Motorcycle Forum / General / Sportbikes / June 2007

Then don't take your eyes off the road. :)

Is it at Torrey, or in Capitol Reef NP? I seem to remember a large building
in Torrey before I found the motel.

I asked the beautiful blonde girl at the counter what time they rolled up the
sidewalks. She was not amused.

I ate at Subway in Torrey, even though some tourists invited me to join them
for dinner. I was just too tired to be gracious after leaving St. George
before dawn, stopping at Zion NP for an early morning walk up the river, then
riding across Utaaaah! 12 to Torrey.

It took all day. I was crashed out in the motel room before dark.

Then the next morning I visited Capitol Reef very early, so early I was the
only tourist. I blitzed across to Hanksville, hitting 130 on the empty
stretches, and turned south towards Lake Powell.

I was screaming inside my helmet at the awesome beauty of White Canyon, and
struggling to overcome my Yamaha's Need For Speed.

The motorcycle won, I kept pushing and pushing.

I crossed the Colorado river at the Hite Marina and continued to Durango with
one stop at Natural Bridges NP for a short walk about and Monticello or
Blanding for lunch.

When I got to Durango, I had just finished cleaning the bugs off my fairing
and windshield when the thunderstorm hit.

Between Natural Bidges and Mesa Verde NP's, I became convinced of the
essential folly of long distance touring on a sportbike for somebody who is
interested in more than a Seymour Rhodes tour.

Every time I stopped at a different view point with its mandatory
interpretive
walk, I had to strip off my helmet, gloves, and jacket and stash them on the
bike and put my radar detector out of sight of local thieves, fish my camera
out of the tank bag, put the disk lock on the front wheel, do my walk, take
my souvenir
pictures, come back, unlock the bike, put all the gear on, and then move down
the road a half mile to repeat the process.

If I ever go back to Utaaah! I will drive a quadricycle so I can tour in T-
shirt, shorts, and flip flops and keep all my possessions under lock and key.

After three days on the road in 4th of July heat, I started getting antsy to
head for home. I did the obligatory stop at the Four Corners NM, then I
blitzed through the Navajo Nation at 90mph, watching for tribal policemen
patrolling for speeders, stopping every 100 miles for gasoline, liquid
replenishment, and a butt rub.

I saw some bicycle tourists peddling their torture racks halfway between Ship
Rock and Kayenta. I figured that they would have to camp in the desert in
order to say they were macho men.

The only shade on The Big Rez seems to be at McDonalds in Kayenta. I tried to
share my Big Mac with a starving Indian dog that wouldn't approach me.

Another tourist told me that he had rented a jeep in Durango to drive up to
Ouray, but couldn't see a thing because the mountains were full of fog and
rain.

I fought strong crosswinds through the Painted Desert, got to Flagstaff and a
motel in the late afternoon, beating the tourist rush that fills up all the
motels.

I left Flagstaff in the cool of the morning and was back in Los Angeles after
about 8 hours on the road. My GF returned from her visit to relatives in
Kansas.
She had no idea that I had gone on a Mr. Toad's Wild Ride until she saw my
pictures.

When I'm vacation traveling by motorcycle, on a road trip, I have very loose
daily destination goals. Usually about 3 or 4 of different ones each day,
actually, so that no matter how the day goes, I'll get to one of them. While
I'm riding, I let the road be the destination, so I'm always right where I
want to be.

On Jun 23, 1:42 pm, "Andrew"
<yogig.no.spamm.spam...@hotmail.nospamm.com> wrote:

Life's a journey dog...I'm in no big hurry to get to the final
destination.

The beauty of buying cheap bikes is you can generally sell em for what
you paid.  And you'll still have the baby zuk.  But did you really
expect that a cheap standard from antiquity would be up to modern day
standards anyway?