July 16, 2008 - Wednesday - Day 16
USA/MEXICO/CANADA
DOUBLE CROSS COUNTRY
& THE TRANSCANADA HIGHWAY
-- OR BUST - SUMMER 2008
Miles Today - - Total Miles - Average Daily Miles -
(Miles to be filled in tomorrow - over 4,000!)
Holbrook,AZ - to Kingman,AZ
(-staying at Clark and Loreen Isaac's home -)
(AZ)
- GAS SCARE! - THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE! -
Despite falling asleep at the keyboard last night after watching the All Star game, I was up and feeling frisky, and went for a longer run than usual. I headed up to the big dinosaur statue at the end of town, and got a bunch more images from differing angles. I felt great awaking at 6… took the shower I missed last night, and caught a good shave.
Note to self: the way to get an early start on the day is to forget to change the watch at the time zones on the way west!)
In the Travelodge's little office I chatted with a guy who had just returning from a motorcycling adventure in Alaska with a buddy. His bike was on a trailer and he had just gotten back, and was headed home to somewhere in Texas. He reminded me of my 1000 miles bicycling in Alaska, and we talked for awhile about common experiences there. He was an older fellow with a glint for good times in his eye.
On-line I found a Kawasaki dealer's address and phone number, and called to make an appointment to have the oil changed later today. It's about time to get this done and I didn't want to put it off any longer than I had to. That bike is being too good to me, and I don't want to neglect it.
Haven't used the extension cord brought from home but sure glad I have the multi-plug outlet for all the chargers.
I was out by 10pm. Far later than I wanted to be. But I often think of the friend from home who asked me if I was still able to keep track of what day it was. I said that no, I wasn't able to, but I would write the day on the windshield so I could do so. He suggested I just forget it and let it go… I've been somewhat successful in doing that. Not completely though.
Throughout much of the day it was a cool 86 degrees, and the roads were all flat right out to the horizon.
Three of the predictably western-themed roads that branched out from the big highway: Two Gun Road, Double Arrow Road, Devil Dog Road.
The winds and the road being favorable, at one point today I tucked in behind a little red sports car that had just passed me - we flowed along at 90+ mph on the open highway, and it seemed for all the world like we were creeping along.
At one point on this purely delicious morning I was soaring along but thought I was going very slowly - maybe 70mph or something like that. But when I looked down it was 90mph-something! Gosh, it felt good! It was a little like that Soarin' exhibit at Epcot - where one straps himself into a seat and you go effortlessly far above the ground and at great speed and watch the world around you float wonderfully by - all the sights seeming in high definition. That's the way it was for me this morning - the colors were intense, the focus was amazing down to each strand of evergreen needle, and the air smelling fresh as air can possibly smell.
I was going to revisit Meteor Crater. A wonderful many mile wide hole in the ground. Had been there a few times twenty years ago or so. But I had sticker shock at the gas station (about $4.50 a gallon!) near there, and learned that the crater is now privately owned and they charge about $18 to get in! So, being behind a bit anyway, I decided that it probably hadn't changed much, and besides I still had vivid recollections. Besides I wanted to get to that oil change for the bike.
On the way out of the station I experimented with eating a whole fruit popsicle while riding. The experiment failed miserably. I popped the sweet confection in my mouth, got into gear, and ready to leave the gas station driveway, and the thing melted before I could grab it again and fell to the dusty concrete. I leaned over perilously, picked it up, and tossed it to the weeds - some ants will find an absolute treasure!
It got predictably warmer leaving the mountains and the Kaibob National Forest in the early part of the afternoon. As I descended the 6% grade mountain, the gorgeous vista seemed to extend for fifty miles out to the end of sight. I couldn't take any photos because I had to attend to the broken truck tire rubber pieces on the road, and the descent itself.
And beside it was at this point that I really was getting concerned about the gas situation. I was beginning to get low, and the stations were much farther apart in this area. I get about 40mpg as I've mentioned, and the tank holds just about five gallons I think. But the warning light comes on at variable times, and besides I've been told not to trust that warning light. So when I was getting to a high of 150 miles for the tank, I got REALLY nervous. I rolled into a station at 170 miles and I didn't care about the cost.
Got caught in an I-40 road construction project for about half an hour just east of Kingman. One side of the two west bound lanes was being paved over. The line of vehicles just snaked along. It looked like beautiful road they were putting down - just wished they could have timed it to be ready for when I was coming by.
The Kawasaki has performed magnificently - with every single little tweak of the throttle it has moved effortlessly ahead. Actually, I haven't even noticed the effort to get up the mountains. (Believe, one DOES notice on a bicycle.) But it was time to pamper the baby, and so I rolled into the motorcycle dealership Kingman for an oil change and for a general checkup. As I was packing the computer back in, the back seat that held the heavy rear bag came clean off. Dave, the friendly mechanic found the proper sized screw and fixed it right up.
I headed toward Clark Isaac's home. He's way out in the middle of nowhere. We had met on-line about four years ago, but neither of us can remember how or through what connection. But though we have differing views on many things - and similar ones, too, we became good on-line buddies. And so, for this trip as I looked on the map, I decided to make a giant detour and come up and visit him in his mountaintop home.
The place was in the mountains, and for a number of weeks I've been somewhat worried how I'd make it up the driveway which he described as hard packed dirt and sand. Well, I didn't have to worry about the driveway, because he neglected to tell me that the road to house, maybe three miles or so was dirt, loose sand, and small rocks. When I got to the point at around 5pm where the sign read, “Pavement Ends” I stood and looked and pondered and wondered for about five minutes whether I should try it. I didn't really know how long it would go, and I couldn't really see it's composition, but it seemed solid. So I motored out onto it slowly and tentatively… It was a mistake. I got about 100 yards and it finally sunk into my brain that this was no place for 850 pounds of touring cruiser motorcycle and gear. But how to turn around? You'll remember Koy's understated quote, about that the Nomad doesn't really “have a very dynamic turning radius.” which I chuckle at every day. Well, here I had to turn on a very pebble-slippery and dangerous surface. And on not a very wide road. And on the edges of the road were inches of deep sand, to boot. As I mentioned to Clark as we laughed about it later, I was more scared here than facing that sandstorm!
Through a lot of very careful short duckwaddling backing up and moving forward I finally, after about fifteen minutes of effort got the bike going in the other direction. I took out my phone to call Clark, but there was no phone service here. I wasn't able to reach him until I got back up on the main highway aways. I explained the problem, and after we discarded the idea of trailering the bike up to the house, he suggested that he'd call a friend down the way. We'd garage the bike there for the night. Then he'd truck me and my gear up to the house. And, after meeting on Route 66 by that closed down Outpost Sloon, that's what we did.Tom and Ginny posed for a picture in their garage. Tom is a transplanted guy from New York who now takes tourists out on a Colorado River pontoon boat rides at the Hualapai Indian Reservation, close to the west rim of the Grand Canyon. After expressing my discomfort with the taking of my motorcycle on these roads (and the ones to his place weren't much better!), he said he sees this size bike and bigger all over this area. I noted that I'd been all over, and showed him my map, but that I sure didn't have the skill level to ride here.
I sat chuckling, mainly in disbelief, and loudly at times, as Clark and I wended our way the three miles or so up to the home in Clark's Prius. The roadway was about the very last thing I could have ever ridden on insofar as road surface - in parts deep sandiness, loose rocks, and dirt, some soft, some hard packed. I'm not sure I could have even done it on the 1100 Honda Shadow!
Clark and Loreen's home sits at 3500 feet on a little atoll, really a small mountain. This sits near the Music Mountains and only about eight miles away from the Grand Canyon. The area folks dug a well down 1300 feet to the aquifer and now they have water supposedly for the next 100 years.
This is a home that would make the cover of the magazine “House Beautiful”. Of wooden construction, it has open space and lofts and views as great as any place I've been. It was the first Clark and I had actually met. And we actually hit it off big time. This is always a worry when one actually meets someone one has known through the internet phenomenon. He is an engaging conversationalist, and a true Renaissance Man. A fellow from Rochester, NY, and raised in Toms River, NJ, he has owned a restaurant and lived on a houseboat and been a lawyer. And done about everything in between it seems. And been just about everywhere, too. What with my experiences all around the place, and his, we sat and swapped stories and shared coincidences, and blended ideas and swapped thoughts for a few hours.
We had a delicious eggplant meal which he and Loreen had concocted during the day for me. There was also a delicious flax wheat bread which was home made and fresh out of the baking machine. AND when I asked if they had SmartBalance (a healthy and good tasting butter substitute) and they said they had, I did a swooping and hooping shout and dance right there in the living room. (It was a bit reminiscent of my little outrageous outgoing in the Best Buy when I found that battery charger!)
Around 9:30pm my eyes drooped and began closing with weariness as usual around that time. My yawning even in front of the very interesting stories and insights was embarrassing to me. Finally I adjourned up to the comfy bedroom. There I made ready for bed. I also made every attempt to transfer the day's 25 or so spoken notes from my little tape recorder to the typed word in the laptop propped on my belly in bed. (From there I'd weave it into some semblance of a story in the morning.) I wrote for about an hour before not being able to even lift my fingers any more. And as it was, I note that I have sadly left out considerable detail.)
It was a plush comfy bed in a room with great atmosphere. And I looked forward to the view of the mountain peak out the window in the morning. I was in the middle of nowhere, so far from home, and with new friends. I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer and fell, with the day's experiences swimming before me, into a deep wonderful sleep.
Note:
To view many of the photos from today and the whole trip, you can visit
http://www.photostockplus.com/home.php?tmpl=45&user_id=42473&event=196141. Some folks have reported trouble with this link, but most find that it works. Sometimes it takes two tries… Also, you can check out the past day journal entries by going to joelperlish.com, and clicking on the appropriate trip down at the bottom on the left hand corner or just going to http://www.joelperlish.com/blog/blog.html.)
