I Wish the Bear was a Vegetarian

Alright, so I've actually been home for nearly a week now and I'm just now getting around to finishing up this blog and letting everyone know about the final leg of the trip. I've made it through my couple of days of doing absolutely nothing but resting up and also now my first day back at work (yesterday). It's time to finally close this thing out.

So the last time I posted anything, I was in Bristol, VA right along I81. This was after a day of speeding through Tennessee, much to my chagrin. I woke up early and headed north on I81 on my way to Blacksburg, VA. My friend Josh is living there for a couple years while he's going to school at Virginia Tech for his masters. Josh is another guy I know from the Army. When I got out of the Army they were offering incentives to stay in to officers. As far as I know this was the first time they were doing that for officers. You could pick one of four choices for what incentive you wanted in return for signing on for an additional three years. You could take some money (between 25 and 35k depending on what your speciality was), pick where you would be stationed next, get money to go to a masters program or go to an Army school (Airborne school, Ranger school, Defense Language Institute etc.). When I decided to get out of the Army, Josh decided to take the incentive and go get his masters.

When I called Josh and suggested we meet up for breakfast, the place he picked was called Gilly's, a vegetarian restaurant. He tole me that it was really good and that I wouldn't mind at all that it was vegetarian. While somewhat skeptical (what's breakfast without ham, bacon, sausage or some other type of pork product) I took his word for it. As it turns out the place was awesome and I would eat there again in a heartbeat. I had a dish that was just potatoes, egg and salsa and yet it was perhaps the best breakfast I've had on this trip. I was more than happy with it.









Josh I an caught up over a leisurely breakfast. That's how I knew Josh really was in college again, he could spend that much time on a weekday morning just chilling at a restaurant. It's a nice life but then again he'll be going to Ft. Polk in Louisiana in a while to take command of a company. He'll be plenty busy then.

From Blacksburg I headed north on I85 again until I got to the Shenandoah National Park where I got on Skyline Drive. This is a road that winds along the top of the Appalachian mountains. It's a very cool area, not much like the Rocky mountains. Really more like hills to my thinking; not the rocky, craggy peaks I usually associate with mountains. Very beautiful none the less. It was kind of cool because you could look down on the Shenandoah valley of Civil War fame.


















The leaves were just starting to change color. Maybe I'll go back in a week or two and see it then. It's close enough I could do it too.









At one point while I was going around a corner I saw a dark shape moving up ahead through the trees. "Another Forest Cow maybe" I thought. I hit the brakes just a bit. As I came around the corner I saw that it was not a Forest Cow at all but was in fact a black bear standing in the middle of the road directly in my path. I was going to fast to stop (and honestly I had no desire to stick around there) so I swerved around the bear, passing within maybe 10 feet of it and kept going to what I hoped was a safe distance. Checking in the rear view mirror to make sure it wasn't chasing me, I stopped and looked. The bear looked at me like this sort of thing happened every day. He moseyed to the side of the road and disappeared into the brush. It was kind of scary. What if I'd run right into the thing? He wasn't a huge bear by any means but I'd bet he could still eat me if I pissed him off.

After letting my heart slow back to it's normal pace, I continued on and headed east and slightly north again out of the Shenandoah area and through rural Virginia towards Maryland. Rural Virginia is very different than say rural Tennessee. Every thing looks very manicured. The farms are all very neat and orderly and there doesn't seem to be any wasted space. In Tennessee there were patches of woods between farms and things weren't quite as neat. It's pretty obvious that people have been living in and farming the land in Virginia for quite some time.

I crossed into southern Maryland on highway 301 at which point I was back in familiar territory. I went to Solomon's Island where some of the guys I work with were having a going away part for a couple guys. My friend Chris (current room mate until he moves to Texas in a couple weeks) knew I was coming but no one else did. It was kind of fun to show up unannounced like that after five weeks on my bike with the dust of the road still on me. Here is the video that Chris shot at my arrival. After a quick beer with all the guys, I headed home. I was exhausted and looking forward to a weekend of doing absolutely nothing but recuperating before I had to start working again.

On a side note, when I got home, this is what I saw. No offense to Chris who took good care of the house while I was gone, but this was bit worrisome. What the hell was going on while I was away?













So that brings me to the end of my trip. I think I'll write one more post to give some overall thoughts on everything, a kind of close out post. Look for that in the next couple days. I the mean time, I have to work tonight so I'm off to bed to get a nap in before what will surly be a long night.

Here's what I looked like coming home. Special thanks to Chris and Andrew for helping with the filming.

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Location:Home

A Taco-y Kind of Place

Ok, so a lot has happened in the last couple days and I've again fallen behind on my writings. Not to worry though, I'll be caught up shortly.

So in my last post in Memphis I talked about how I would really have to push it these last few days of the trip if I was going to have any time to recoup at home before going into work again. Sadly, this meant that I didn't really have the time to spend in Tennessee that I wanted to. I had been looking forward to taking a day or two to enjoy some BBQ and blues music. I even had a place picked out in Nashville called B.B. King's to listen to music. Ricky (of Lawton, OK fame) recommended it to me. Now, it didn't look like this was going to happen. My new goal was to make it back to Maryland by Friday night, giving me the weekend to rest up before I had to go back to the daily grind. In order to make that I would have to traverse all of Tennessee in just one day. Not really an easy task and there was so much that I wouldn't see. I consoled myself that it's not really that far from home and I could make a short trip some other time when I could experience all that Tennessee has to offer.

With these thoughts on my mind, I set out from Memphis, heading east on I40. That's another thing I was going to have to do; stay on the interstates for most of the time. Very sad.



The trip between Memphis and Nashville was pretty uninteresting. I did call Maryjean and set up a lunch meeting. Maryjean is one of Shaun's good friends from back in his college days (Shaun being my brother in LA in case you forgot). Maryjean now lives with her husband in Nashville. We met at what she called a "taco-y kind of place" called the Taco Co. I loved the description, it was very apt. The food turned out to be awesome. I know I've been on kind of a Mexican food kick lately but it's just so good I can't help myself. Maryjean turned out to be a very cool person and we had a good time. Naturally, I failed to take a picture. You should be used to this by now.

I continued east out of Nashville and decided to find a place somewhere ahead where I could get off the interstate and onto some back roads. I was getting so upset in I40. The traffic wasn't even all that heavy but every time a semi would pass another semi, everything would get so backed up behind the two trucks. There were only two lanes so when both of them were blocked by these big, slow trucks no one could get around. For some reason this really frustrated me. I guess for most of this trip I've been on back roads and if someone was going slow it was pretty easy for me to get around them, even on roads where it was one lane each way. Motorcycles in general tend to be able to accelerate pretty fast so passing someone isn't that big of a deal. But to have this ability suddenly hindered was very frustrating. I pulled off somewhere to get gas and check the map for a good side road to get on. When I got back on the interstate I guess I was distracted because before long I saw a sign saying that I was approaching Nashville, the city I just left. I had got back on the interstate heading west instead of east. After a awful lot of very vulgar curses, I got turned around, more anxious then ever to get off the freeway. I did this in Monterey, TN where I got on highway 62. 62 took me through some of the back woods of Tennessee. It was very pretty hill country. I kind of expected it to be more rural then it was. It was mostly farmland but all the farms seemed very well kept up. When I think of the hills of east Tennessee that isn't what I pictured. all in all though it was great to be on some winding little road again and not have to deal with semi trucks for a little while. Another kind of cool thing was that I got to go through Oak Ridge, TN, where the Oak Ridge National Laboratory is located. This is where they do a lot of nuclear research, among other things. I checked myself later to see if I was glowing from radiation exposure. Fortunately I wasn't.



Highway 62 ran me right into Knoxville where I stopped for dinner at a chinese place. Oddly, they had Pho on the menu which turned out to be really good. When I came out of the restaurant I figured I'd get as far as I could before I got too tired and then find a hotel. I got on I82 and headed northeast. Fortunately there wasn't much traffic at this point so being back on the interstate wasn't as bad as it was before. I made it as far as Bristol, VA before deciding it was time to quite for the night.

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Location:Bristol, VA

The Cat Who Loves BBQ

After breakfast with Ricky, I headed out of Lawton, OK. I took highway 7, 270 and a couple others I don't remember to Shawnee, OK. My route looked something like this.



Shawnee is where my brother Tim went to college at St. Gregory's College. It's a small little town so I had no problem finding the campus.



After that quick visit I went to a mexican restaurant for lunch and texted Tim the picture of his old stomping grounds. He sent back something saying that was pretty cool and that I should eat at Abulitas, the best Mexican food in town. I looked out the window at the sign and saw that I was already there. Awesome.



After lunch, I had to take a hard look at the map and calendar. If I'm to have a chance to get home and have a day or two to just relax before I have to go back to work, I need to really push hard. I had already planned on blowing through Arkansas without stopping for anything but gas (what is there really to see in Arkansas anyway? Nothing, that's what) but the more I looked at the distance I still had to go and the time I had left, I realized that I would have to more or less do the same through Tennessee. This disappointed me because I was really looking forward to exploring Tennessee's music and BBQ scenes. It didn't look like that was going to happen now, or at least not happen to the extent I had hoped. I'd just have to make the best of it I guess.

I got on I40 and headed east. It really was about as boring as this map makes it look.



The most exciting thing that happened was when one truck would try to pass another truck while only going 1 or 2 MPH faster the truck it was passing. Usually both trucks would be going about 60 or so. The speed limit was 70 so I was typically going 85 or so. Hence the "excitement". That's really about it I'm sorry to say.

I pulled into West Memphis at about 8:30 or so. After checking into my hotel I looked up a BBQ place called Ray's World Famous BBQ and called to make sure they were still open. The guy who answered had an accent so thick I couldn't make out what he was saying. Eventually I gathered that he was asking me what I wanted for a to go box (the only thing they were still serving I think). I said ribs and the guy said a few more unintelligible things and eventually hung up. I went down to this place to (I hoped) pick up my ribs. Outside the restaurant was a cat who was clearly used to getting scraps and looked up at me as if to say "how dare you not feed me". He probably peed on my bike while I was inside.






I got my to go box back to the hotel and found true happiness with each bite. No wonder Ray is world famous.

That's about it for the day. Tomorrow is Nashville and hopefully lunch with Shaun's (my brother) friend, Mary Jean and then Knoxville, hopefully stopping for the night somewhere east of there.

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Location:West Memphis, TN

A Nice, Clean, Friendly Biker Bar

Just to give you a little background, I know Ricky from the Army. We deployed to Iraq together and both served on the Battalion staff. When I got out of the Army and moved to Maryland to work for the Navy as a civilian, Ricky stayed in the Army and moved to Ft. Sill, OK where he commands a basic training company. This is Ricky and little Ricky. By the time I remembered to take a picture, Tanya was off at work. Sorry.


So the first night at Ricky's was pretty calm, just some catching up and then off to bed. Both Ricky and Tanya had to work the next morning and little Ricky had school. By the time I woke up the next morning, everyone was gone. I did some stuff for work (I know, I'm on vacation but this was stuff for my yearly performance review so if I want a raise or bonus I need to write down some lies.... I mean document my successes). After that I took a shower and put of some clean clothes; I got to do some laundry, something I desperately needed at that point. Off to lunch at a place called Lou's Country Cafe. The portions were so huge there that I only finished about half my lunch. The food itself wasn't really great or terrible, just your middle of the road kind of place. Back to Ricky's place for a nap, some blog posts and a bit of reading, all while being followed around by a stray cat they recently picked up named Mooch.

When Ricky got home, I felt kind of bad for the guy. He clearly was tired and had a hard day. I felt it would be bad form to tell him that may day consisted of sleeping in, some time on the computer, lunch, a nap, writing, another nap and reading. That night Tanya was hosting the FRG (Family Reediness Group) get together, a kind of support group for Soldier's wives from the company that Ricky commands. Ricky and I felt it would be a good time to go out riding. Ricky has a Harley Night Train, a very nice bike. On our way out, we ran into Tina, someone I went to college with who is now works with Ricky. She was coming in for the FRG thing. Small world isn't it?

Ricky wanted to show me a what he called a biker bar that he sometimes hangs out at. So after dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings (where Ricky wouldn't even eat a single wing so as not to get messy he said. Who does that?) we headed out. Now, far be it from me to exaggerate on this blog, but I have to say that this "biker bar" was in fact one of the cleanest, nicest bars I've been in in quite a long time. The place was clean, not at all run down or dilapidated and had a very nice smell wafting through the air, almost as if they sprayed air freshener around every now and then but without letting it get overpowering. The clientele wasn't the least bit disreputable. The bouncer/bartender in no way reminded me of a white, female Mike Tyson with crossed eyes. If I ran into her in a dark alley, I certainly wouldn't run for my life. (On a side note, never fight someone who is crossed eyed. You never know where they are looking so it's hard to figure out where they are going to hit next. It's very disorienting). The waitresses were all very attractive, slender, even lithe women who weren't the least bit surly. Fortunately the rest rooms were in perfect working order so there was no need to go across the street to the truck stop to use the men's room. And if on some off chance you did go across the street, the truck stop men's room wasn't closed for repairs. There was no one going out back behind the bar to pee. And since the bathrooms were in good working order, there was no need for any plumbers to be going in and out conducting repairs. Where would one find pumpers willing to work at 11:30 on a Tuesday night anyway? No, really. Where would you find plumbers like that? There would be no reason at all for the CDC to shut the place down. After a grand old time, we headed back to the house without any kind of unfortunate odors clinging to our clothes.

The following morning, Ricky and I met at a place called the Rise n' Shine Cafe for breakfast. They had a really good breakfast burrito.



While there I explained to Ricky how I planned my day's travel. Basically, when I get up each morning, I look at the map, pick a spot that I think I should get to by the end of the day, pick whatever road I think looks the most interesting and go. That's about it. Not a lot of planning going on but that's what makes it so interesting. So that's what I did. Next stop is Memphis.


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Location:Lawton, OK

Nearly Tornadoed

I woke up fairly early and headed out on my way to Ricky's place in Lawton, OK. I knew this would mostly be a transit day so I picked the route that I thought would be quickest, not necessarily the most interesting. Considering that I would be crossing the Texas Panhandle, I didn't really think interesting would factor into the equation regardless. On a side note, I broke the 10,000 mile mark on my bike early in the day. That means 8,000 miles so far on this trip. When I planned it out on Google Maps back before I started it said it would be 8,300 miles for the whole trip. Clearly I've taken some detours.



I took I25 south to I40 east which I followed all the way into Amarillo, TX. It was pretty boring. I was now into the prairies and farmland with not much to see. About all I did see were a lot of cops, both while still in New Mexico and after crossing into Texas. This slowed my progress a bit. After Amarillo, I hopped onto highway 287. At this point I could see a large storm off in the distance. It was south of me but I was heading southeast. I passed one very small town and heard an air raid siren (which I remember from my time in Wisconsin as a tornado warning). I looked all around and couldn't see any tornados. I was still pretty worried but just then the siren stopped so I figured I was good. I pressed on. By now the storm was directly ahead. I knew I was going to get rained on but I hoped to make it to Clarendon before that happened. I saw the sign saying that I only had three miles to go. About a mile later, the deluge started. Lightening was hitting all around me and thunder cracked overhead. When you can hear thunder over a Harley engine you know it's loud. I limped into Clarendon and stopped at a Pizza Hut, one of the first restaurants I came too. I went inside to dry off and have some lunch. Naturally, the lady at the front desk made some wisecrack about how of course I didn't want something to go, look at me all dripping all over the place. Jerk. Over lunch the storm moved away and I was able to continue my trip. I was still wet but once I got back into the sun I dried pretty quickly. I continued down highway 287 to highway 62 and into Oklahoma and Lawton without further incident.

The red X is the tornado warning town.



When I came into Lawton I called Ricky from the first gas station I came too as we had discussed before. He was going to meet me there on his Harley and then we'd ride together back to his place. It took him half an hour to find the place (and he somehow tried to blame me for being in the wrong place. What a jerk). Eventually we made it back to his place where I met his wife, Tanya, little Ricky (5 years old) and the one dog and three cats. I'll be staying here for two nights. More to follow as our exploits unfold.


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Location:Lawton,United States

The Pervert Regular Field Cow

So I slept in a bit in Farmington. I was pretty tired that night and I ended up staying up reading my book (which I finished that night). It's called The Wild Girl, about a "wild" Apache found in Douglas, AZ during the '30s and the subsequent expedition to find the last Apaches not on a reservation. Very interesting book and set in southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico, areas that I just rode through. It was a very good book and I'd highly recommend it.

Coming out of Farmington, I headed south on highway 550 (past Chaco Canyon) on my way to the Ghost Ranch. The Ghost Ranch is where my cousin Bill Padden goes just about every year and he recommended the place to me. Bill said I should spend the night there and even offered to pay for my room but unfortunately the timing didn't work out and I could only stop in for a quick visit. Bill's good friend, Willie works there but is semi retired. When I stopped in at the front desk and asked for Willie the lady there told me he wasn't in today. She did call him and I got a chance to talk to him for a little while on the phone. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and he told me I should come out there for a visit the next time Bill comes out.

I guess Georgia O'Keefe used to hang out in the area. I can understand the appeal of the place and how it might inspire an artist.









As I left the Ghost Ranch I headed south east and then north east to get to Taos, NM. The Taos Pueblo is another UNESCO World Heritage Site. I've seen five World Heritage Sites so far (it would have been six if I'd gotten up to Mesa Verde). It's a site and set of buildings that have been continually occupied for over 1000 years. How cool is that. They are still occupied to this day. The people that live there allow people to come in and see what are basically their homes. However they close the place down on Sunday afternoons. Guess what day and time of day I got there? That's right, Sunday afternoon. I was turned away at the gate, having never even set eyes on the place. Very disappointing. This is what it would have looked like if I'd seen it.



Ghost Ranch and Taos circled in blue.



At this point, I'd seen everything I wanted too in New Mexico and my next stop was Lawton, OK to see my friend Ricky. I knew I wouldn't get there by that night so I figured I would get as far as I could so the next day's ride wouldn't be too long. I set off heading east along highway 64 and then 120.



At one point while riding along my thoughts drifted back to the area around Chaco Canyon and why something that is called a State Highway could ever end up being a one lane dirt road. Who's fault is this? The state? The "highway" was on the Navajo reservation, perhaps it's their fault. Then again, it was a state highway. While these thoughts are going through my mind, I see a sign out of the corner of my eye that I think said something along the lines of "pavement ends". Just as my brain processes this, I go over a cattle guard and onto a gravel road at a speed that was nowhere near safe for that kind of transition. I managed to not lay the bike down and came to a stop. "Another "highway" that is a dirt road", I raged. "Damn you, New Mexico. This is clearly your fault and not the Navajo's". I took this picture as my proof that New Mexico is to stupid to properly name their roads. This should be a farm road, county road or just a trail but in no way is it a highway.



Sadly, the "highway" deteriorated significantly after this picture. It became even narrower, became less of a gravel road and more of a dirt road with large rocks protruding everywhere. It wound down the last of the mountains out into the plains. It was the kind of road that I expected to see a four wheeler more than a car or even a 4x4 truck. Yet again, I was worried for the safety of my bike I myself. At least the locals seemed nice. There were scattered homesteads through the hills with signs on them like "No Trespassing", "Do not leave the road for any reason" and one particularly nice one "Trespassers will be shot".

At one point, while dodging around some boulders, I thought how if Sasquatch lived in New Mexico, this would be his land. Just then I saw a dark shape moving through the trees. While thinking of an appropriate profanity to utter, I came around the corner and saw that it was just a black cow trying to cross the road. I hit the brakes and let it pass. "What the hell is a cow doing up here in the mountains and forests? Cows like the fields. Perhaps this is some kind of new Forest Cow, a new breed. How cool is that? I've discovered a new species of cow". The Forest Cow had trouble mounting the hill on the far side of the "highway" so it just started trotting down the "highway" itself. Very considerately it stayed to one side so I could pass. Just ahead was a whole herd of Forest Cows crossing the "highway". I stopped. They looked at me funny. I revved my engine a bit and they stopped crossing, making a pathway for me to get by. I rode on and when I looked back the herd had resumed it's crossing as if nothing had happened. "Forest Cows are a pretty laid back species of cow", I though.

A little past the Forest Cows, I saw another sign telling me that there was no center stipe. Cursing the New Mexico Highway Department yet again, I came to the paved road. By now I really had to pee. While I was now out of the hills and forests and into the fields, I still hadn't seen another car for about two hours so I figured it would be safe to pee on the side of the road. The only things around were some cows (regular field cows, not Forest Cows). The thing was, one of the regular field cows was looking at me. It just kept eyeballing me and chewing it's cud. How creepy is that? To combat the stage fright, I turned towards the road to go. When I looked behind me, the pervert regular field cow was still watching. What a nut job. I got on my bike I sped out of there. I don't need to be hanging around with any obviously unbalanced regular field cows. I wish now that I'd taken a picture of the beast to put up in the local post office.

By now it was getting dark so I sped down what could now be legitimately called a highway, albeit without a center stripe. I jumped on I25 and went south a little bit to Las Vegas, NM and a hotel. I was really tired.


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Location:Lawton,United States

It was the best of days, it was the worst of days (part two)

Sorry about breaking it up like this. For some reason, this app freaks out if I post something with too much media. Here are more pictures and video of Chaco Canyon and the rest of the story.

After all this, it was not getting into the late afternoon. I headed up to Farmington to plan the rest of the day. I knew that getting to Mesa Verde wasn't going to happen today. The Ghost Ranch was also too far away at this point. I decided to stay in Bloomfield for the night then press on to Taos tomorrow, cutting Mesa Verde out of the trip. I was kind of sad about this; I've been trying to see as many UNESCO World Heritage Sites as I can on this trip and I'm now up to five (Cahokia, Yellowstone, Olympic National Park, the Grand Canyon and Chaco Canyon). I had hoped to include Mesa Verde and Taos bringing the number up to seven. I'll still get Taos but Mesa Verde is now not going to happen. But with this new plan I can still stop at the Ghost Ranch and see Bill Padden's friend Willie even if I don't stay for the night and then Taos. It's not a perfect solution but it will work.

Since I had a little time in Farmington last night, I decided to treat myself to a steak dinner. I went to K-Bob's steak house. It wasn't until after that I looked in the mirror and figured out why they kind of looked at me funny when I walked in there. The suntan pattern on my face is still deeply tanned everywhere but around my eyes where it is very white. My beard was tinted red from all the dust I rode through earlier in the day and my pant legs below the knee are smattered with the remnants of various bugs that I hit along the way. Nice. But they didn't turn me away so I enjoyed my steak.

I took a quick shower to wash off all the dust. My shoulders, arms and back were all sore from trying to stay on the bike through all the rough roads. I hoped a good nights sleep would help. It did but only a little bit.

So as I head out this morning, my first stop is the Ghost Ranch (after breakfast that is).


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It was the best of days, it was the worst of days (part one)

OK, so really those are both exaggerations but it was a day of good and bad. I started off the day in Grants, NM thinking that I would go north to see Chaco Canyon, then continue north to Mesa Verde just across the border into Colorado. The following day I could go to Taos, NM and then stay the night at the Ghost Ranch (run by Willie, my cousin Bill Padden's friend). I planned this out over a breakfast of huevos rancheros in a green chili sauce at El Caficito. Very good. Just spicy enough to make my nose run but not to make me break out in a sweat.



Things didn't quite work out how I planned. When I got up yesterday and looked at the map I saw that I could approach Chaco Canyon from either the east or west. The access roads that go into the park are from either the north or south but both can be accessed from either highway, along the east or west side.


I flipped a mental coin and decided to head north along the west side. This turned out to be a bad choice. I went up highway 371 and then got on the road to the south of the park planning on taking the access road that enters from the south. When I got to that access road, this is what I saw.


Feeling a sense of adventure I decided to go for it but got about a mile in and realized that my bike wasn't made for this. It's too low to the ground and doesn't have a suspension built for this sort of road. It's not a dirt bike in other words. I turned around and backtracked my way to highway 371 thinking I'd just continue north to the northern access road. This northern road was actually highway 57. Surly something with the name "highway 57" had to be a better road than the one I was just on, right?

I had to take county road 7650 to get to highway 57. 7650 starts out paved. This was no doubt planned so as to lure in unsuspecting tourists.


It quickly deteriorates into a gravel then just plain dirt road. I press on thinking it will all get better when I hit 57. Keep in mind at this point that I have no signal for my iPhone or iPad. I had previously loaded the maps of the area in the iPhone so I could still see where I was going but I couldn't zoom in or out (that would require more maps being loaded, something you need a signal for). After what seemed like far too long in this road that as far as I could tell was nothing but an access road for the scattered oil wells in the area, I came to a crossroads. I knew that 57 ran northeast to southwest but none of the roads at the intersection ran that direction. Plus, this was supposed to be the end of 7650, so there should only be three choices here. There were 5. What the hell? Oh, by the way, I was running out of gas again. I had filled up at the last station but that was some time ago.

Up to this point in the trip, I've been using my iPhone and iPad for navigation. They work great, I have Google maps on there and haven't had any trouble with them. Of course, if there's no cell signal, then I can't load maps. This hasn't really been an issue for me until now. I do have a stand alone GPS unit that my friend Chris' dad loaned me. Thinking to myself, this will surely get me out of this jam, I fire it up. It tells me to take 57 but like the iPhone, only shows the three possible directions at this intersection, not the 5 actually there. I picked the one that looked closest to northeast. The GPS unit told me that was the direction of the closest gas station. Basically, I needed to get out of there and gas up before trying my luck at getting into Chaco Canyon again. I headed generally northeast along this still dirt road that didn't have any road signs for a while, constantly checking my fuel gauge. At one point I came to a sign that said "No center stripe". As if I didn't know that. "What a stupid sign for a place like this. It's a dirt road, of course there's no center stripe", I thought to myself. (That may be an edited version of the quote. I'm not sure, it's hard to remember all the details). Shortly after the sign, the road became a paved one (with no center stripe). Thanking my lucky stars and thinking I was getting close I sped up and made it to highway 550. I had been on highway 57 since that intersection after all. Though who in their right mind calls a dirt road a highway I don't know. The first gas station I came to was closed. I had to go about 30 miles north almost to Bloomfield, NM to get gas. I just made it.

At the gas station, I planned my next assault on Chaco Canyon over a bottle of water and a power bar (lunch). I figured I'd head south on highway 550 (the eastern highway) and just look for the signs to Chaco Canyon. There have to be signs right? It's a tourist destination after all. I start south. When I get to the junction with highway 57 I see a big sign saying No Chaco Access. I didn't see it earlier as I was coming from the other direction. Figures. I continue south until I see a sign saying Chaco Canyon turnoff in 10 miles. This seemed strange because I remember very well that according to the map on my iPhone, the GPS and my paper maps, there was no access directly from the east. (I checked later and was right). This phantom access road started off paved but again, quickly became dirt. It was also heavily washboarded. The jarring impacts worried me, it felt like my bike (and me for that matter) was being shaken apart. The road followed the red line more or less. I'm not a cartographer.



Eventually I made it to Chaco Canyon. Believe it or not, it was actually worth it. Check out these pictures and video.








See part two for the rest of this post.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:B E Main St,Farmington,United States

Did Geronimo Ever Run Out of Gas?

Yesterday was more of a transit day than anything. That said, I did see a couple interesting things. I started the day by heading east from Sierra Vista to Douglas, AZ and then north from there. As I was leaving Sierra Vista I started thinking that it wasn't the terrible little town that I remembered. I think theta this time through, without the instant bad mood that going to Army classes gives you it's a much nicer place. It's still a crappy little town and I would never want to live there but it's not nearly as bad as I thought 6 years ago. The area around town is actually very pretty. It's up in the mountains at about 5000 feet or so. There is a flat plateau that the town sits in that is surrounded by low mountains (they really aren't that low, it's just that they don't rise up too much more than the plateau). As you head east, you pass through these low mountains into another plateau. That was the pattern for much of the trip; flat land surrounded by mountains, a low pass and then another plateau.



As I got north of Douglas there were fewer and fewer towns. It made me wonder what the people that did live out there actually do for a living. There didn't seem to be any kind of industry nearby. I guess there were a few ranches but even then I didn't see much livestock. There were no farms nearby, too dry for that. I couldn't figure it out. Sierra Vista makes money off the Soldiers that are always cycling through there, Bisbee is a tourist town, but these little towns....I just don't know.

At one point I stopped at a monument. I did't know what it was at the time but it turned out to be a monument to the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 to General Miles. The actual surrender took place in Skeleton Canyon, not far away. According to the monument, this put an end to the Indian Wars that the southwest had been going through for some time. Kind of cool I thought.



I took highway 80 to Lordsberg, NM, then 90 to Silver City, then 180 to 12 to 32 to 36 to 117 to Grants, NM, where I am now. I call them highways but I think most of them were actually state routes.

I passed though a lot of land that kept to the pattern I mentioned before, plateau, low mountains, plateau before entering the Gila National Forrest. I have to admit, it didn't look much like a forrest. More like an area with lots of what I might call short trees but I might also call them high bushes. Not the kind of forrest I'm used to. The land got out of it's old pattern at this point and became broken by various cliffs and hills.



While I did admire the beauty of this land, I was a bit distracted by my fuel gauge constantly getting lower and lower. Unfortunately, there weren't many places to fill up on this leg of the trip. I topped off whenever I could but this was a long stretch where there just weren't any towns or gas stations for quite a while. I do get very good gas milage on the bike (55MPG on the highway) but I also have a pretty small tank. When I came into Grants last night, the computer said I had about 10 miles worth of gas left in the tank. I'm not sure just how accurate that is but I don't really want to find out. I filled up, ate a quick dinner at Subway and found a hotel.

As I write this this morning I'm planning my trip to Chaco Canyon and then up to Mesa Vista, just across the border in Colorado. It should be fun. I'm also wondering how I could get sunburned despite the copious amounts of sunscreen I used. I guess the desert sun is tougher than I thought.


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Location:Grants, NM

Clowns and Hippies

So some of you might be wondering what I'm doing hanging out in a town like Sierra Vista, AZ. Believe it or not, I actually have some history with this town. Way back when (in 2004) during my Army days I was stationed at Ft. Huachuca which is right next to Sierra Vista. I was only there for about 6 months for my initial training and I didn't really enjoy it much. The classes were incredibly frustrating, Army standardized classes are well known for brutal to sit through. I came back for two reasons. One, to see my friend Caroline who is going through something called the Captain's Career Course (something I would have to do if I had stayed in the Army) and two, to see what had changed since in the 6 years I've been away.

So after arriving late the night before, I slept in a bit the next morning and then headed out to the Landmark Cafe for breakfast. The Landmark was a great place for breakfast back then and I was hoping not much hand changed. Well, as it turns out the food hasn't changed but the decor has. Back in the day they used to have hundreds of clown statuettes all over the place. There was even a paratrooper clown hanging from the ceiling. All that was gone now. It was just a regular restaurant. The food was still good but at least in my mind, it wasn't as good without the clowns.

On a side note, one of my friends, Tom lets call him, who was there with me back in '04 went with a group of us there for breakfast one day. He seemed really uncomfortable the whole time and after that every time we wanted to go he wouldn't go. He wasn't hungry, didn't feel like it, was tired etc. It was only some time later that I found out he was scared of clowns.

So anyway, after my breakfast (which was really quite good) I decided to head to Bisbee, AZ. Bisbee is a town that I never saw last time I was in the area but most of my friends did see go there. I forget why I never did but somehow it never happened. So this time I made sure to check it out. Bisbee is about 30 minutes from Sierra Vista. I rode out there in what was maybe the best day for riding that I've ever had. It was great. Bisbee is kind of up in some hills and was originally a coper mining town. Now the town is devoted to hippies. There are a bunch of art galleries, organic restaurants and a bunch of weird stuff. Kind of a cool town though. A lot of the houses are painted or decorated in some pretty interesting ways.



Some more interesting then others.



While in town I visited the Old Bisbee Coffee Roaster's. This is a place that I remembered someone talking about so when I was in Iraq and wanted some good coffee, I ordered this stuff online. It was so good that I've been getting my coffee there ever since. It was kind of nice to actually see the place after all that. It's really, really small. There was one guy roasting the coffee, one bagging it and two others packing up the bags for shipping. That's it. The roaster only does ten pounds at a time. This was really a small operation. I had a little cup of expresso while I was getting my tour and ended up buying a pound.



I also stopped at the Killer Bee Guy store (at the suggestion of the girl at the coffee place). This was a tiny little store, really just a door and a closet.






It turns out that this guy makes a living going around clearing out killer bee hives. He then collects the honey and sells it. I got to sample a bunch of different flavored honeys and ended up buying raspberry, orange, rum and vanilla (there was a 4 for 20 deal).

While I was filling up at a gas station some weird hippie lady asked me for a ride to the other side of town. When it Rome, right? So I gave her a lift across town. I think it was a very hippie thing to do.

I headed back to Sierra Vista to meet Caroline for dinner. She spent the whole day in those fun Army classes that I mentioned earlier so after she finished venting for a bit we went out to a greek place that turned out to be really good. Naturally I forgot to take a picture of Caroline. After all my talk during the last post about being sure to take pictures of people, I forget. Figures.

The next morning I had breakfast at the Lighthouse again (it's still really good) and then headed north east towards the four corners area.


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Location:Sierra Vista, AZ

High School Reunion, Part Two

So I didn't sleep well last night. Apparently some of the guests were unaware that there were other people in the hotel. That's life sometimes sadly. I headed out of Flagstaff fairly early and went south on I17 but quickly got off on 89A and later highway 179 which took me through Sedona. It was pretty cool. 89A kind of took me down through this canyon (not the red rock just yet) that wound down along a small river and then into Sedona. I thought about stoping in Sedona for breakfast but decided that if I was going to make it to lunch with the cousins I need to press on. South of Sedona on 179 is where the red rock canyon really started. Pretty cool place. The weather was pretty cloudy but it wasn't raining which I was pretty happy about.












179 popped out back on I17 a little ways north of Phoenix and I took that into town to Shelly and Mike's place. Shelly is my cousin. She married Mike and they now live with their 5 kids (yeah, no kidding, 5 kids) in a neighborhood filled with Mike's siblings. I think he said he had 9 siblings and 5 of them lived nearby. They all have a bunch of kids and there are some other families nearby with lots of kids. Quite the neighborhood to grow up in I would think.

Joel (another cousin) was also there. He is Shelly's brother and is staying with them for a bit. We all went out to lunch at a really good Mexican place (can't remember the name) where Mike joined us. The two youngest kids came with, the other's were in school. Laurel (yet another cousin) came by the restaurant to drop off her two kids for Shelly to watch while she went to some appointment or meeting or something. It was pretty quick but it was still nice to see her.

Of course, I forgot to take pictures of any of this. I've been really bad about that recently. For some reason I always forget to take pictures of people. Places I've been pretty good with, but I think I'm only getting about 50% of the people I'm seeing. I'll try harder for the rest of the trip, I promise.

From there I went to meet Mary at a coffee shop. In retrospect I realized that Mary and Joel went to school together at the University of Dallas and Shelly went there a couple years earlier. I should have invited them along but didn't think about it until it was too late. Anyway, Mary and I went to high school together. There were only three of us in the graduating class of 2000. David, the guy I met in Seattle with the cute little 2 year old girl was the other one. So this was our 10 year reunion, split between two cities. Nice, eh?

So Mary came to meet me at the coffee place with her husband, Luke and two kids. We got caught up on what everyone has been doing and reminisced a bit about high school. One of the better stories that came up was the time that we were all crammed into Mary's mom's big blue Suburban. There were probably 10 or 12 of us in the carpool coming home from school talking about funny bumper stickers. As we came up to a stop sign there was a beat up old car in front of us just plastered with them so we all started to read them. The first one we all saw was right in the middle in big, block letters and read "Sex can wait, masturbate". Naturally we all started busting up but Mrs. Baird (Mary's mom who was VERY conservative and religious) was not at all amused and tried to cover the eyes of her youngest (Madeleine) yelling "No, Madeleine! Don't look!!" Those were the days. Naturally that wasn't the only thing we talked about but I think it was the funniest.

Here's Mary, Luke and their two kids. Sadly, I can't remember their names but the boy is 4 and the girl is 18 months. I'm just happy I remembered to take a picture, even if it is clearly posed.






Just so you know, Phoenix is hot. So is Tucson. I think I was a bit dehydrated overall so I started going back to my standard of getting either water or Gatorade at every stop. Water, water, Gatorade, water, water, Gatorade. I remember them telling us to do that when I was in Iraq and it's worked for me earlier in the trip, like when I was going through Nebraska, the hottest most miserable state I've yet to go through. Now that I'm in the southwest I have to remember to keep that up again.

After leaving Phoenix, I took I10 through Tucson to highway 90 which took me south to Sierra Vista, my old stomping grounds near Ft. Huachuca where I was stationed for about 6 months back in my Army days. My friend Caroline is there for some training (it's a training base mostly). I got to Caroline's place at about 8 and after catching up for a bit, I crashed and got some sleep.



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Location:Las Brisas Way,Sierra Vista,United States