Sunday morning motorcycle ride

 We love going on weeks-long motorcycle trips where we explore new areas and are never quite sure what might be around the next corner. Short rides through familiar areas have a completely different feel, where we're out simply for the joy of being on the BMW, enjoying the sun on our face and the wind at our back. Today we rode 128 miles to Wickenburg, Arizona and back. We didn't actually get to downtown Wickenburg, and instead rode into the Wickenburg Ranch development, turned around, and headed home.

We rode out of Prescott southeast on Iron Springs Road/Yavapai County route 10 through Skull Valley, a small ranching community that used to have a fantastic diner, which unfortunately is now closed. The post office seems to be the most thriving spot in town. We continued on AZ 89S through Peeples Valley, another ranching community and home to Maughn Ranches that spans over 512,000 acres. 

Just past Peeples Valley we rode through Yarnell, site of the Granite Mountain Hotshots Memorial State Park commemorating the 19 firefighters who died here in June 2013 fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire. It's a rocky, remote, forbidding area and the hike itself is quite strenuous, reinforcing the extremely difficult and hazardous task our forest firefighters face every day. 89S descends 1300' in four miles on a twisting road that snakes down the mountain into the valley.

The haze in the valley is due to the smoke from the wildfires in California, a sobering reminder of the high fire risk this very dry summer. We rode a few miles in the valley, then turned around at Wickenburg Ranch and headed back up the mountains into the cooler air in Yarnell, passing several saguaro cactus that thrive in the hot, dry, lower elevations in Arizona.

A sunny day, bright blue skies, cooler temperatures and twisty roads make this one of our favorite short motorcycle rides and lead to dreaming about longer rides to come.

Why not ride the BMW to lunch?

I can't believe I haven't posted a blog since 2014! Mike rides the BMW regularly for work, and in February we rode to Apache Junction and in March to Flagstaff, but somehow my photos were lost. Today we finally put it all together:  a ride with friends to Congress, AZ that was the site of a thriving gold mine in the late 1880's to 1928, then became a ghost town, and today is the site of Nichol's West Cafe, our destination for lunch.

We started off riding west and then south on Iron Springs Road out of Prescott toward Skull Valley on a sunny and warm day with almost no traffic to slow us down. We turned onto Yavapai County Road 15 in Kirkland, then south on State Route 89 through Peeples Valley and Yarnell.

State Route 89 at one point was the primary route between Phoenix and Prescott. Today it's a favorite for motorcycles because of the twisting, turning road that cuts through the Weaver Mountains and descends 1300' in 4 miles from Yarnell to Congress.

We ate lunch at the Nichol's West Cafe, sitting outside in their courtyard surrounded by flowers and trees.

Heading home, we retraced our path back up to Yarnell. Look closely at the photo and you'll see the road snaking up and around the mountain.

Instead of turning west toward Kirkland we continued on SR 89 through Wilhoit and into the even twistier section of 89 that runs through the Prescott National Forest between the Bradshaw and Sierra Prieta mountain ranges.

We're planning a combination of short rides, overnight trips, and hopefully a longer trip or two this summer. Stay tuned!