I recently returned from an 11 state, 16 day, 4,600-mile odyssey. I rode west through Winterset, IA, i.e., the bridges of Madison County (Note: don’t bother), to Denver, Mt. Evans, to Steamboat Springs, to Aspen and the Maroon Bell Mountains, over Independence Pass to Salida, met up with some friends and rode west to Ouray, down the “Million Highway” to Durango, past the Four Corners, through Monument Valley to the Grand Canyon, Sedona and Santa Fe, from where I headed northeast through Taos and eventually back to Barrington. The following are a few thoughts on this trip:
Most Challenging Road, But Fun: Colorado Highway 550-the Million Dollar Highway- between Ouray and Silverton. The scenery is spectacular and the switchbacks are numerous. However the road is in good condition, well marked and adequately wide so the absence of guardrails is not that intimidating.
Most Challenging Road and Scary: The road to Mt. Evans, southwest of Denver, at 14, 240 ft., is allegedly the highest paved road in the world. To get to the summit, you must deal with a very narrow road with serious frost heaves, no guardrails, switchbacks that are so tight that first gear is too fast so you must be slipping the clutch while going through the turns yet ensure you are maintaining adequate momentum despite going up a steep grade. The road will likely be at least wet with perhaps a little snow and/or ice. As you are going up you are hoping—make that praying--that any on-coming traffic, of which there was plenty, is judiciously keeping in its appropriate lane. Plus the summit is way above the tree line, so once you get there, it is not all that scenic. And if all this was not bad enough, when I reached the summit a Park Ranger immediately told me the danger of lightning was so severe that I must either leave immediately or wait out the danger in the men’s room. My advice---Don’t even consider it unless the weather up top is dry and clear and then only if you are in need of some type of masochistic challenge.
Grandest Site: There were many such sites, but the grandest had to be the Grand Canyon. Neither words nor a camera can adequately capture its grandeur. Plus the coloring and shadows look very different as the sun moves across the horizon or you observe the canyon from different locations.
Good Advice: A sticker on a motorcycle that said: “Warning: Lower Feet Before Stopping”.
Road With the Most Stunning Scenery: There were many to pick from, but my vote would be highway 89A going through Oak Creek Canyon north of Sedona. The red rocks punctuated with green evergreens were simply stunning.
Most Confusing—what time it was in various parts of Arizona. The state is in the Mountain Time zone, EXCEPT they do not observe daylight savings time (thus at this time of the year, they are effectively on Pacific time). HOWEVER for those parts of the state that are on an Indian reservation (and it seem like this is at least half of the state), the Indian tribe gets to decide what time they will observe. Note: Cell phone time is typically not accurate nor is GPS time.
Most Disappointing Site: Despite low expectations, I would give the Four-Corners Monument this prize. However after further thought---it perhaps would have been even more disappointing if some government entity had made an even bigger deal, i.e., spent even more dollars, commemorating this site which is simply the point at which four states happen to meet.
Oddest Event: Two guys arrived at the Four-Corners Monument with a horse in their trailer. They promptly took the horse out and walked it up the ramp that was obviously intended for wheelchairs. Presumably their objective was to take a picture of their horse with each leg in a different state.
Most Intriguing Site- As your drive across New Mexico on Highway 60, it seems like you are in the middle of nowhere. Then you start to notice a few huge skyward pointing antennas in the distance and eventually you see more of them spread across the countryside. There are 27 such antennas that make up the Very Large Array (VLA) Radio Telescope Observatory-one of the world's premier astronomical radio observatories. I characterize this site as intriguing in that it is hard to even relate to what radio telescopes do. The site was featured in Jodie Foster’s Academy Award winning movie, “Contact”. Each antenna, weighing 230 tons with an 82-foot diameter, is mounted on one of three railroad tracks, each 13 miles long that radiate in a Y-shaped configuration from a common center. The radio telescopes are re-configured, every four months or so, in several different ways to combine their data into one uniform picture. The data from each antenna is combined electronically to give the resolution of an antenna 22 miles across, with the sensitivity of a dish 422 feet in diameter. The VLA is used primarily by astronomers from around the world. It is also occasionally used for atmospheric/weather studies, satellite tracking, and other miscellaneous science. My advice- it is worth a visit if it is on your way to somewhere else.
Saddest Site- The town of Greensburg, KS was near totally destroyed by an F5 tornado on May 4, 2007. The twelfth victim just died of injuries from this storm. As I approached the town over 4 months later, the first thing you notice is the Mash-style medical tents on the edge of town with the sign “Kiowa County Memorial Hospital”; next you notice the trees…now reduced to thick, short trunks with only a few green leaves on their tops. Eventually you notice the still remaining large piles of destroyed building materials and what looks almost like plowed fields in the heart of town, where they had dug out what remained of the foundations of the destroyed buildings. The post office and banks were operating out of house trailers; two gas stations had been re-built. But it was a beehive of activity as the town’s survivors are committed to rebuilding their community.
Most Poignant Site- A Vietnam Veterans Memorial located in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains near Angel Fire, NM. A local doctor started building this memorial 5-days after his son David Westphall, a Marine infantry officer, was killed in Vietnam in 1968, along with 12 other members of his Company. The Memorial is a white, sail-shaped building built into the mountainside. The setting and building are beautiful; but more importantly, the displays inside are very well done, well maintained and a very poignant reminder of all the men that sadly never returned from this war. In 2005 it became the nations first Vietnam Veterans Memorial state park.
Most Interesting Couple: We met Mike and Lydia from Dallas at the Durango Harley dealer (See the comment below on leaking fluids). They were in their 60’s and were on the 41st day of a 44 day, 8,000 mile trip. This was the 15th year they had taken such a 30+-day motorcycle trip together. You could tell by their jewelry, comments and demeanor that this was not a rough-and-ready biker couple. She was laughing about her “snooty” friends back home who didn’t like to get dirty or ever sweat and reveled in how much she would enjoying seeing the expression on their faces as she told them about how, after getting caught in a rain storm, she had to try to dry her hair in the hand-dryer at a truck-stop restroom.
Another Interesting Couple: At the Grand Canyon, we met a couple riding two-up on a Harley. We asked them where they were from and they responded, in the best English they could muster, that they were from Germany. They had rented this bike and were riding around the US West. Two years earlier they had rented a bike to tour the San Francisco bay area (riding two-up on a motorcycle through the hills of San Francisco is not real appealing to me, but they professed to have had a great time). They were enjoying this trip very much and when asked how their bike was running, the girl-who spoke the best English-got a huge smile on her face and responded "Vroom, Vroom”, i.e., she loved the sound of the Harley. Note: They have much more severe noise restrictions on motorcycles in Germany—so this was the sound of an American Harley!
Funny Incident: When one is riding alone across the middle of nowhere, you come up with all kinds of things to think about. My second day out-while riding across Kansas- I noticed that the road I was on was particularly remote. I had let the GPS set the route in many cases, so I was simply following whatever road it suggested. But this road was not only a long way from any town; there were not even any farmhouses around. So I started giving some thought as to what I would have to do if -god forbid-I had bike trouble. Further, I began listening even more intently for any unusual sounds coming from my bike. I soon started hearing what sounded like a grinding noise. The faster I went, the louder the sound got. I was convinced it had to be a wheel bearing or something serious. Still everything was running great and with all the wind and road noise it was hard to really zero in on this particular noise. So I decided to simply keep going until I got to the next town. There I pulled over and shut off my bike; but fortunately, I happened to leave the ignition on. As I was looking over my bike expecting the worst, I heard this static noise and soon realized the source of my problem. While I was on the road, I was fumbling with my cruise control button and had inadvertently turned the radio on. It was not receiving any station, so all I was hearing was static. The audio volume automatically adjusts based on how fast you are going---so the grinding noise I heard was simply very loud static from the radio. I had a good laugh and took off, thankful I would have to find something else to worry about.
Free Advice:
Kansas motels: I guess I should not have been surprised, but…when you pay $47/night for a motel room in the middle of Kansas, you get what you pay for.
Gas gauge- When traveling out West, it is not a good idea to wait until your “low- fuel-light” goes on to start thinking about re-fueling. The stations are often very far apart, some are closed or out of high-octane gas …and you also have the risk of a lengthy detour. It is prudent to be looking to re-fuel after about 125 miles.
Leaking fluids- Don’t write this off as a normal Harley Davidson occurrence---bikes, even Harleys, are not supposed to be leaking fluids of any type. Were they to do so, is an indication of a problem that will likely only get worse and thus should be looked into.
Global Positioning Systems- I am becoming a bigger fan of these devices every day. They are admittedly complicated, hard to learn to use their total capability, sometimes very confusing and frustratingly wrong…but a great traveling companion, particularly if you are running alone. At any point, it can readily answer questions like:
·am I on the right road?
·where is my next turn?
·how many more miles to my destination?
·what time should I arrive? Note: you must tell the unit what time convention you will use, so the time it gives is only accurate locally if you know the right convention. See comment re: Arizona time.
·where is the closest gas station/restaurant/hotel?
·what if I take a different route?
Plus it is fun to design a route on your home computer, no matter how complicated, i.e., how many turns, and have the GPS readily take you through the route out on the road.
Things That Work For Me:
Ear plugs: If I will be running all day, I wear earplugs so my ears are not ringing at the end of the day. I have a fully molded pair, which I found too quieting and too hard to readily get in and out. So I wear a molded unit in one ear and a soft push-in type in the other ear so that I can readily take it out if I am trying to communicate with someone.
Packing list: I develop a typed packing list for each trip depending on which bike I will use and how long I will be gone. From prior lists, I readily know how much stuff I have the space to accommodate and which items I did or did not use on prior trips. Then I sort the list to reflect in which of the 12 different pockets/side cases etc. that I have on my Road Glide and T-Bag combination a particular item is stored. So if I cannot remember where I put something, I can readily check the list to know where to look for some little used item. Makes preparing for the next trip much easier and reduces the risk of not packing something that has proved useful in the past.
Lessons Learned/Re-Learned- at slow speeds, NEVER turn your handlebars and hit the front brakes at the same time. Never ceases to amaze me how much side torsion, i.e., tip- over-force, this exerts on your bike.
Why Is It That? —No matter how many speeds your bike has-mine has 6-it seems like you never have the right gear to go up a mountain. One gear is too low to go at the speed you want at a decent RPM; but, the next gear is too high to make it though the turns without lugging…as a result you are constantly shifting.
Why Doesn’t Someone Invent?---a luggage system for non-baggers that consists of a harness that is attached to your motorcycle for a trip and then your luggage, with one fastener, is firmly attached to this harness. This would make loading and unloading your bike each day a one-step maneuver and you wouldn’t have to be worrying each day whether you got the various straps on your T-bag appropriately fastened that day.
Conclusion- Is there anything more fun than riding a smooth-running Harley across the heartland of America?
