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!

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.

224 miles on the BMW on familiar roads with some surprises

I'm going to start by describing the end of our 224 mile trip today, from our home in Prescott to Wickieup, AZ for lunch (there's a surprise here) and home on some of our favorite roads. As we were heading into Skull Valley getting close to Prescott Mike told me he had a surprise:  the largest cottonwood tree in Arizona. To be exact, this is a Freemont cottonwood, named after John Freemont who was an explorer and governor of Arizona in 1878. This particular tree was planted in 1917 along with 3 other cottonwood trees to mark the corners of a 2-acre plot of land. You can see Mike, who is 6' tall, standing in front of the tree with his arms outstretched. This tree is almost 47' around, so it would take Mike and 8 other similar-size people to join hands and circle this tree.

Back to the beginning of our trip. The weather is cooler this year than usual, so we decided to ride in an area that is usually too hot the end of May:  Wikieup in the Big Sandy Valley in the Mohave desert. Wikieup is the Mohave Native American word for shelter or home. It's a small, fairly bleak stopping point on US 93, the major road between Phoenix and Las Vegas. Our reason for riding to Wikieup was to finally enjoy lunch at Lucia's, famous for homemade food and pie. First surprise of the day - Lucia's is closed on Saturdays.

We started our ride heading south out of Prescott, through the Bradshaw Mountain twisties on AZ 89. We were thrilled at the lack of traffic in front of us so Mike could zoom around the hairpin turns. As we continued south we rode out of the pine forest and through rocky countryside.

Even though we're in the desert, because of all the rain and snow this Winter and Spring there is a lot of green and blooming desert flowers and cactus. One of our favorites is the ocotillo, a shrub with spiny stems which is not a surprise because every plant in Arizona seems to have spines or spikes.

Look carefully and you'll see the bright red flowers on the ocotillo.

We rode 89 south down in elevation to Congress where we turned onto AZ 71 which took us to US 93 North. We celebrated with a little motorcycle dance when our odometer rolled over to 14,000 miles. Eventually this will be all 4-lane divided highway, but currently there are large sections of 2-lane paved roads. We rode through the Joshua Tree scenic byway where both sides of the highway are covered with the iconic Joshua trees.

The Mormon settlers named these spiny trees because it reminded them of the bearded biblical leader Joshua. Governor Fremont - the same one I mentioned earlier about the cottonwood tree - called them "the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom". We love that they're only found in the Mohave desert and have adapted beautifully to the desert environment.

When we discovered Lucia's was closed on Saturdays, we backtracked to Dazzo's Chicago Style Eatery which Mike thought featured German food. It turns out they feature Chicago-style hot dogs.

We came home on one of our favorite roads, AZ 96 East which is a sweeping 2-lane paved road with several sections of roller coaster hills that make my stomach go up and down. It's been recently repaved, and the riding was fantastic. This part of Arizona is covered with saguaro cactus.

We followed AZ 96E to Yavapai County 15 to Kirland, and then north on Yavapai County 10 through Skull Valley and more twisties in the Prescott National Forest. I lost count of the number of cattle guards we rode over; you know you're on little-traveled roads basically in the middle of nowhere when cattle guards are a regular feature.

We love to ride to new places and explore areas we've never seen, but it's also fun to enjoy a ride close to home on familiar roads. You never know what surprises might lie around the next bend in the road.

Follow our route here:  https://drive.google.com/open?id=1VjDGSYOt630NB0ktEeSOb9qJrzgfIw5M&usp=sharing  To find the cottonwood tree, in Skull Valley turn east onto Old Road N at the railroad tracks, and the tree is about 1/2 mile down the road.

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!

The last day of our 2120 mile trip from Arizona to Boise and back on our BMW motorcycle

Today was our last day of a 2120 mile trip from our home in Prescott, AZ to Boise, ID and back. It's been windy most of the way, but today the weather forecast was for wind gusts up to 47 mph, so we started the 2.5 hour ride early to beat the worst of the wind.

We started in Kingman, AZ in the Mojave Desert with views of the Hualapai Mountains which range over 8,000'. Kingman is at 3336' elevation, and we wound our way through the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts with views of the shorter Aquarius Mountains at a little over 5,000'. We've been on US Route 93 since early yesterday, starting in Ely, NV. The section from Wickieup to Wickenburg is called the Joshua Tree Parkway of Arizona, and we saw fields of this gnarly, scrubby tree that Territorial Governor John Fremont called "the most repulsive tree in the vegetable kingdom" when he first saw them on a trip through the desert in 1844.

US Route 93 from Kingman to Congress

We turned north off Route 93 and headed on a winding trip up Route 89 toward home. It really is "up" because we climbed in elevation from 3000' in Congress to 4,700' in Yarnell and then even higher to over 6,000' as we rode through the Weaver Mountains into Prescott.

from Congress toward Yarnell

These are favorite roads for motorcycle riders, and we passed two groups of riders today as we twisted and curved our way through the mountains.

The wind picked up as we turned into our street, and by the time we had the bike unpacked I could hear the wind howling through the trees and around the house.

We celebrated as we saw the BMW odometer roll over to 20,000 miles on the first day of our trip. The last week runs together:  did we ride up the unexpected mountain pass on the first or second day? Why does the time zone change from Mountain in Utah and Idaho to Pacific in Nevada? Is today really Tuesday? I have vivid pictures in my mind of long stretches of lonely desert with snowy mountain peaks towering over windmills in the valley, lush green parks in Boise, and friendly people in small towns when we stopped for gas or lunch. I remember the feel of the hot wind as we rode through 90 degree temperatures on a bright sunny day around Lake Mead, and the cold wind that snaked under my jacket when we crossed the snow covered mountain passes in Utah.

John Muir, one of the first promoters of preserving wilderness areas, said that "The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness." I feel he would agree with me that a desert or mountain wilderness also qualifies.