is running and blocking main Street
Two cowboys stepped up, formed stirups with there hands and boosted me up high enough to get a window open and gave me a big upwards shove to get inside. They refused a monetary tip. I am a farmer, just not A cowboy with 1320 acres of land. BTW the motorcoach (caravan) will easily run 1500 miles between fuel stops with a 10.4 liter catipillar turbo diesel.

 

Hey Sandi. Yes, I do have more than a few stories about my varied trips to, and tours of, the US! At the risk of derailing - even futher - a thread about Scotland I'll offer you one fairly brief (for me - I'm a bit too wordy at the best of times) story about a long ride!

There is (or was) a road sign on I-80 just outside of Sacramento that reads Ocean City 3,073 miles. My best friend (and best man!), Paul, lives about 40 miles east of Sacramento and he pointed out the sign to me once, many years ago, on the way back from picking me up from SFO. He explained that the sign refers to the fact that US Highway 50 starts in Sacramento (where it's now part of I-80) and ends on the east coast in Ocean City, Maryland and, despite having been swallowed up in places by the interstate freeway system, it remains, in large part, a two lane highway that cuts across over 3,000 miles of the continent.



Near its western end it crosses the Nevada desert and has been designated "The Loneliest Road in America" though probably as much for tourism purposes as for any factual record! On more than one occasion after a day's riding in the Gold Country foothills, we sat on the outside deck looking out at the western slopes of the Sierras fading into the darkness left by the setting sun and we discussed the possibilty of 'riding 50' end to end. It was, we agreed, a must-do ... maybe not exactly high on the bucket list but it was achievable and it had an allure to it that we both felt pulling at our throttle hands. For Paul there was an additional draw - he was born and spent his early childhood in KC.Mo. and he wanted to return to see what the streets and railroad tracks he remembered from his childhood would look like now. The plan was hatched and I tagged an extra week onto a holiday; packed my wife off at SFO and packed the bike for the ride. At the time I had a 94 Tiger 900 (with Givi cases) that I kept at his place and Paul had a K100 so we had sufficient packing room for the skivs and washbags - what more could we need?

Fast forward a couple of days to Kansas City ..... otherwise we'll be here all night! We headed in to KC quite early in the morning and the day turned pretty bad when, on a busy 4 lane highway heading in to the city, I saw something fall off Paul's bike. I pulled up and retrieved a piece of plastic from the freeway shoulder and then tried to catch him up ..... not a chance. He hadn't noticed that I'd disappeared from view and knew he'd never find me even if he did try to return. So, not knowing where in KC he was going I thought the best plan would be for me to proceed at a sedate pace through KC and out on 50 east and hope he would catch up later in the day. At that time we didn't have mobile/cell phones so I stopped a couple of times to try to call back to his house and see if he'd contacted his wife, Sandy. He hadn't. I stopped for lunch and made sure that the bike was parked so that it would be visible from the highway. I stopped for gas and tried to keep an eye on the road in case I saw his bike. And I continued heading east on 50. About 150 miles on I reached Jefferson City and I made a random right turn off Highway 50 and onto the city streets looking for somewhere to once again try to call home. I couldn't find a payphone so tried again and found a gas station, with a payphone, about a block away from the highway. Unfortunately the payphone didn't work so I went into a department store nearby to see if they had any warmer gloves than my summer riding gloves. They didn't so I decided to get back to the highway and carry on east. I got back on the bike and started to turn around in the gas station when I looked up and coming down the road towards me, half a block away, was ................. a K100 .............

I had made a dozen and more decisions during that journey from KC to Jefferson City. I had done so many different things that, had any one of them taken 45 seconds less or more, I would not have been at that spot when Paul also made a random right turn - the exact same random right turn I'd made earlier - at that time and who knows when we'd have managed to co-ordinate a meet up? It was such a weird co-incidence .... not that we did actually re-meet, but that we both took a right turn that in itself was meaningless but that turned out to have such consequential meaning.

That all sounds a bit trite when I read it back, but it's remained one of those stories that we both recount on occasions and try to explain the almost 'spooky' nature of the coincidence of it all.

The remainder of the trip? Yeah, all went well, bar a speeding ticket for each of us that made Missouri our least favourite state for that journey! But we made it, end to end. My only regret was that I had to fly home out of Washington while Paul took a slightly more southerly route back to California.

Now, anyone want to hear the story about the bear encounter in Smoky Mountain National Park? Or the mother and cub bear encounter in California Redwood National Park? Or a coyote pack in a campground near Lubbock, Texas? Scorpion in Yosemite, perhaps?

No? Thought not .... ah well. Another time, maybe?

 

What a great story, Adie! I don't think your experience with Paul and Kansas City is trite at all. In fact, I think that experience would make quite the memorable impression on most any motorcyclist. And I'm not a believer in coincidence. Somebody was taking care of you and Paul. And as much as cell phones sometimes bug me, I have to say that I feel much better when I know those of us riding together can simply stop someplace and call if we get woefully separated.

I'd love to hear your bear and coyote and scorpion stories! When one rides in the Western US, there are quite a number of critters like bears and coyotes and, yes, those pesky stinging scorpions. Perhaps you could start a new thread like Memorable Motorcycle Trip Encounters? And I'm afraid I am the one started the derailment of Dougie D.'s thread by focusing on rain. Sorry Dougie! I think we Arizonans have "rain on the brain" right now--as in PLEASE let it rain! Actually we did get a nice monsoon storm this evening finally. Dropped our temps right down from 105°F to 85°F.

 

Not down here in Thurrock (Shit end of Essex) where even the suns been Botoxed

 

It sounds like you live a gray world, Wishbone. My condolences. f I lived somewhere with that little sun, I think the only thread on this forum that I'd be interested in would be "What you drinking tonight?"

 

Sorry Sandi T, It is a Gray's world; meant we get too much sun for a Scot weather down here is wonderful, jeez its around 8-10C in winter very near tropical