Ajo to home with some wandering in the middle

 

After a heavy rain with hail last night, we were thrilled that the roads were dry when we started for home from Ajo, AZ at 7am. The ride north on AZ 85 was uneventful, and as we rode along we decided to not retrace our route from Thursday but instead continue on 85 north until we reached Indian School Road.

The Garmin GPS kept suggesting that we take the I10 to the 303 and finally north on I17 - all interstate highways that we wanted to avoid. We realized too late that AZ 85 did not go as far north as we expected, and spent some time wandering around, looking for a paved road that would get us back to Vulture Mine Road into Wickenburg.

After stopping at yet another intersection with a dirt road and consulting the Butler motorcycle map, we realized that we needed to backtrack, take the I10 for about 9 miles, and then we would be back on little-traveled, 2-lane, paved roads.

The Butler map proved correct, and we were soon back on the winding paved roads that led to Vulture Mine Road.

We crossed the same muddy wash from Thursday, today with more mud but no problem at all for the BMW.

I wanted to be sure to get a photo of Vulture City - settled in 1863 to house miners from the Vulture Mine, Arizona's most successful gold mine, it grew to 5000 people. The mine closed in 1942 since it was considered a non-essential mine, not needed for WWII efforts and the town became was abandoned.

Some of the buildings have been restored and it's now possible to book a tour or hold a special event in the town.

The rest of our ride was uneventful as we wound up 89 from the valley into much cooler temperatures in Yarnell, then continued home on very familiar roads.

When I spotted Thumb Butte, I knew we were very close to home. We really enjoyed Ajo and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and being back on the BMW for even a short 3-day trip reminded us how much we enjoy motorcycle travel. We won't wait a year for the next trip!

Last day of our 2-week, 2800 mile motorcycle trip through Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming

 The last day of a long motorcycle trip is bittersweet. The days fall into a rhythm: wake up, go for a walk or run, eat breakfast, pack up the bike, ride, unpack, eat, sleep. Repeat. With a small amount of baggage space on the BMW, and needing to carry raingear and cold weather gear, we're limited to just the essentials and basically one or two changes of clothing. Life is simple and we get to either explore new parts of the country or revisit favorite roads. Yet home beckons, even though the first couple of days home are filled with laundry, running errands, and catching up on work.

We started our day in Flagstaff, about 100 miles from our home in Prescott, AZ. We've ridden these roads more times than we remember, yet I'm still taken by the high desert beauty. Flagstaff is at about 7000' elevation with tall, green pine trees and tall mountains. We drop down to about 5500' elevation in Prescott, riding through dry grassland and desert scrub bushes. We watched a couple of trains heading to or from Flagstaff as we rode west along I-40, reminding us of the trains we saw in Wyoming earlier on this trip.

When we turned south on US 89 outside Ash Fork, we knew we were about 1 hour from home.

This is the driest time of year in a part of the country that typically gets only about 16" of rain per year. However, we're in the midst of a deep drought, with only .5 inches of precipitation since October 2020; normal would be 3.6". We left Flagstaff at 8am to beat the heat, and met our goal by arriving home just about 10am to 83 degree temperatures.

Riding 2800 miles over 2 weeks seems like a lot, but break it down into daily rides typically averaging around 5-6 hours and it seems like we could almost continue riding without a break. Home and work calls, but we're already dreaming about our next trip on the BMW.

230 mile loop to Flagstaff and home

Everything came together today for a gorgeous ride:  sunny skies, warm temperatures, and the pollen count was down. After a colder and snowier winter than usual, we've been waiting for a day like this! We were hungry for long stretches of road with no traffic in sight, winding our way through the mountains, twisting through canyons, and enjoying the sunshine on our faces.

We decided on a familiar and favorite route for our first day-long trip of 2019 to Flagstaff for lunch and then home. We started northeast from Prescott to Camp Verde, then east on AZ 260 through the pine forests.

Even though it was a beautiful Sunday, we had the road basically to ourselves as we climbed up into the cooler mountains.

We were hoping to see elk, but only spied the occasional hawk floating on the updrafts.

We turned onto Lake Mary Road, excited to see the higher water levels in the Upper Lake due to the heavier snowfall this winter. A dam built on Walnut Creek in 1905 led to the development of Upper Lake Mary, used as a water reservoir for Flagstaff.

You can see the snowy peaks of Mt. Humphrey's in the far distance, and as we road north toward Flagstaff the mountains loomed larger.

Lower Lake Mary often has less water than it's larger sister, but today the lake was a beautiful blue color due to the higher water levels.

We stopped at The Tourist Home Cafe in Flagstaff, a favorite lunch spot for the homemade bread and huge dessert display. Skip the chain restaurants and fast food places, and check out the funky south side of the train tracks in Flagstaff for great food.

Our route home led us through the 12 mile long scenic drive on 89A through Oak Creek Canyon, a 2-lane paved road that twists, turns, and snakes around hair-pin turns with steep red rocks on both sides on the way to Sedona.

Oak Creek Canyon is 2000' deep, and the popular Slide Rock State Park. This land was once an apple orchard homesteaded by the Pendley family in the early 1900's and became a state park in 1987. In the summer hundreds of people come here to slide through the water on the slick rocks.

We enjoyed sweeping through the canyon without much traffic until we came to an abrupt stop. For the next mile into Sedona it was stop and go traffic, giving us time to look out over the canyon and search for the elusive wildflowers that bloom in the desert. Sedona is always crowded, and what seems like hundreds of roundabouts and the slow moving traffic make us anxious to get through town as quickly as possible.

We continued south on 89A through Cottonwood into the historic old copper mining town of Jerome, perched high on the mountain ahead of us. We were lucky that there wasn't much traffic on the steep and narrow streets in Jerome, and we quickly left the quirky town behind us.

Coming down 89A from Jerome toward Prescott we got stuck behind a few slow-moving cars, and once they pulled over Mike took advantage of the open space, leaning into the twisties and zooming our way down the mountain.

Our 230 mile ride over 5 1/2 hours today made us hungry for more motorcycle riding and the opportunity to savor familiar routes plus explore new territory on the BMW.

Here's a map of our ride today. Have fun!

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

A BMW ride in search of aspens

It's the end of September and we thought we might see the changing leaf colors of the aspen trees in Flagstaff. No Fall colors yet, but we had a beautiful ride through the ponderosa pine forests along the Mogollon Rim.

One of our favorite rides is on Lake Mary Road into Flagstaff, and today didn't disappoint. A dam on Walnut Creek forms Lake Mary, named after Mary Riordan, a daughter of wealthy lumber barons who built the lake in 1905 as a water supply for Flagstaff. There wasn't much water today in the reservoir, and no water at all in Mormon Lake. Unfortunately, Mormon Lake is the largest natural lake in Arizona, and the fact that it has no water today, at the end of the rainy monsoon season, says a lot about the drought in the Southwest.

As we rode closer to Flagstaff the San Francisco Peaks, the highest mountains in Arizona, started to come into view.

Our goal today in search of changing aspen leaf colors was the Flagstaff ski area, the Snowbowl. Skiing started here in 1938 at 9,200' elevation at the base lodge with chair lifts taking skiers to 11,500'.

We saw plenty of aspen trees on the climbing, twisting 7 mile road to the base lodge.

The view from the highest point of the road to the ski area is incredible, and a perfect spot for a photo of the BMW.

Today was the first time I wore the new Viking Cycle Ironborn women's textile motorcycle jacket on a ride, and overall I liked the comfortable fit and all the pockets. On the trip home from Flagstaff the temperatures rose to 98 degrees and even with the jacket vents open I was hot and sweating. However, in those temperatures I most likely would have been just as hot wearing my old Olympia jacket with mesh panels for ventilation. Thanks to Viking Cycle for sending me the jacket to review!

We spent 5 hours on the road and covered 267 miles in a large circle in north-central Arizona. Check out our route here. Even in this relatively small area we experienced a wide range of terrain as we traveled from the high desert in Prescott, through ponderosa pine forests, climbed to the higher elevation in Flagstaff, wound our way up to the Snowbowl in the San Francisco Peaks, then descended 6,000' into the green Verde River valley until we finally climbed back to Prescott. What a fun way to spend a Sunday!

39 days, 8723 miles and 33 states on the BMW

There's a certain symmetry to today's ride, our last day on the BMW on our 39 day cross-country motorcycle trip. 5 years ago we moved from Vermont to Arizona and decided to ride our BMW across the country for the move, because when would we ever have this type of opportunity again?

5 years later, and we just finished an even longer cross-country motorcycle trip.

We spent the last night of our move 5 years ago in Flagstaff, and did the same on this trip so that we could miss the monsoon rains that develop later in the day and also have time to celebrate before the reality of being home with laundry, grocery shopping, taking care of the lawn, and the day-to-day chores took over. We had an outstanding dinner last night at Shift, a new restaurant in Flagstaff owned by husband and wife team Dara and Joe Rodger where we sampled a variety of small plates with amazing flavors and presentation and enjoyed watching the couple as they cooked.

5 years ago we took what we thought would be the scenic route from Flagstaff to Prescott and ended up on a narrow, potholed dirt forest road that thankfully took us to I-17 before we were hopelessly lost or out of gas. Today we traveled south on I-17 straight from Flagstaff, enjoying the scenery on this familiar highway.

5 years ago we marveled at the views between Flagstaff and Prescott that change from ponderosa pine covered mountains at 7,000' elevation in Flagstaff, down a steep 5-6% grade over 18 miles long to around 4,000' in Sedona and 3,000' in Camp Verde, and then climbing back to 5,500' in Prescott.

5 years ago we congratulated ourselves on a one-way cross-country motorcycle trip, looking forward to learning about our new home in the Southwest and discovering fantastic year-round motorcycle riding. Today we're thinking about our circular trip across the country and back and where future motorcycle journeys might lead us.

The odometer rolled over to 11,000 miles when we were less than 10 miles from home. 11,000 miles in the past 5 1/2 months seems incredible until we think about the 250-350 miles that we've traveled day after day during the past 5 weeks. The miles add up: we traveled to places we've never been and revisited familiar areas, visited family and friends in 4 states, crossed time zones at least 10 times, were so hot and sweating we felt like we were riding in a convection oven being blasted by a hairdryer along the Gulf Coast, put on every piece of gear we had to stay warm as we crested 10,000' passes in the Rocky Mountains, endured miles of straight roads through flat farmland and prairies, twisted and curved our way through mountain ranges whenever we could find them, waved to hundreds of other motorcycle riders, and looked forward to what each new day would bring.

Riding two-up on a BMW is our favorite way to travel, whether it's a 2-hour ride for lunch or a weeks-long ride across the country. There are miles more road in front of us and more memories waiting to be created.

Here is the route we took today.

BMW ride on a hot day for pie

We decided the hot weather - temperatures in the high 90's today in Prescott - wasn't going to stop us from riding the BMW. The question was:  where to go? Flagstaff, at 7000' feet elevation is cooler, but we didn't have enough time today. Going south to lower elevations where the temperatures would be well over 100 degrees simply wasn't option. We decided to ride on familiar roads to a new destination:  pie in Wikieup.

Bright, Arizona blue skies and twisty 2-lane paved roads with almost no traffic made this a zen-like ride. Usually we see several groups of motorcycles on this route, but today we saw only one other bike, a Harley, which we quickly passed.

We headed west on Iron Springs road out of Prescott, riding through the Prescott National Forest. We're currently in Stage II fire restrictions which basically mean we can't do anything that might cause a spark:  campfires, charcoal fires, outdoor smoking, operating equipment like chainsaws, and even our town's 4th of July fireworks have been cancelled. All the vegetation is various shades of brown, with a few green bushes scattered around as a reminder that once the monsoon rains start, the desert will come to life again.

Iron Springs road becomes Yavapai County Road 10, and we periodically ride across cattle guards. Instead of miles of fences to keep cattle off the road, cattle guards are basically a series of metal pipes laid across the road over a ditch. When cattle (or people with smaller feet, like me) try to cross, their legs fall into the openings between the pipes and they are stuck. Cattle learn not to cross cattle guards, and I've learned to walk around them.

In Kirkland we turn right onto AZ 96 west, with the highway snaking through the mountains. It seems like we would be climbing higher in elevation, but actually Prescott is at 5500' and we descended through Skull Valley at 4260', Kirkland at 3900' and Hillside at 3850'. A few miles past Hillside we turned onto AZ-97 south for about 14 miles. This is one of our favorite motorcycle roads, reminding us of a roller coaster as we zoom down hills through areas marked 'do not enter when flooded', then zip back up the next hill. There are no straight stretches of road here, and we see only one car over the 14 miles of up and down, twisty fun.

AZ-97 takes us to US-93, a 4-lane divided highway which is the main road between Las Vegas and Phoenix. Luckily we only have about 30 miles to ride through the Big Sandy Valley in the Mohave Desert to Wikieup, a town of less than 200 residents. Wikieup is a Mohave word for 'shelter' or 'home'. In the winter, hundreds of RVs make their home here, but today it was 102 degrees and there were no RVs in sight.

We stopped at the Cool Water Cafe, part of the Hidden Oasis RV Park for lunch, sort of on purpose. I had heard that there was a great restaurant in Wikieup with amazing pie, and when Mike googled restaurants in Wikieup he found the Cool Water Cafe advertising pie and thought this was it. After all, how many restaurants can there be in the tiny town of Wikieup? (apparently there are 5). I saw a sign for Luchia's 4 miles down the road and realized THIS was the restaurant I'd heard of. It was hot, we were hungry, and the Cool Water Cafe had pie. We made a quick decision to stop and enjoyed our lunch of a sub for Mike and panini for me, with homemade blackberry pie for dessert. We were the only people in the Cafe and chatted with the owner about the numerous solar-powered bobble heads on the window sill next to our table as she made our lunch.

After cooling off with ice cold water and lemonade in the air-conditioned cafe, we retraced our route, climbing from 2000' elevation in Wikieup back to the cooler 5500' elevation in Prescott.

At one point today Mike said it felt like he was riding through hot air powered by a hair dryer, and I said it felt more like a convection oven. We're not about to let the heat stop us from enjoying the BMW and the Arizona countryside. Especially when there is pie involved.

50,000 miles on our BMW R1200GS

Today we rode our 50,000th mile on our BMW R1200GS.

We started from home with the odometer at 49,972 and decided to mark the occasion of hitting 50,000 miles by riding out on Williamson Valley Road. The north/south road is paved and busy with local traffic near Prescott, but as we rode north the houses thinned out with views of Granite Mountain to the west. This used to be ranch country, and today many of the ranches have been developed into subdivisions with names like Inscription Canyon, American Ranch, and Talking Stick. My favorite, however, is Hootenanny Holler, which sounds like it belongs in the mountains of Appalachia instead of the Arizona high desert.

The subdivisions end and Williamson Valley Road turns to dirt, continuing to wind north 45 miles toward Seligman. Williamson Valley is named after Lt. Robert Stockton Williamson who was a government surveyor in this area in the 1850's. This is truly ranch country, with no houses or structures except for long lines of fences and a lone windmill as far as we could see in every direction.

About 4 miles down the surprisingly well-maintained dirt road we stopped to celebrate our 50,000th mile. We purchased the BMW in July 2012 in Albany, New York when we were living in Vermont. We rode to Kentucky in 2013 and 1 month later across the country to Arizona when we moved here. In the past 4 years we've ridden through every western state, many of them more than once. We rode through a hailstorm in southern Arizona, across snowy mountain passes in Colorado, along the Pacific Coast Highway, across the Mississippi River, through more midwestern cornfields than we'd like to remember, during hard rain downpours, on days so hot I felt like I was melting inside my motorcycle gear and on other days so cold I couldn't feel my hands even inside my heated gloves.

Mike's thinking about a new motorcycle in the near future, and until then we'll continue to put more miles on the R1200GS, looking for the next curving road with no cars in front of us and the beautiful countryside all around.

Local, familiar rides

We spent 5 days riding a BMW in Ireland last month, and while we thoroughly enjoy riding and exploring new places, this weekend we decided to ride a familiar loop near home. The summer monsoons have ended, and while a few puffy white clouds gathered over the Mogollon Rim, we had clear weather for the afternoon. The end of summer monsoons also means cooler temperatures, so instead of wearing my vented light-gray motorcycle pants and a cooling neck wrap, I opted for standard black motorcycle pants and both warm layers to my motorcycle jacket.

We rode a favorite loop:  north on I-17 for a few short miles to the General Crook Trail exit, where we hooked up with Arizona 260 heading west. General George Crook fought for the Union Army during the Civil War, and after that war, like so many career soldiers, was stationed in the southwest. In 1871 he established a supply route that connected forts Verde (Camp Verde today, where we exited the interstate), Apache, and Whipple (now home to the VA Hospital in our town of Prescott).

When we exit I-17 and turn onto 260 West we're treated to views of the Mogollon Rim, an escarpment of limestone and sandstone that rises 4,000 feet over the landscape to the south. Route 260 winds and climbs onto the Rim, with the temperature dropping 20 degrees as we gained elevation. We sometimes see bighorn sheep on the hills alongside the road, but today our primary company were several groups of motorcycles heading to an event in nearby Cottonwood.

We turned northwest onto 87 for a short distance, and then headed more directly north onto Lake Mary Road. We passed several trucks carrying quads used in hunting, and even saw a couple of elk in the back of pick-up trucks. Mostly we rode through forests with open meadows carpeted with green grass from the summer rains.

One of the grassy meadows is technically Mormon Lake, but the only water today was a large puddle perhaps the size of our house's footprint surrounded by boggy grass. Mormon Lake is the largest natural lake in Arizona, which says a lot about the water supply in our high-desert home.

Lake Mary, on the other hand, always has enough water for fishing and boating. That's because it's a reservoir, actually two reservoirs, built in the early 1900's for drinking water to supply Flagstaff.

We didn't realize that there is a significant paving project on Lake Mary Road, and passed the time while we were stopped on the now one-lane road talking with another motorcycle rider. We swapped stories about the amount of time we've spent stopped for construction, riding in the rain and hail, and favorite local roads.

Lake Mary road eventually became a busy road when we reached Flagstaff, where we stopped at Tourist Home Urban Market for a fantastic lunch which included wild blueberry pie and a large loaf of pizza bread that we brought home.

The best part of the trip over, we chose the fast way home, riding south on I-17. At least the scenery is some of Arizona's finest - the red rock formations of Sedona framed by the white sandstone and limestone cliffs that I-17 climbs and winds through.

We've ridden this way several times, and each time I'm awed by the wide-open views, hawks lazily circling on the updrafts in the sunny blue sky, and the winding highway that leads us through scrubby high desert into the ponderosa-covered mountains. Every day we're on the BMW is a day to be treasured, even a familiar ride close to home.

Instead of Black Friday shopping, we're on a motorcycle ride!

We ended our 3-day trip to Bisbee, AZ by riding 7 hours home to Prescott. No Black Friday shopping for us! We ate breakfast at the Bisbee Coffee Company just across from the Copper Queen Hotel so we could get a fairly early start. Everyone in Bisbee must have been out of town, because the streets were almost completely empty at 8am.

There aren't many paved roads in Arizona, and since we prefer to stay off the interstate highways as much as possible, our only option was to retrace our route from Wednesday. We rode east out of Bisbee on AZ 80, then headed north on AZ 191. It's fun to watch the names of the tiny towns: Sunizona (population around 300), Sunsites (best known because it's next to Pearce, a mining ghost town), and Cochise. Bisbee and the surrounding area are in Cochise County, named after the famous Apache chief. The ghost town of Cochise was founded in the 1880's as a railroad stop, but today has about 50 residents. Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday's girlfriend, lived in Cochise after he died. They were part of the famous Shootout at the OK Corral in Tombstone, and Kate lived in Prescott. The distances in the Southwest are vast, but the people who settled here seemed to travel all over the state.

We rode 20 very windy miles east on I-10, then headed north again on AZ 191 until it intersected with AZ 70 in the Gila River Basin. The 649 mile long Gila River starts in New Mexico and runs west across southern Arizona to the Colorado River in Yuma.

We rode past green irrigated fields and many cotton fields, always surrounded by mountains to the north, east and west.

We picked up AZ 188, which wound through the Superstition Mountains and past 18-mile long Roosevelt Lake, created by the Roosevelt Dam on the Salt River in 1911.

We turned north onto AZ 87, heading toward Payson in the heart of the Mogollon Rim which is the southern boundary of the Colorado Plateau. There is no flat land around Payson, and the highway twists and winds through the tall pine trees in the Tonto National Forest.

In Payson we turned onto AZ 260, continuing to wind through the mountains and forests, finally turning west toward Camp Verde. Somehow the trip home always seems to take longer the closer we get to home, and Camp Verde is only 50 miles from Prescott. These are familiar roads that we travel often, no longer needing the GPS or my written directions.

We didn't see any antelope today as we rode through the Prescott Valley grassland, so the cows will have to serve as our welcoming party.

We traveled 956 miles over the past three days, with the BMW's odometer turning over to 45,000 miles on the first day of our trip. I wonder where we'll be when we reach 50,000 miles?