For me it all begin about 2:00 a.m. on Fri morning, June 12. Packed the bike and the Bushtec, left Coronado, Ca. headed for Ouray, Colorado.
Just as the sun started to rise...and just a few miles before the Ariz. state line and Yuma I took my first shot at about 80 mph....
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and I arrived in Yuma......already hot!
At a roadside rest and my first sight of a seguro cactus on this trip......
My next stop was Buddy Stubbs Harley Davidson in Phoenix, Ariz. Already 103F at 9:30 a.m. and I was both tired and damn hot. Speakin of damn hot.....Buddy Stubbs is where I met this beautiful little creature working behind the clothing counter, Chandra. Chandra shared with me that she's in to fast cars and hot men.....(that leaves me out). Or was it hot cars and fast men (I'm all in!
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I spent the night in Heber-Overgaard, Ariz.
Up and on the road by 6:00 a.m. the next morning.....I will be in Ouray, Co before the night fall.
Thank God for that radar detecto.....of course I slowed and let the po po go on by....
I finally hit the New Mexico state line......gonna stop in Gallup, NM for breakfast
Rut-rohhhh......this is where the nightmare begin. I've headed north out of Gallup after eating and filling up. A long, lonely stretch headed towards Shiprock, NM. A two lane road for a long way but eventually it turns in to two lanes in each direction with room to pull over and stop without getting run over.
I'm going to take off my Gerbing heated jacket and put my Screamin Eagle jacket on. As you can see in the pic, I took everything out of the Gerbing jacket.....wallet with credit card, drivers license and social security card (I know, I know), my bike keys, reading glasses and gloves. Once I got the jacket off I grabbed my golves and the jacket and walked to the back of the trailer and them in the trailer and grabbed my SE jacket and put it on. For some reason I walked up the street side of the bike, reached over and grabbed my camera to take these two pics, put my helmet on, got on the bike and rode off........my wallet, bike keys and glasses still laying on the ice chest of my Bushtec. 68 miles later I stopped in Shiprock at a gas station and that's when I realized I'd lost my wallet (still didn't know about my keys).
I got my fat wallet out of my tour pack that the rest of my credit cards were in, filled the tank and headed 68 miles back! No success......didn't find any sign of anything.....not even a broken pair of glasses. I sure hope a big truck came along and blew everything into the bushes and it'll all be there ten years from now.
My next stop another 25 miles down the road I took off my Gerbing heated pants......stilll not realizing that I'd lost my wallet, keys and glasses. Just so thankful I had a full set of keys (including trailer and hitch lock) in my saddle bag!
I stopped on the side of the road three times to empty the trailer, my tour pack and my saddle bags to find the second set of keys but no luck. Right now all I cared about is that the bike would still start.
As I rode out of Farmington, NM towards Durango it started rainging in buckets.....soon it turned to hail. Withing seconds it was marble size hail. OK, this was another "first" for me.....I'd never even seen hail that big before......marbles bouncing all over the damn highway.
Back down to two lanes, I slowed to about 20 mph and turned on my flashers and kept moving. It quit and cleared up about as quick as it came and just before my arrival at Durango HD. Went in and introduced myself to the GM, Jeff. I'd been corresponding with him for a couple months about a CVO Ride In Bike Show and welcome (finger foods, refreshments, etc.). He took me back to show me the winner and runner up trophies that he had one of his guys make for us........
Out of there. More black clouds headed this way.....I'm hell bent for Ouray. Sure didn't want to get caught on the Million Dollar Hwy. in the kind of storm I'd just rode through.....especially pulling a trailer. All those steep grades, switch back after switch back, after switch back on steep grade. I wasn't so lucky!
Had to put the camera away....it came down in buckets, again.....and that damn hail!
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Topic: Rocky Mountain High, June 2015 (Read 26945 times)