Home through the mountains

We started the last day of our Bisbee trip in Show Low, a town of about 10,000 people at 6200' elevation in the heart of the White Mountains on the Mogollon Rim. According to local history, Show Low received its name based on the outcome of a card game. Sometime around 1876 two neighbors in the Show Low area decided the region wasn't big enough for both of them, so they played cards to decide who would leave. One of them told the other:  If you can show low, you win. Of course that led to the person with the deuce of clubs 'showing low'; he won the bet, and the town was named Show Low. If that isn't enough, the main street is named Deuce of Clubs.

This part of Arizona is known as Rim Country, and it's popular in the summer for folks in Phoenix who want to escape the baking heat in the Valley of the Sun, and also popular in the winter for the snow.

We started a bit later than usual because the temperature was in the 30's at 7am. I put on just about all of the clothes I brought with me, plus all the liners for my motorcycle jacket, and added raingear for extra warmth. It's days like this that a heated seat would be heavenly! Typical for Arizona, the bright sunshine warmed up the air so the temperature was tolerable, but I never took off any of my warm clothes as we rode from Show Low west to Payson at elevations around 7,000'.

It seemed like Monday was a popular day for people driving slowly, erratically, talking on their phone, texting - or all of the above at one time - to be on the road. Periodically we were able to take advantage of passing lanes on the curving 2-lane road through the mountains, zooming past the slower moving trucks and cars.

US 260 descends several thousand feet over a few miles into Camp Verde, giving us gorgeous long-distance views of the Mogollon Rim and the nearby grasslands.

We were close to home now, with only a short stretch south on I-17 then about 30 miles on 169 into Prescott Valley and a few final miles to our home in Prescott. We rode 930 miles this weekend on a looping trip to Bisbee, exploring twisty mountain roads with technical hairpin turns on the Coronado Trail and enjoying riding other, more familiar roads. The BMW is our favorite way to travel, and we're planning more trips soon.

1,145 miles through Arizona and New Mexico on our BMW motorcycle

Five days ago we started our motorcycle ride to Santa Fe in cool, overcast, and sometimes rainy weather for the first two days. Saturday we spent off the bike, walking around Santa Fe under sunny skies. Yesterday we were buffeted by strong winds the entire ride to Show Low, and today - our last day on the bike - the winds died down and the sun kept shining for a final, perfect motorcycle day.

Show Low is a town of 10,000 people located at 6200' on the Mogollon Rim. According to legend, two men decided there wasn't enough room for both of them in town and settled on a game of cards to decide who would move away. One man turned up the deuce of clubs, the lowest possible card, said "Show low it is" and won the game. The town had a name, and the main street was named Deuce of Clubs in remembrance.

Route 260 west is part of the route of the Hashknife Pony Express, the oldest officially sanctioned Pony Express in the world. The original Pony Express delivered the mail across the West for 19 months starting in April 1860, ending when the transcontinental railroad was completed. Each January volunteers in the Hashknife Pony Express deliver over 20,000 pieces of first class mail over a 200 mile route from Holbrook to Scottsdale, Arizona. We didn't see any riders on horses today, and instead had to be content watching the scenery as we climbed to 8,000' and then descended on winding, sweeping roads over a few short miles to 4,900' in Payson.

From Payson we continued descending to 3,200' in Camp Verde. The temperature rose from 50 to 73 degrees and we left the green Ponderosa pine forests for dry desert and cactus.

Over the past 5 days we rode 1,145 miles through high mountain ranges, past volcanic craters formed thousands of years ago, through numerous Native American reservations  and pueblos, and along roads traveled by Spanish explorers and monks over 400 years ago. We celebrated as the odometer rolled over to 29,000 miles as we rode through the Zuni reservation, navigated hairpin turns near Los Alamos, and often rode for miles without seeing a house or other vehicle. It's good to be home, but we're already thinking about future motorcycle rides through the southwest.