Albuquerque to Taos

Today was the first day of our "motorcycle trip" and with all due respect to our adorable wives, the REAL reason for this whole damn ordeal.  As Rob Glass said, "I'm enjoying the foreplay, but when does the real fun begin?"  Rob, the answer is, today my friend.

Our route today (which was about 220 miles and took eight hours to complete) was less than direct...principally because I really wanted to ascend Sandia Crest which is a 10,600' peak that rises dramatically at the edge of Albuquerque, is home to a huge antenna farm and promised some very dramatic views of the city when viewing to the west and of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness when viewed to the south and east. 

City streets led us to Route 66, which led us to NM14 northbound. 

A few miles later we took NM536 all the way to the peak of Sandia Crest.  En route to the top we were passed by knee draggers on sport bikes and we passed several cyclists.  At the top the weather shocked us...the temperature had dropped a full twenty degrees and was 36F and the wind was howling at 30mph.  I was cold as hell and I grew up in Buffalo fer chrissake.  KC was growling like an injured bear...he could not get down soon enough. 

However, the views were stupendous, both of the city of Albuquerque and of the Sandia Mountain Wilderness in the other direction, so honestly, I'm very glad we went.  Halfway down the mountain we turned to the north on a Butler Map "recommended dirt road". 

It was eight miles long and OK...rutted and rocky at times, a few good views.  Both of us were tired from getting those pigs through this section.  Honestly it was the only way to head north from Sandia without circling all the way back to Albuquerque.

Once past Placitas, NM and across I-25 we picked up NM550 and took it to San Ysidro, NM along side the Jemez River and Rio Grande River through the Zia Indian Reservation. At San Ysidro we picked up Hwy 4 which is highly rated by Butler Maps.  As it should be...we had breathtaking scenery through Jemez Springs and on to the Valles Caldera National Preserve where we passed by a lush, gorgeous ranch lying in a valley surrounded by mountains that provides winter feeding grounds for the Elk population. 

Hwy 4 bypassed Los Alamos and took us through the Bandelier National Monument, through White Rock and on to Hwy 30, then Hwy 76 and Chimayo, NM. 

Eventually we found Hwy 518 which wound through the Carson National Forest and into Taos, NM.  The scenery was prototypical northern New Mexico in every respect...the geography, the demographics, the weather.  It was everything I'd hoped for for our first day on the bikes.

Since we'd not eaten any lunch both KC and I were famished and had a hankering for some Mexican.  200 yards down the street we found a great spot named Guadalajara Grill and dined on massive chimichangas and enchiladas.I'm stuffed and tired.  I think a shower and early to bed sounds about right.

To Albuquerque and the GS's

This morning we dropped Sherry and Karen off at the Phoenix airport and then headed north and east towards Albuquerque.  The girls were great company and we had a massively fun time together.  We loffed and loffed and loffed.  I already miss having Sherry with me and I'm sure KC feels the same.  The girls had an on time flight and managed to squeeze in a grandbaby visit on the way home. 

By 8'ish we had the F-150 pointed northward and motored up AZ 87 to Payson, then drove up AZ 277 to Holbrook.  The route took us through some high country and we began noticing a heavy haze, then the smell of smoke.  In the Sitgreaves National Forest the smoke intensified and we began seeing fire fighting equipment along the rode and then spotted the fire.  No idea how many acres, but it was pretty widespread.

In Holbrook we took I-40 East past the Petrified Forest National Park (neither of us had any interest in stopping). East of Gallup NM we pulled off in Laguna, NM for a couple of world famous Laguna Burgers. 

Actually, they turn out a great burger, and I do love me a tasty burger...with attribution to Samuel L. Jones in "Pulp Fiction".

From Laguna it was a quick shot to Albuquerque and the storage area in which we had stashed the trailer and bikes.  Once inside the secured lot we began a surprisingly orderly and drama free process of pulling bikes off the trailer, repacking our bike bags for a week or so of living on the GS's.  Both bikes fired up without protest and with me using my iPhone 5 (an excellent iPhone model I must say) I navigated us onto I40, then I25 and then to our Hampton Inn.  Our rooms were ready and we are safely holed up in preparation for Phase Three of Four Corners Tour...the motorcycle tour through New Mexico, Colorado, Utah and Arizona.

Grand Canyon Part Two

This morning we celebrated Sherry and my 33rd wedding anniversary over breakfast with community pancakes shared with the Campbells.  Complete with a single birthday candle.  Very elegant and very sentimental.  We DEMOLISHED the pancakes.  Following breakfast we packed and loaded the F-150 and by noon we were headed back to the Grand Canyon National Park to see the Canyon under blue skies and temps in the low 50's.  It was a crisp, clear day which made for glorious conditions.

We approached the park from the south and at the Visitor center we headed east along Desert View Drive. Yesterday we focused on the center and western side of the South Rim...today we focused on the eastern section.

We drove to the eastern end of the park and stopped at Desert View which is where the Watchtower is located.

 Our dear friends, Keith and Karen are so damn photogenic, ain't they?

 And the "sisters" are too cute.

As the afternoon progressed we moved along Desert View Drive, stopping at each of the viewing points. The bright blue cloudless skies gave us a very different, if slightly washed out, view of this magnificent ditch.  KC, Karen and Sherry had, however, agreed to stay until the sun was setting and that is when I hoped to get our best scenery.  As every new photographer is told, early morning and early evening sun gives us the most interesting subjects...the low sun provides shadows and colors that the mid day sun does not.  We were not to be disappointed...the setting sun brought out colors we could not see earlier.  And the growing shadows revealed shape and structure that was completely hidden with the sun high in the sky.  As the shadows lengthened a whole new Grand Canyon emerged.  And with a telephoto lens I could reach out and pull in features.  The longer lens compressed the features and made the peaks and ridges appear in layers. 

 
Our final viewing point was at the very popular Yavapai Point which is west of the Grand Canyon Visitor Center.  Sherry guided me to what she thought was the best vista and I parked my butt on a stone ledge and began patiently waiting for the sun to drop to the horizon.  The view was breathtaking, though I was forced to share my personal Grand Canyon with swarms of tourists from every country on the globe.  I was feeling very Kumbaya at this point and while some fellow gawkers were quiet and respectful...most thought they were at goddamn Six Flags Over America.  It brought out my inner serial killer and I nearly crushed a young, loud French boy's scale model Ford GT40 that he was noisily running over the rocks three feet to my left.

Still, watching the transformation of the Canyon was a very spiritual experience and in spite of the chill that the dropping sun was bringing to my tired old bones, I was mesmerized.  Eventually the shadows began covering the covering the amazing structures and I began feeling guilty for keeping us so long.  We had a three hour drive ahead of us, so I packed up and kissed the Grand Canyon goodbye.  Til next time my friend...only next time will be at the far less crowded North Rim.

Rainy Day in Flagstaff

The forecast called for rain all day in Flagstaff and it delivered.  The high was 60 and it ranged from slow drizzle to steady rain all day.  So, another planning session was convened over an excellent breakfast, brought by one of the best waiters any of us could remember...all in the lobby of the Double Tree Inn, which of course is another fine Hilton Hotel establishment.  Yes, I've become a Hilton fanboy.  Our planning session was tasked with laying out an indoor activity plan.

Following breakfast we made our way to the Museum of Northern Arizona which focuses on Arizona's natural history.  Their website makes this claim:

"Located in Flagstaff, Arizona, our 200 acre Museum campus includes an exhibit building, research labs, and state of the art collections facilities for more than five million Native American artifacts, natural science specimens, and fine art pieces. The Museum of Northern Arizona is recognized internationally for the quality of its collections, its first-rate exhibitions and festivals, and its renowned Native American Shop."

In addition, the museum had an exhibit of western artist Curt Walters who has been recognized as a top notch western landscape painter and has been called the greatest living Grand Canyon painter.  The exhibit presented more than thirty of his paintings and they were breathtaking.

I was mesmerized by a mural painting in a simulated Kiva described by the museum as follows:

"The gallery includes a re-created subterranean space like a kiva, complete with a 5 x 48 foot mural entitled Journey of the Human Spirit, painted by artists Michael Kabotie and Delbridge Honanie. The work depicts the artists' individual and cultural explorations of a sophisticated artistic history, from ancient stories of emergence to traditional life."

After the museum tour, we decided to see a movie that has a 99% Rotten Tomatoes rating..."Hell or High Water" starring Jeff Bridges, Ben Foster and Chris Pine. 

KC proclaimed it the Best Movie I've Seen in Ten Years.  It was a great movie...go see it asap.

Dinner was a very casual affair at the Beaver Street Brewery...a fun, casual micro brewery that caters to a local, college crowd. By 7:00PM my eyelids were drooping and I was ready to return to the hotel and get a good nights sleep.  Buh, bye.....

Grand Canyon

Yesterday morning we were notified that there would be an urgent "Team Meeting" to be held at our earliest convenience.  It sounded ominous and as we approached "cell block 2" we could see dark clouds swirling over KC.  With arms gesturing for added effect, he informed us that under no circumstances (I highly sanitized that for my dear readers) would he spend another night in "Faulty Towers" (see the BBC comedy of the same name if you are unsure about my reference) and that he would bear the full brunt of this decision should we care to join him in his hotel in Flagstaff.  Since neither Sherry or I particularly enjoyed the hardest mattress in North America that we'd "slept on" last night we declared that we were all in.  High speed packing ensued.

After three pretty good breakfasts (KC's was a too spicy quesadilla), we were off to the train depot for our ride into Grand Canyon National Park.  We were early enough to see the cheesy cowboy shootout...actually the "cowboys" hammed it up pretty good and it was funny. 

By 9:15 were were boarding our luxury rail car with generous leather club chairs, ample windows, AC, full bar and restrooms. 

The car also had a very cool observation platform in the rear and since we were the very last car in the train, we could walk out and enjoy the view as we ran along the tracks at 40 mph.

Our hostess, Carol, spun interesting stories about the rail line and its history as we ran through limitless BLM land and a private cattle ranch with 125,000 acres.  She prepped us well for the attractions at the Grand Canyon, warning us that if we weren't back aboard by 3:30 we could find our own way back to Williams.

Mid ride we ventured into the next car in line, a double decker car with rooftop glass. 

It was very cool, though I preferred the more spacious, high ceiling car we were in. Shortly after this, a banjo player channeling Woody Guthrie came into our car and did 5 or 6 songs for us.  He was a good performer with lots of humor thrown in.

Around 11:30 the train pulled into the national park and we departed.  All morning clouds had been building and as we approached the rim of the canyon the entire canyon was socked in with very low hanging clouds.  Fortunately, the clouds were moving and although we had clouds all day, most of the time the canyon cleared up so we could see one of the most incredible sights in the world. 

I'm at a loss to describe the scale, the colors, the texture and the natural beauty that unfolded before us.   You have to see it to understand the spectacle of the Grand Canyon.  It is so immense that you are reminded of the concept of infinity and the permanence of death.  There is no other scale in the human experience that prepares you to take in this wonder.  Even for this non believer, it triggered a deeply spiritual reaction. And that is in spite of the 52,000 fat tourists that you are forced to share it with.

Not my photo...but too cool to pass up

I'm disappointed in my attempts to photograph it.  Having been though two dozen art galleries with Karen and Sherry and having seen dozens of brilliant photographs and paintings of the Canyon, my ham-handed efforts seem clumsy.  Granted the light on the overcast day I had to work with was less than ordeal, and we do plan to return on Friday under (hopefully) better conditions. I am feeling the same frustration I feel with my guitar...I recognize the talented efforts of others, but I'm just not skilled enough to create anything truly beautiful.   Still, I enjoy the process and will plug along, hopefully getting better incrementally.

The return train ride back to Williams was a repeat of the earlier trip, this time with a guitar player

and train robbers who gawked over Sherry's ring (they missed Karen's "birth stone") as they staged a faux robbery.  We also had great cloud formations and sunlight that made for some spectacular sights and I had fun using the HDR Pro X high dynamic range app on my iPhone. 

All great fun and a really memorable day.  Kudo's to KC for planning all of this.  It was a BLAST!!!!!

Steam Engine at Williams rail yard

Sedona to Williams

At 4:00AM I woke for a bathroom trip and heard the unmistakable sound of rain on the roof of our casita.  No surprise, since rain has been in the Tuesday forecast for a week or so.  I ventured out of the room for a few minutes and took some early morning pictures with my iPhone. 

After loading the F-150 we made a short trip to town and the Wildwood Bakery where we shared pancakes and each ate what seemed like enough food to take us to dinner.  It seemed that way.

KC and I had done a fine job of scouting a shopping destination for K&S and it turned out to meet their needs.  Moving from shop to shop, from cute to adorable, the ladies touched and modeled and compared and evaluated jewelry and art and clothing and dishes and whiskey and books.  And more jewelry. 

KC's wallet began to take on a gaunt, weathered look and only when he spotted a $16,000 bronze sculpture of a cowboy and a pack horse moving through aspen trees did his color fully return. 

We stopped at a nice brasserie with outdoor seating for a light lunch of pear and arugula salad, mushroom soup and paninis.  Following lunch we pulled on to Hwy 89A North and began climbing along side Oak Creek and up through Oak Creek Canyon reaching an altitude of nearly 7,000'.  The light rain that we'd felt earlier today became steady and as the altitude climbed the temperature dropped into the low 50's. 

Not an ideal day for a vacation but after the summer we've had in Georgia it was a welcome change up for me.

Williams AZ was a short drive and we arrived at our B&B by about 4:00PM.  Now, following our stay in one of the worlds most opulent resorts, Enchantment  Resort, any B&B would suffer in comparison.  And for me, walking into a total stranger's home, is always an awkward experience.  Walking in with K&S, who deserve NOTHING BUT THE FINEST, was like juggling water ballons filled with TNT. The Sheridan House, which is where we are staying in Williams is clean and simple.  Actually the guest rooms that we are staying in are very nice...the bathroom is new and quite modern.  Nice!