On the bike again - finally!

 It's hard to believe that this is the first time we've gone on an overnight BMW ride since June of 2021. It's been a busy year, and we decided to finally go on a trip we've planned a couple of times - to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona. As usual, we took the less-traveled road - and boy, was this less traveled!

through Skull Valley

cattle in Peeple's Valley

We started off on familiar roads, heading out of Prescott through the ranching communities of Skull Valley and Peeple's Valley and then enjoying the twisty descent from Yarnell toward Wickenburg. 

In Wickenburg we turned south on Vulture Mine Road. Mike had been here with a friend recently, but all of this was new to me. Vulture Mine Road twists and turns through the Sonoran Desert and over the course of the next couple of hours we saw only a handful of cars.

There were plenty of saguaro cactus and we were glad for the overcast skies that kept the temperature in the low 90's. 

We turned onto Aguila Road, and while we had passed plenty of low areas warning of flash floods, this was the only time the road was still covered in mud from recent rains.

We turned west onto Old US 80, which while it now is a twisty 2-lane paved road that winds through irrigated farmland and solar panel farms, historically it was originally a wagon road between Santa Fe, NM and San Diego, and then part of the southern highway route from Georgia to San Diego developed in the early 1900's and completely paved by 1939.

We crossed over the Gillespie Dam bridge built over the Gila River in 1925-1927 and restored in 2012.

We hadn't gone through a town since we left Yarnell early in our trip, and were happy to stop for lunch at Little Italy in Gila Bend. Prince Harry actually ate here when he was at Luke Air Force Base for helicopter training. The pizza was great! 

We continued south on US 85 which runs straight through the desert on the way to Mexico.

Storm clouds were building which kept the temperature hovering just under 90 - a cool day here in the Sonoran desert. We rode into Ajo, our stop for the night, just before it started raining. Like so many places in Arizona, Ajo was a former copper mining hub. 

We rode about 200 miles today - a short day for us but through a part of Arizona where we haven't been before. Tomorrow we continue south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. 

Riding home from Zion

We left La Verkin, Utah about 8:30am local time, heading home after a weekend that included a ride through Zion National Park and a 13.5 mile trail race yesterday.

Riding through the vast southwestern part of the country, where the road stretches before us to the horizon and we can look out over a valley to the mountain ranges 100 miles distant, makes us appreciate the small details. A few cattle grazing in the dry scrub brush, birds lazily swooping on the updrafts, a couple of trees next to an abandoned homestead, the feel of the wind  as we zoom down the almost empty 2-lane paved road.

We rode east on Utah 59, which becomes Arizona 389 and entered the Arizona Strip, the remote, arid, northernmost part of Arizona that lies north of the Grand Canyon. Indigenous people lived in this area for at least 8,000 years and Spanish explorers first saw the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in the 1500's. The first Europeans didn't arrive to this more remote section of present-day Arizona until the late 1700's.

We picked up US 89A in Fredonia and gradually started to climb into the pine forests of the Kaibab Plateau.

We enjoyed the cooler temperatures at this higher elevation as the road curved and climbed to almost 8,000' elevation before we started to wind down into the valley along the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument, known for sherbet-colored swirls of slickrock and towering cliffs.

We crossed over the Colorado River and continued south on US 89 through the Navajo Reservation until we started to see the San Francisco Peaks, a mountain range just outside Flagstaff that contains Humphrey's Peak, the highest mountain in Arizona at 12,633'. After a quick stop in Flagstaff for lunch, we continued toward home riding on I-40 west until we turned off on the much less traveled AZ 89.

We love long motorcycle trips where we spend a few weeks on the road exploring new areas, and also relish a weekend trip and the opportunity to revisit familiar roads. With cooler weather coming, we'll change up our travels and head south instead of north, hopefully within the next couple of months.

345 miles today from home in Arizona to La Verkin, Utah

 We started a 4-day trip this morning, leaving our home in Prescott, Arizona and heading north first to Flagstaff, and then continuing north on US 89 through the high desert of the Navajo Reservation.

This landscape looks almost other-worldly, and even though we've ridden this way several times, we never get tired of looking out over the sand and rocks.

We've been looking for a shiny tanker truck so we could take a photo of us on the BMW as we ride by, and today we finally find one:

Soon after this photo, the BMW's odometer turned over to 26,000 miles and we did a little happy dance on the bike for all the fun we've had over the past 2.5 years.

We turned left onto US 89A, and stopped at Marble Canyon to walk across the Navajo Bridge over the Colorado River. This is considered the beginning of the Grand Canyon, and is where the historic Lee's Ferry was located. For about 55 years the ferry was the only way to cross the Colorado River, until the first bridge was built in 1929. A new bridge designed for larger trucks was completed in 1995, and the old bridge is now reserved for pedestrians.

We continued west on US 89A past the Vermillion Cliffs National Monument near the Arizona/Utah border where the Paria Plateau drops 3,000' to the valley floor.

After passing by Vermillion Cliffs, the highway winds and climbs up the Kaibab Plateau and the landscape changes once again, this time to dense forests of tall pines. We stopped for lunch in Jacob Lake where we couldn't pass by the large, delicious homemade cookies. 89A continues west at this point, winding through the pine forests that unfortunately were decimated by the Magnum Fire in June of this year.

We wound our way down an average 6% grade off the top of the Kaibab Plateau to the high desert floor below us, and when we reached Fredonia we turned west on State 389, riding through part of the Kaibab Paiute Reservation only 50 miles north of the Grand Canyon.

The temperature rose into the mid 90's and we were glad we only had a few miles left until we reached La Verkin, Utah where we're staying for 3 nights. We're looking forward to some gorgeous motorcycle riding!

13,000 miles in 1 year!

Today was a banner day for several reasons:

- It's our first ride together in 2019, with the weather finally cooperating. We've had a rainy, snowy (28" in one memorable storm a couple of weeks ago), and cold winter for Arizona which has meant no motorcycle riding and more shoveling than we anticipated.

- The mountains south of our home in Prescott are still topped with snow. The temperature at home was 65 degrees and it feels slightly out of kilter to see snow on the mountains.

- The bike will be 1 year old on March 23rd, and today the odometer rolled over to 13,000 miles as we pulled into our driveway.

We rode one of our favorite twisty loops through the mountains into the valley, starting south on White Spar/89 through Wilhoit to Kirkland, then north back to Prescott on Iron Springs/Yavapai County 10 through Skull Valley.

A sunny day, twisty 2-lane roads with very little traffic, and long views over the high desert mountains turned a familiar ride into something special.

Over the past year we've ridden the BMW 130,000 miles on small day trips as well as a 5 1/2 week trip around the United States. Where will the next year take us?

Here is today's route