Desert & Mountain Roads

Desert & Mountain Roads

October 28 - November 1, 2020

It’s been a busy fall trying to work on my Iron Butt Association’s National Park Tour and Harley-Davidson’s HOG Ride 365 which has several parts. The National Park Tour will go over the end of the year, but the HOG rides will end at the end of the year.

The planned route is over 2,600 miles and I have four days off to get it done. I have a great work schedule; work 3 days and have 4 off. So, we decided that right after work on Wednesday, we would head out and get a few hundred miles accomplished to ease the load now that daylight is limited. For the last few rides, we have not made reservations until we knew how far we got that day. But this trip I decided to plan out our motel stops. I have never had so many problems planning these stops. I ended up canceling two motels and rebooking to get things spaced out for our daily mileage and the type of roads we would be riding.

Day 1

The first night we planned on stopping in Kingman, Az, no question. When we get to the hotel the clerk says we don’t have a reservation. What? I see you had one and canceled it. Great. They did have a room and gave me the same price. I called the booking company and found I had canceled the wrong hotel and had two hotels booked for another night. Ugh! I finally got it all sorted out and we had no further problems with reservations.

The ending of Daylight savings is happening this weekend and we needed to adjust our riding time. I realized this when we left at 0730 the next morning. We need to be riding at first light, an hour earlier, to make the best use of the daylight. That will help some, but still, we will be riding into the dark each day.

Two hundred thirty-nine miles today.

Day 2

The first stop is in Bellemont at Grand Canyon Harley-Davidson (HD) for the dealership check-in for HOG Ride 365. With the plague going on, there are very few Ultra Limiteds at the Harley stores, they had a beautiful dark blue with blacked-out parts, no chrome. I will keep this in mind.

We stopped in Williams, Az for gas. I was driving around the city looking for the “standing on the corner” intersection and couldn’t find it. My wife said that’s not here. What? That’s in Winslow! Oh, okay. The next stop was in Winslow and we took the appropriate pictures.

The landscape is not overly breathtaking going across I-40. But this trip is to get specific stops for the most part. We pulled into Holbrooke and stopped at the historic courthouse. This is part of my National Parks tour and it was an interesting stop with its little museum inside. Gas and lunch from our usual place, McDonald's. We did get a laugh today, a UPS semi passed us, and the fuel filler hose was hanging out of his tank. I guess he forgot to finish filling up and putting the hose away.

The next stop would be in Clifton, Az at the end of the Coronado Trail, Hwy 191. We had ridden this road in the last year or so, so we jumped into New Mexico and road Hwy 180 which parallels Hwy 191. The stopping point is an old historic Train Station that is in a beautiful narrow canyon. We push on to Globe for the evening. The hotel looked below par when booking, but it turned out nice.

Six hundred twenty-two miles today.

Day 3

Today we ride across Arizona and into California. The day will mostly consist of stopping at Harley stores. We stopped at Apache Junction, Az for Superstition HD, Mesa, Az for Desert Wind HD, Chandler, Az for Chandler HD, Goodyear, Az for Road Runner HD, and Palm Springs, Ca for Palm Springs HD. Then, the fun began. 

In Banning, Ca, we turned off to Hwy 243 and headed to Idyllwild, Ca. This road was so much fun, twisty, up and down, and hardly any traffic to slow us down. In Idyllwild, I needed a picture of a monument in the town square for HOG Ride 365. Then we backtracked down Hwy 243 down to Banning and once again thoroughly enjoyed the road. The next stop was in Loma Linda, Ca, for a quick stop at Quaid HD.

In the Riverside area, the freeway began to really slow down. I started lane splitting when traffic was almost stopped. My wife hates this. I was in a lane within a short distance when 6 or 8 loud baggers came flying by splitting the lanes. It’s legal in California. I figured they were clearing the way for us and I jumped back in, vehicles were very aware of us now. The other bikes were loud and moving faster than I was comfortable with but, it made it easy for me. We rode for miles making great progress. When we got to Palmdale, we tried to find a place to eat, it was pretty cool temperature-wise, and most restaurants only had outdoor seating with a long wait. Arby’s allowed walk-in ordering and tables outside, so we didn’t have to eat off the bike. I had a hard time finding the Hotel with the GPS but finally got there just in time to see half the patrons outside watching two black girls yelling and then fighting with each other. We were not in the best part of town. The next morning some girl wanted to use our room after we left to shower and do whatever, Uhm no. She was willing to show me her ID though…

Five hundred eighty-five miles today.

Day 4

Getting up earlier is not too bad, you get to see the sunrise and I can’t sleep much past 0500 anyway. Filled up with gas and headed to Bakersfield, Ca. I don’t understand much about oil fields, like why some oil pumps are working and others are not. Anyway, there is a bunch of them around Bakersfield to make you wonder. A couple of quick stops at Harley stores in Bakersfield and Fresno. 

In the area around Fresno that we were in, 90% of the restaurants are of various types of Asian cuisine. We picked one, not great, not bad, didn’t get sick kind of place. Got gas again before we got into the national park areas and would have to pay higher prices. For the next few hours, we got to ride some amazing roads (the second main reason for this trip) and get our fill, well maybe not, of the twisties.

We rode through Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. We got to see a small black bear in Sequoia and the redwood trees are simply amazing. It is hard to take a picture and truly get the perspective on how big they are.

I had planned to ride several roads in this area, but time would not allow that to happen, and had to settle for one, Hwy 4 to Lake Tahoe. Hwy 4 was amazing, too bad 95% of it was in the dark! In the daylight, you would have to watch your speed, and at night you had to watch everything.  As we approached the first summit the road narrows to what looked like a single lane. Two cars can pass but it is tight. You only had seconds when a car came in the other direction to make room, dim your lights, and make sure you stayed on the road! The road is up and down, with tight twisties, and sharp switchbacks. By the time we got to Markleeville, the temps were in the low 30s and we added some layers for the final ride into Lake Tahoe.

At Motel 6, I had to give them my wife’s identification too? Not sure what that was all about. But the room was nice except it took too long for the heater to get the room warm enough for us, then in the middle of the night, it was too hot!

Five hundred seventy-three miles for the day.

Day 5

Up early, we have a big mileage day today. It was 19* for the first hour or so. That’s just cold on a bike, real cold. We headed to Truckee to the Donner Pass area to get a picture of the pioneer monument. We were here earlier in the summer and I got a stamp for my National Park Tour and forgot to get a picture for the HOG Ride 365. I rode right down the sidewalk to get a good picture! We got some fuel and headed to Carson City for a final Harley store stop. When we dropped off the hill the temps became comfortable and we had an enjoyable ride. For some reason, the Nevada desert has much better scenery than the Arizona desert we had been through. The vastness and lack of people help promote that feeling, I think.

I was looking forward to lunch at the Mizpah Motel in Tonopah, I like that old place. But it was a no-go, they only serve breakfast and dinner on the weekend. The A&W is next door and at least we can sit down and eat inside. After lunch, we headed across the street to a turquoise shop. I have been looking for a turquoise bracelet. After over an hour of talking with the owner, we agreed on a price, he was happy and so was I. He also gave me a White Buffalo stone for a ring I want to have made. So, I felt good about that.

I should have bought gas before we left Tonopah. The gauge said we could make it to Alamo which is usually accurate. But it didn’t account for a headwind. I figured when we got to Rachel, we would have to add the gallon of gas I carry. When we got there, I needed more than a gallon. There are a new little station two blocks from the Little Alien Inn, I didn’t know it was there. I bought $10 bucks worth at $4.50 a gallon for 87 octane gas, which was just enough to get us to Alamo. It was nice to ride in perfect temps again even if it was dark the rest of the way home to St. George. We had two coyotes run across the road in front of us and saw several small herds of antelopes.

Six hundred forty-three miles today.

We had a great trip and accomplish our goals. I think it’s a little hard on my wife to ride that many miles a day, but she is a good sport and she does minimal complaining about it. Hopefully, we can sneak in another ride or two before the end of the year…maybe.

Here are my accomplishments so far on these planned rides I’m working on:

HOG Ride 365 Program (Nationwide)

10 Rides for `20

• CA – Donner Pass
• UT – Bonneville Salt Flats

50 Rides, 1 Nation

•          WY – Beartooth Pass
•          ID – Lolo Pass
•          CO – Million Dollar Hwy
•          OR – Columbia River Hwy
•          WA – Northern Cascades Hwy
•          AZ – Coronado Trail
•          UT – Monument Valley Byway

Dealership Check-ins

·         31 Harley-Davidson dealerships

Mileage Recognition Program

·         150,000 miles (4,500 miles till 200,000)

Iron Butt Association

National Parks Tour (25 states, 25 sites minimum)

•          Arizona            (6 sites)
•          California         (5 sites)
•          Colorado          (2 sites)
•          Idaho               (4 sites)
•          Montana          (2 sites)
•          Nevada            (3 sites)
•          Oregon            (2 sites)
•          Utah                 (5 sites)
•          Washington      (2 sites)
•          Wyoming          (5 sites)

         10 States         36 Sites