Tag Archives: Adventure motorcycling

May 13 2017

Heading to Flagstaff

After an unplanned and fantastic week in Santa Fe, it is time to move on but the weather forecast is abysmal. Massive storm cells, high winds and snow is forecast. A check of the weather radar decides our route and departure time this morning: it has to be an early start and no time to take scenic roads unfortunately. South then west is the way today. We get to Gallup, New Mexico, 320kms away, having dealt with strong winds, managed to squeeze between storms, and pretty much avoided the rain all day. Five minutes after arriving at our motel, it sleeted – the wind so strong it covered our bedroom window. So lucky.

Avoided this storm

Clear skies outside Albuquerque

Avoided this storm too

Sleet covered hotel window

Streak and Storm feeling cold

That evening, through Facebook, I find out about “OE”, an event starting in 2 days’ time just south of Flagstaff. Overland Expo is a massive expo for travellers and seems too good to miss, with an extensive and varied schedule over 3 days. Not surprisingly, just 2 days out, the event is all booked out except for motorcyclists camping: that’s us!!! And the timing is perfect as we are 2 days away.

Weather radar check in the morning: we have a few more storms to dodge in the morning then we should be fine so we’ll be able to revisit the Petrified Forest National park and take small scenic roads the rest of the day. Once again we turn off the main road to rejoin the old Route 66 but for the third time, we have to turn back as it ends abruptly. What a pity as it means having to join the interstate and it is now bucketing. It is an absolutely freezing morning, 5 degrees when we left and decide to have breakfast at the National Park visitor centre. In the space of 30′, it seems the storm has advanced much faster than predicted and in addition to cold, we now have wind and driving rain. Too bad for those twisties, it will be for another time. Sense prevails and we take a different route: skip the park, head west, eventually leave the storm behind us then south at Holbrook on I80 until we turn west again and take small roads through quiet villages such as Snowflake. It is a lovely ride through the countryside, dodging a few storm clouds before checking into a motel in Payson, Arizona.

Cold, wind and speeding trucks

Part of Route 66

Fabulous storm clouds heading to Payson, Arizona

It feels so good to wake up to a clear blue sky!!!! Finally!!! And we have a magnificient day ahead of us. We had heard Sedona was beautiful but hadn’t expected this breathtaking scenery. What a joy today’s ride is. We feel rejuvenated. There is no better way to describe the area than with a few photos:

 

Heading out of Payson, Arizona

South of Sedona

Sedona

Sedona

We get to Fort Tuthill County Park just south of Flagstaff for Overland Expo by mid afternoon. We find a great spot in the Motorcycle Camping area, without too many pine cones, to pitch our tent for the first time on this trip. This area is beautiful and it doesn’t take long to get chatting with our neighbours and passing fellow motorcyclists. This expo is massive. We have been to a couple of Horizons Unlimited gatherings (dedicated to mostly motorcyclists) in Australia and South Africa and expected something similar, but this is on a much bigger scale. The venue is cleverly designed to keep motorcyclists, camper vans, camper trailers and massive Recreation Vehicles with their respective vendor stalls together.

The atmosphere is fantastic. There is a palpable air of excitement in anticipation of the upcoming week end. I feel this is a place where dreams are made and experiences shared. Friendships are made and renewed. I meet friends I know through social media which is great. I meet Egle who published my first article a couple of weeks ago – https://womenadvriders.com/?s=Borders. We make new friends with our tent neighbours and people walking around, a couple sitting next to us at the bar in the evening. And then… after they leave, someone takes up the seat next to us… Ted Simon! THE motorcycle legend. Every motorcyclist has at least heard of him even if they haven’t read one or more of his books. I only have 10 books on my iPad and that includes one of his.

A bit of background on Ted: born in 1931, he abandonned a career in chemical engineering to move to Paris and take up journalism. Then in 1973, at the age of 42, he set of on a solo journey around the world for the next 4 years covering 64,000 miles. Wanting to see how the world had changed over the last 28 years, he set off again on a second journey, at 70 years of age, covering 59,000 miles through 47 countries over 3 years. His most well know book, Jupiter’s Travels was written in 1979. I remember distinctly backpakers talking about that book they were reading when we were in Khartoum in 1982!!

What a privilege to get to meet Ted! How can I describe our meeting? Luckily, Anthony had heard of his name but not much more. So the conversation was just like with any other traveller there for the Expo, both Ted and Anthony exchanging jokes with their dry British humour. After half an hour, he is called away to prepare for his film show tomorrow but he asks for us to wait for his return. An hour later, we continue our chat. Such an inspiring, open, genuine man. We bumped into each other several times over the next couple of days for more chats which was wonderful.

We saw a movie of the first part of his adventure which recounted his travels, and experiences through Africa in 1973.  It brought back such strong memories for both of us when we saw the photos from Egypt and Sudan, nudging each other discretely several times: we travelled that route, not on a motorcycle but by public transport and hitch hiking, 9 years after Ted, in 1982.  We must dig out our slides, or ‘transparencies’ as they were called from the days when film not memory cards filled our camera, from that journey when we get home… At a round table later, Ted raised the question of what ‘Adventure Travel’ is, given the proliferation of the use of the term today, often in the commercial arena. Ted thought that to be an ‘adventure’, there needs to be an element of change for the participant. My first thought when he asked the question was that it has to challenge the participant.

We have spent 2.5 days here, going to talks, presentations, talking to vendors, meeting various travellers, we could stay another night, join a number of them for a big party tomorrow afternoon, but we both feel it is time for us to move on – and get a shower after 3 nights’ camping!!…

Meeting Mary McGee, Sam Manicom, Ted Simon, Tiffany Coates and so many more, making new friends, chatting to all sorts of inspirational travellers and characters make this an unforgettable week end of friendship and laughter.

Our campsite at Overland Expo West 2017

Overland Expo West 2017

Overland Expo West 2017

Overland Expo West 2017

Gene

Chaco in his (Gene’s) Ural

Karen and Mike

With Tiffany and Ted

With Mary and Mark

With Eric

Just one last thing: I have a new love….

My new love…

I want one…

Anne

May 6 2017

My 60th

My 60th birthday celebrations started on the 15th February thanks to friends going away on holiday before our pre-departure and pre-birthday little gathering a month later. I know my sister will be proud of me celebrating that long!! At that gathering, everybody there wrote me a little note, and some a longer letter, which I carried with me to read today – wow, I definitely feel loved. Have a look at the amazing cake my dear friend Pat had made for me for that lunch!!  We had a number of further small celebrations with various friends leading up to our departure on this trip at the end of March. Then celebrations continued with family when we arrived in Europe – that was very special. I have been thoroughly spoilt! Even the hotel here delivered a bottle of bubbles and left chocolate coated strawberries in the fridge for me.

The most stunning birthday cake

 

Birthday notes written by many friends

Bubbles from the hotel

Thank you Jonathan for organising these too

So what did I get up to today? We ended up deciding to spend the day in Santa Fe. We went to a gorgeous French bakery, Clafoutis, for breakfast (thanks for the tip Mario), had a walk around town, visited Loretto chapel to see its ‘miraculous’ staircase, returned to Canyon Road, the art gallery road which I first went to back in 2005 when I was looking for venues to hold an Aboriginal art exhibition, had a long chat with the owner of a new gallery there that was just setting up for their opening next week, walked around SantabFe some more, took the bus back to the hotel, rested for a couple of hours to snack and read more of my messages and went out to dinner – thank you Mmy for a delicious meal. And I got some gorgeous yellow roses from Anthony which was a lovely suprise – I had already got my Sidi Adventure boots, new chain and sprocket and even new front disc – what more could a girl want?!

Waiting for our bus to town

It’s official – I am now a Senior!!!

Delicious meal at Restaurant Martin, Santa Fe

One of the best deserts I have ever had

How weird to think I am now 60! How did that happen?! I don’t feel sixty, definitely not in the mind anyway – in the body at times, yes, I feel it, but for now, I can still ignore it mostly so I am determined to keep making the most of it.  Because, you never know what’s around the corner, so why put off to tomorrow the fun you can have today. No regrets, whatever happens… And luckily, I once got a card saying “ageing is inevitable, maturing is optional”!!! Won’t be maturing just yet…

– Anne

May 2 2017

Snowangels and shuffleboard

It is a short 92 mile ride from Ogallala in Nebraska where we spent last night to our friends on the northside of Denver so after yesterday’s tough ride, we take it easy and leave our motel at 10 am. We know we need to get to Denver by early afternoon as snow is coming according to all weather reports. As we approach the outskirts of Denver, it is looking interesting out there!! Maybe we should have left earlier… We get rain but no snow by the time we arrive at Karen and Mike’s home and we feel frozen to the bone.

We last saw our friends when we came through on our last round the world trip, so it’s great to see them on this trip. We had planned on spending 2 nights there but snow did arrive as forecast and they kindly invite us to stay 4, until the snow has melted, in Denver at least. We make the most of our time to do some minor bike maintenance (we have been tightening my chain everyday and doubt it will last until Vancouver – we might have to get it changed sooner), use the washing machine (rather than hand wash), buy some emergency rations from REI camping store nearby and generally chat and relax. We tried one packet of the freeze dried breakfast skillet which contains scrambled eggs, potato, capsicum or peppers one morning: it was surpringingly as tasty as I had read in online reviews, so we got 7 more packs. Although this food is light, it is horribly bulky. Perfect excuse to reduce the contents of our panniers and ship stuff back.

As forecast, we wake up Saturday morning to snow!! It is wet snow, not the light fluffy type but I can’t resist this:

Anne sleeping again or making her first snow Angel

That was fun!!

Sunday evening out with Mike and Karen’s friends Jeff and Leah introduces us to a new game: shuffleboard. In table shuffleboard, the play area is most commonly a narrow wooden or laminated 22ft, or 6.7m, surface covered with silicone beads (also know as called ‘shuffleboard wax’) to reduce friction. Players propel metal-and-plastic pucks by hand, to come to rest within zones of different values at the other end of the board. It is a variation of the British coin “shove ha’ penny”. The object of the game is to either score or prevent the opponent from scoring by either blocking or hitting their puck off the board. All of us being quite competitive, it is a lively (yes, at times loud) and fun evening.

 

Playing shuffleboard

With Karen and Mike

Thank you for your hospitality Karen and Mike. Your turn to come to us next time, or stay at our home if we are on the road!

As we get ready to leave, we suddenly make the decision to head to Santa Fe because I made a comment I would like to revisit BMW in Santa Fe as they had been so helpful a couple of years ago with my bike and in fear my chain will not last much longer – we had not fixed our destination until then. It is a gorgeous day, the sky is deep blue, the air is crisp, the clouds fluffy white and the mountains in the distance snow covered. As we head towards Denver with the Rockies to our right, we comment on how stunning the mountains are, how inviting they look. What a pitty to be missing out on crossing them. Shall we give it a go we ask each other through our bluetooth headsets? Yes, let’s. Quick turn off, detour and we join I70 West. A road we have taken so many times over the past 37 years as we managed to combiness business trips with skiing holidays.

As I write this blog and Anthony is watching Star Trek, and I hear: If you always see the road ahead of you, it is not worth the trip – how apt!!!

As we approach Idaho Springs, the sky looks really bad ahead so we turn off: a quick check of the weather radar reveals that it is now raining and -2 centigrade ahead. Not a good combination so we turn back!

I70 West towards Idaho Springs

The weather gradually warms up as we head south but with pretty gusty winds. (Read ‘very’ gusty). We detour via the Garden of the Gods then stop at Pueblo at 4.30 – we are completely done for the day so find ourselves a motel for the night. We have not travelled far at all today but who cares?! My chain is already very loose though: a quick call to BMW Santa Fe and we order a new chain and sprocket. It will be there the next day – perfect – we now have our route for the next couple of days sorted. The plan now is to head towards Taos via Eagle Nest on route 64 tomorrow which should be pretty. I am still hopeful we might find a quaint place to camp before we get to Taos, but a quick check of the weather tells me it will be freezing overnight again.

Garden of the Gods, Colorado

It is amazing to think that a couple of days ago, the I25 road south of Pueblo was closed to all traffic because of a foot of snow. It is all clear now luckily. Shortly south of Ratton we turn off onto the much quieter 64 road which is wonderful but boy is it windy!! My shoulders and neck have barely recovered from yesterday’s winds and now we get some more but the scenery makes up for the discomfort.

Culebra range, Colorado

 

Cimarron Canyon State Park, New Mexico

 

We are too early in the season, all is closed

We have made good time and head into Taos. After riding around the town for a couple of minutes, we realise this is not where we stayed a couple of years ago – no wonder we can’t find the hotel, we are in the wrong place!! We had been thinking of Santa Fe!! Thank goodness for McDonalds in every town: free wifi means we can always check for hotels, vacancies, weather etc.  Neither of us is not getting a good vibe from Taos, (we have never seen a McDonald with signs saying washing and brushing teeth in the toilets is prohibited) so we decide to go onto Santa Fe and find ourselves a motel on the outskirts of town.

This long day ends meeting a wonderful man in the car park of our motel. Bill is 70 years old, lost his wife of 40 years, Emily, 2 years ago and has done what she asked him to do before she died: got himself a motorcycle to travel. It is always great to meet kindred spirits as we travel…

Traveller Bill

If you are confused about our route, don’t be. As you will have read here, we are making it up as we go along. But for now, we are aiming for warmth and sunshine if possible, with scenery and culture along the way.

– Anne

May 1 2017

Westward Ho.

The title ‘Westward Ho’ comes from my recollection of the call of the wagon masters in cowboy movies of the 1940’s and 50’s, and maybe real life as the wagon trains started on their westward journey across the great plains.

We are roughly following one of the routes blazed by the pioneers in the 19th century in wagon trains across Iowa and Nebraska although we cover their daily average of 10-20 miles (16-32 kilometres) in as many minutes as we wiz along Interstate 80 (I80), at up to 70 mph (110 kmh). Denver will be a four day journey for the ‘2slowspeeds’ as we plan to cover up to 300 miles a day. We also have the comfort of motels, gas stations and numerous fast food outlets to aid our journey, something the early pioneers lacked.

The various trails for Western Travellers in the 19th Century


Since leaving our Amish friends, we have skirted to the south of Lake Michigan – note we have now seen all 5 of the great lakes seeing the missing two, Erie and Ontario on this trip – passed Chicago and ridden across Illinois and Iowa. We pass signs with names like Ottawa, Peru, Marseilles plus both Oxford and Cambridge giving us a global tour off one road: should we dive down any of these links, I feel we may end up in that named location. The location names are perhaps an indication of the varied origins of the people who started to settle the Great Plains in significant numbers almost 180 years ago.

When we stop for fuel or food, ‘Streak & Storm’ always attract attention. It may be because we are riding so early in the season, while the local ‘hogs’ (Harley Davidsons) are still sleeping gently in the caves waiting for warmer weather, but more likely is the friendly nature of the people we meet along the way in the USA. If time permitted, I am sure our journey would be at an even slower pace with all these wonderful people to meet.

The winds blasted us as we travelled across central Iowa, gusting up to 35mph (55 kph) which made life interesting as the large trucks (semi trailers) overtook us. With more weight concentrated on the rear of the bikes, our front wheel contact is a little ‘light’ at times. While we are used to winds, having lived and ridden in Cape Town, on one occasion as one particular truck passed both of us, we found our handlebars started to oscillate for a split second. Very disconcerting! Never happened before and not since, must have been a rare combination of wind currents. Hour after hour constant buffeting is tiring especially as we were riding 280 miles (450 kilometres). I admire those who have ventured to the tip of South America to whom this wind would seem like a light breeze, we have experienced that region’s weather while hiking, but not on motorcycles. We will leave that to more adventurous souls.

Foot and Hand warmers today


I am surprised at the gently rolling nature of the landscape as far as Lincoln Nebraska: I had an image of this region as flat as far as the eye could see, but this is not the case to the East of Lincoln. The occasional woodland nestled in the undulating terrain gives us a moments respite from the unrelenting winds. Temperatures are as low as 2 degrees Celsius, 35 degrees Fahrenheit, it is bitterly cold which even six layers of clothing cannot cannot defeat. Our stops are more frequent as we thaw out enough to ride for another 45 minutes at a time. Roll on summer!

We take a break on our westward journey at the Golden Spike Tower, http://www.goldenspiketower.com which has a commanding view over Union Pacific’s (UP) Bailey Yard in North Platte, the largest rail-yard in the world. They have a great live feed on their website for any train buffs. Statistics are impressive, more than 8 miles long, 150 trains and 14,000 wagons per day pass through here. They are sorted, checked, fuelled and have their crews changed. Short trains can only be 8000 feet long to be able to fit on the 9000 foot sidings. Express freights with priority right of way can be any length. Amazing stuff.

Massive rail network at North Platte


There is a plethora of other interesting facts about this location, which you can easily find many online, but a couple of interesting ones I thought are that the eastbound and westbound hump sorting yards are in the same direction, to use the natural fall the land from West to East to save moving large quantities of earth and that during the Second World War the North Platte Canteen was founded as a volunteer and self funded organisation that met each of the troop trains passing through North Platte with coffee and cakes. Over six million military personnel passed though during that time. Even some marriages occurred due to hastily scribbled notes passed from volunteers to military personnel!

Our last full day on the road heading to Denver sees the contrast of clear blue skies and warmer weather that makes me feel I could ride forever, to the thrill/excitement/fear of skirting a massive foreboding storm to the east of I76, watching the lightening forking down to the ground from black clouds so low you feel you could reach out and touch them.

Storm off I76


Our current destination is Denver where we will catch up with friends before deciding on our next move. As some of you may be aware we were keen to return to Alaska, but have decided that we will not be riding there this trip, perhaps another time. A couple of factors have influenced us, firstly while we are enjoying above average temperatures most days, further north has had one of the longest winters on record, snow is expected in Calgary for the next three days and as I write this we are riding with temperature that has dropped to 6 degrees celsius (43 degrees Fahrenheit) in the middle of the day. With windchill calculations travelling at 70 mph the effective temperature is -3 degrees celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit). This has led us to delay our northward move as we hear it has for others who have also planned Alaska trips this spring.

Secondly, we have found it difficult to secure transport for Streak and Storm back from Anchorage to Vancouver: we had planned to ride one way only to give us more time to explore Alaska and have the bikes trucked back to Vancouver. With a deadline to deliver the bikes for their next service, chain, sprocket and tyre change on June 6, we would just be riding long distances daily without time to enjoy the journey in the way we like do. We are also cognisant that we will have 30 days hard riding in Russia and Mongolia to meet our visa restrictions.

We still plan to explore parts of Western Canada but will spend a little more time in the lower 48 states. Where is still to be determined, but both old haunts and new opportunities beckon in warmer climes. We will keep you advised.

– Anthony