At a rest stop in OK, very wet and chilly.

A strong front moved through the midwest and dumped a lot of rain.  We woke to a fairly dry morning, but as we started riding it rained a little, but not too bad.  Only problem was it was chilly, in the 60's, and y'all know how Sis loves being wet and chilly.

I think she had on almost every piece of warm clothing she'd brought with her!

But we rode on and made 300 miles today; taking us to Russelllville, Arkansas.  Tomorrow we hope to make Tupelo, MS and should be home in about 3 days.

We are both very tired so have decided to head straight home and not stop in Cumming, GA to visit Sandy and my brother and his family.  We can do that another time.  Right now we probably wouldn't be the best guests.  

We have really enjoyed our trip, and learned a lot about bike travel, and have some good stories to tell.  But the time has come to be home and relax. 

How I love cloudy days

We left Tucumcari, NM with cloudy, almost threatening skies, and this didn't change until we stopped for the night in Le Reno, OK, just west of Oklahoma City.  And this made for a beautiful day.  Temp stayed in the low 70's in the same place we rode in 90+ degree temps, and Sis had to sink her face in a cold towel.  Today was down-right pleasant.  Add to this that is never rained on us, although we saw lots of signs that storms had blown through.

We didn't get rained on until we rode to dinner, then it started.  But we figured as much and wore our rain gear to Mike's Steakhouse.  It's raining very heavily now, and it's supposed to continue tomorrow then clear by Friday.  As long as there isn't too much lightening we will ride tomorrow morning.

We are glad we decided to head home, since we are both pretty tired, and motels are getting old.

All good things must end.

For those who didn't read our Facebook entry, we've decided to head back home.

Awoke this morning, mentally ready to ride to Colorado.  But I checked the weather first and we quickly changed our mind.  Severe thunder storms and flooding from Taos north into Colorado.  This is no weather to ride a bike in, so we let common sense prevail.

While riding the High Road to Taos yesterday, I mentioned to Sis that I would hate to be on one of these long, lonely, endless roads and get caught in a thunder storm.  There is no where to hide; no side roads, no gas stations, nothing.  Lightening is the scariest thing I know on a bike since we are so exposed.

With all of this in mind, we decided to head south and start our long trek home.  It should take us another week since we will stop in Cumming, GA and spend a day to two with our daughter.

Don't know if I will post anymore.  Guess it depends on what happens.  Hopefully no problems like last year.

Thanks everyone for your comments and emails, we really enjoyed hearing from you.

Chimayo and the High Road

We visited the old mission of Chimayo today, and we're really taken with its beauty.  Truly a holy place.  Interesting story which I won't go into here, but if you are interested just Google Holy Chimayo.

The mission is located on the High Road to Taos (yes, that's the name of the road), and after our visit we road some of the road toward Taos.  We didn't go all the way because we will travel the same route tomorrow on our drive to Pagosa Springs, CO.

Lunch was at the highly recommended Rancho de Chimayo just up the road from the mission.  What a fantastic Mexican meal, probably the best meal of the trip.  However, we eat dinner at The Shack in downtown Santa Fe, and it was also phenomenal.  And, we are very glad we got to see the downtown area. I was beginning to think there was nothing attractive about Santa Fe, but I was wrong.  I had only seen the area around our motel, and the downtown is really unique.

We passed this rock formation on the High Road to Taos.  It is well named "Camel Rock"

Back on the road tomorrow as we drive to Pagosa Springs, CO.  It's only a little over 200 miles, but over back roads, so it will be slower than the Interstates.

Wish us well and keep us in your prayers.  So far everything has been going great (except for the hail and rain as we drove into Santa Fe.

Finally!  Our first goal!  Rode to Santa Fe, and were welcomed by torrential rain, lightening, and hail.  If you've never been on a bike, with no where to hide, and hit hail, we're here to tell you, it hurts.  Tried hiding under some trees, but they didn't help much.

The streets of Santa Fe were flooded, I couldn't see through my fogged face shield, and when I raised it the hail hit me in the face.  Only thing to do was pray and keep riding.  Got to our motel, and thank God they had a huge overhang in the front.

We're looking forward to exploring Taos, and Chimayo tomorrow.  It will be a relief not to have to grind out 350 miles tomorrow, but rather just relax and enjoy ourselves.

We've decided not to go to the Grand Canyon and Las Vegas.  The 97 degree heat of the Texas Panhandle was enough.  Yesterday it was 106 in LAs Vegas.  And, to get there we'd have to ride through Arizona and Nevada, which are like riding in an oven.  But we will explore NM and then ride up to Colorado and spend some time there.  Sis plans to fly to Las Vegas with her sister in September and visit relatives, so she will get to see the Grand Canyon then.

It's been great seeing so many new places.  And as interesting and exciting as it's been, it has given me a renewed appreciation for Lutz and Florida in general.

 We left I-40 for a little while and rode on old Route 66.  It was a few miles of the old highway the way it was in the 40's and 50's, and maybe earlier.  We saw the Horses Welcome place and I had to take a picture of it and send it to a friend who loves horses.  Route 66 was pretty cool, mostly old Mom & Pop motels, but you almost felt that you had traveled back in time.  Back in the 20's or 30's my Grandparents drove from PA to California and I couldn't help but wonder if they'd driven this stretch of 66.  May have, since the Intersate system hadn't been developed.

Should have some pictures of Chimayo and Taos tomorrow.

  

97 degrees and climbing

Made it to Amarillo today, after a very early start (at least for us).  The clock in our room was unplugged so Sis plugged it in and set it according to the time on her Kindle.  Problem was, her Kindle still shows Eastern time, not Central time.  So we were an hour earlier than we thought, and we thought we were pretty early.  We figured out what had happened when we went to breakfast at 7am (we thought) and the girl was just starting to set-up.  I mentioned that I thought breakfast started at 6:30 and she said it did, took out her phone and said it was only 6!!!

So, we finished packing, then had breakfast and hit the road.  It is really beautiful riding in the morning, cool and refreshing.  But, buy noon it was 97 degrees, and the humidity was probably about the same.

Now we stay pretty cool as long as we are moving, and that's not much of a problem on Interstate Highways.  We stay completely covered, and open the sleeves of our jackets and let the wind blow up the sleeve and cool our bodies.  At least that's how it worked (very well) until Texas, where the breeze feels like someone is holding a hair dryer in front of you.  It was hot, but we knew we would be in Amarillo by 2pm, so we continued to ride.

Sis loves being warm, and hates being cold, but I think today was a bit much, even for her.

No, she's not crying, just burying her face in a cool wet towel. 

Tomorrow we should be in Santa Fe, New Mexico, 7000' altitude.  I think our problem will then be cold.  But we are prepared for that too, so after the miserable heat of the Texas panhandle, we look forward to the cool of the mountains. 

Day 4, State 5

Yep, made it through Arkansas and into Oklahoma.  We were on the road by 8 this morning.  It was nice a cool, very little traffic, and clear skies.  And this morning we didn't get lost trying to find I-40, it was about a block from the hotel.

All this made for great riding, and we rode for 6 hours.  by 2ish it was starting to get hot, since the skies were still very clear and the sun was pretty brutal.  While we were spoiled at the very nice Comfort Suites last night, tonight we weren't so lucky.  Back east there are motels at almost every exit, but not in OK.  Here they are only in towns, which, so far, are few and far between.  So, we decided to stop a little early rather than face another 90 minutes of riding.

Which brings us to Henryetta, OK.  A Days Inn looked to be the nicest hotel in town, so we got a room and it's fine.  Clean and cool, but there aren't any extras.  There is a pool, but Sis said it was too cold so she soaked her feet in the bathtub.

Tomorrow we face the same problem, when to stop.  Oklahoma City is less that 100 miles, and the next town of any size looks to be Amarillo, TX which is 350 miles, which is actually what our daily goal.  So we will probably leave early again tomorrow and hope to make it to Amarillo.

See y'all tomorrow...

Day 3 -- MUCH better!!!

Today was great, well, most of it was.  Left Hattiesberg about 9:00, and after a few wrong turns, managed to get on the right road, heading north to Jackson, MS.  In Jackson we picked up I-55 north headed to Memphis.  This is the road where we broke down on our Spyder on our last attempt.  But the Gremlins didn't get us this time (and we didn't stop at the same motel and give them a chance).  Made it to Memphis without a problem, not even a drop of rain.  Decided we'd be smart and get west of Memphis so we didn't have to fight the morning traffic.

Crossed the Mississippi River, enter Arkansas, and discovered there were no motels for 20+ miles.  That wasn't too bad, until we came on a truck accident!   Inched our way past that, only to run into construction and a massive slow down.

But we made it to a Comfort Inn, and they were nice enough to allow me to leave the bike under the overhang in the front of motel.  They also had fresh popcorn and cookies.  AND THEIR WIFI WORKS.

Sis has been a real trooper.  We're both tired, after a 350 mile day in the heat.  But we are doing great, and Sis was glad to hear the hotel has a pool and a hot tub.  I wouldn't be surprised if she wants to stay another day!

Now we have about 3 days (at our current rate) to Albuquerque, NM where we plan to ride north to Santa Fe, Chimany and Taos.  These next 3 days will probably be very boring and very hot.  And Google Maps shows several areas of construction.

Day 2 (glad it's over)

Our $100 a night motel's wifi is not working, so this will be short. 


Started to get ready to leave this morning and realized we couldn't find the bike keys, either set.  Looked EVERYWHERE, no keys.  Called a lock smith after two hours of searching and immediately found the key, in a pocket I'd looked in no less than 3 times.  Oh well, old age ain't fun.


So we start till 10 am.  left I-10 in Mobile, AL to follow a state highway to Hattiesburg.  Got lost in Mobile, but finally made it to Hattiesburg and even though we'd only ridden 4 hours, with the stress of the morning, and rain starting, we decided to call it a night.


Hope tomorrow is better.

DAY 1, We made it!

I have to admit that I had some doubts about our ability to ride for 7 hours a day, but after today those doubts are gone.

We didn't leave home until 8:30 because I had to get a tire on our trailer fixed.  But we finally got everything together started our adventure.

About 11:30 we stopped for what has become our favorite "road" lunch, a 6" Subway tuna sub, one cookie, and a small diet code, which we split.  Just enough to last us through the afternoon without bringing on a bad case of the "sleepies"  

The ride was uneventful, which is the way a ride should be.  There was a lot of cloud cover, so the heat never got really bad.  We saw a high of 93 briefly about 3 o'clock, but we then ran through a light rain which cooled things down to the low 80's, almost chilly.

I had hoped to make about 400 miles the first day, and that is exactly what we did.  Stopped in Defuniak Springs, FL and got a room at the Best Western. This is a great "biker" motel, all the rooms have both an internal and an external door, and we were able to park the bike right outside our room.

Decided dipping our feet in the pool would feel great, so we did just that.

Sis really held up well.  This trip has been a dream of ours for a long time, and now we're on our way.

We're off to Jackson, MS tomorrow, then north to Memphis, along the same highway where our Spyder broke down a little over a year ago.  

Drop us a comment if you check in, that's the only way we know that someone is reading this.

Go west old man...

I hadn't thought about posting to this blog during our trip, but since several people asked about getting updates, I think this is the easiest way to let anyone who is interested follow our grand adventure.

Getting the bike ready for this trip has been a challenge.  If you look back to previous posts you'll read about our aborted trip last October where our Can-Am Spyder broke down in Winona, MS and had to be shipped back to Tampa.  When I Spyder arrived at our dealer in Tampa I was standing there, and noticed a brand new Honda Goldwing trike they had just gotten in.  Long story short, we now own the Goldwing, and love it.  EXCEPT it kept breaking down on us!  Unheard of for a Goldwing, but it wasn't the Wing, it was the 2-wheel conversion which was done by Lehman, an old, reputable trike company.  Anyway, after several repairs and major parts replacement, we feel the bike is ready for a long trip, and this is what begins tomorrow.

Or, we hope it begins tomorrow.  I filled the tires on the trailer we pull behind our trike and carry all of our "must-have" stuff, and when I checked them today, one tire had lost 15 pounds.  I filled it again, and so far it looks good, but I may have to pull the wheel and have the tire fixed.  So, stay tuned...

We are probably crazy (any doubts?) to be doing this in July/August heat.  But for so many other reasons (health issues mainly), this is the time to go.  We are both healthy, the bike is ready (say a prayer or two for us), and we're excited.  Additionally, we are riding into the Colorado mountains, and the evening temp is in the high 50's.  This is COLD for Sis, and it's not going to get any warmer.  So we're off.