Sunday, May 4, 2003

Saturday was an 1,156 mile journey to Flagstaff and back.  I left at 1:25 in the morning and returned 22 hours and 7 minutes later.  I visited 6 parks and gathered 7 stamps.

It was drizzling in LA when I left.  I had checked the weather forecasts and knew it would be dry once I got about 100 miles east of LA.  Sure enough, I had great weather, although a little windy, until I got back near LA that night.  It was a glorious sunrise as I entered into Arizona on I-40.  I stopped for breakfast at Kingman.  It was 6:30 in the morning.  I had covered 326 miles at that point.

I made it to the Mather Point Overlook at Grand Canyon at 9:11.  I walked the short distance to the new visitor center, called the Canyon View Information Center.  I took a photo of the canyon from Mather Point, and also took the shot of the mighty Rex in the parking lot. 

Then I continued east along the rim on Az-64 to the Desert View information center and tower.  They had one of those extra stamps of the tower there.  They had the roads all torn apart.  It looked like they were building a new entrance station.  At the Williams entrance, where I entered the park, there was a four lane entrance station, with one lane dedicated to those who had passes.  It is $10 for a motorcycle to enter the park.  I'm glad that I have the annual pass.  The east (or Desert View) entrance was the old style with a single lane.

 Once out of the park, it was a trip through the Indian reservation, along the Little Colorado River Canyon.  I eventually reached US-89 and turned south.  I then took the loop road, AZ-395 through Wupatki and Sunset Crater National Monuments.  Wupatki is the home of a number of Indian ruins, inhabited in the 1100's.  Nearby Sunset Crater was active in the later 1000's, and finally quieted down by 1250.  You can not walk on Sunset Crater anymore, the NPS is trying to restore the habitat.  As you drive the road, signs indicate the various vegetation zones as you climb up from 5,000' (north junction of US-89 and AZ-395) to 7,000' (south junction).

I got gas and a bit of lunch in Flagstaff.  It was 12:30, and I had covered 616 miles, a little more than 1/2 way for the day.  It was warm, probably lower 70's.  I was still fully bundled up.  I made my way to Walnut Canyon NM, 9 miles from Flagstaff.  Here I was just too hot and I stripped down in the bathroom and removed my long johns and long sleeve t-shirt.  Walnut Canyon is a very scenic canyon.  The cliff dwellings here were built into shallow, low hanging caves.  There also were more standard pueblos along the rim.  I didn't stay too long or hike the trails.  Flat walking is OK in the motorcycle boots, but downhill can be a pain.  The trail is about 1 mile long, and a group of kids on a field trip had just started down.  I also was on a bit of a tight schedule, so I continued out of the park, then back west on I-40, then south on I-17.

Exiting I-17 near Camp Verde, I went to Montezuma Castle NM.  This is easy to get to, just barely off of the freeway.  I did have to put up with a bit of traffic for a car show that was at the Indian casino at the exit.  Montezuma Castle has nothing to do with Montezuma.  It is a remarkably well built, 5 story, 20 room pueblo, built 100 feet above the valley floor.  It has been abandoned in the 1400's.  It was quite warm and crowed here.  I hopped back on the bike to cool off in the breeze, and headed westward on AZ-260.

About 20 miles later I was at Tuzigoot National Monument.  This was a pueblo built on a small rise.  I spent about 30 minutes here.  The park service had made this pueblo pretty accessible, and they had done some modernization which would probably not have been done if the monument was created in today's times.  You can go all of the way to the top of the tower.  They had put a concrete roof/floor in and on the tower, and had a wooden stair to get up to the top.  The two pictures below were taken from the top.  The one on the right is looking north.  The visitor's center is the buildings by the large tree in the center.  The other picture is looking west.  The brown fields are copper tailings from a smelter that had formerly operated in the area.  The mountain is Mingus Mountain.  Jerome is an old mining (copper) town.  It is built on the side of the mountain. 

 Highway AZ-89A went from Tuzigoot through Jerome.  It switchbacks up the hillside and is the main street of Jerome.  The town is located on the switchbacks, with the homes and businesses clinging to the mountainside like goats.  There were a lot of pedestrians since it was dinner time on Saturday night.  I had been celebrating at Tuzigoot since I was an hour ahead of schedule.  Well that was going to change.  It took me over 2 1/2 hours to cover the 111 miles from Tuzigoot NM to the next gas stop in Aguila.  Highways 89A and 89 went through Jerome and Prescott, and the had several winding mountain sections which had a speed limit of 30mph and had 15mph and 20mph turns and switchbacks.  There probably was a little more than 30 miles of this slow mountain road.  I passed when I could.  The drop into the lower plains and off of the Mogollon Rim between Prescott and Congress was spectacular.

When I got down to the lower plains of southwestern Arizona, the clouds had returned.  This brought a welcome relief.  I had held off removing any more clothes because I knew I would have to put them back on later.  I stopped in Blythe, just across the border for a dinner snack and to put the clear shield back on.  The sun was setting.  I called my neighbor and found out the it was still raining at home, 240 miles away.  I left Blythe at 7:45.  It still was clear skies in Indio and Palm Springs.  It was very windy, though.  Most of Arizona was pretty windy, too.  I think that is why my overall gas mileage was a hair lower than usual, 33mpg, when I had expected more like 35.  I had a tremendous headwind to fight leaving Palm Springs, where I had stopped for gas and to get ready for possible rain.

After cresting the summit and dropping into Redlands, I hit showers again.  Then it was heavy rain for about 20 miles, from Rancho Cucamonga to Pomona.  The final 35 miles saw progressively drying road and only one brief shower.  I got gas at the station down the street, and then went home, concluding my journey at 11:32 Saturday night.  The geek numbers from the GPS are:  17 hours, 40 minutes in the saddle.  Average speed when moving was 65.4mph.  

  Click on map to see full size (176Kb).  Microsoft Streets & Trips File (200K)

Total so far:

Now it's on to more trips.  Sometime I will get a new state.  I might go to Utah at the end of this month.