August 2009 – Twoems

Home

The last night at a hotel (for a while), last breakfast buffet, last time packing the bags. We are going to be sleeping in our own bed tonight. Another 300+ mile day of riding mostly flat and straight 70mph country roads. We made good time, arriving in Austin around 14:30 after leaving Midland at 8:30.

Traffic was pretty light until about 50 miles outside of Austin – to be expected on a weekend. We fought the wind after midmorning which makes for a tiring ride. Not too many pictures, sorry — too busy riding :-).

In the next couple of days I’ll post some more with pictures of our gear, what worked, what didn’t and ‘lessons learned’. This is just a quick update to let everyone know we made it home safely.

We want to thank everyone for following along and taking the time to comment. It’s much more interactive and fun that way.

Todays route.

D & O.

: Midland to Sterling City, TX

: Midland to Sterling City, TX

: Midland to Sterling City, TX

: Midland to Sterling City, TX

West Texas

After yesterdays extended freeway stint on IH-10 we had enough of freeway riding. Getting across Texas without going on the interstate is a bit of a challenge and naturally will take longer. That’s OK. From El Paso, there’s only IH-10 or US 180 that go west, so US 180 is what we took. Continue reading West Texas

Three states in a day

We stayed on IH-10 for about 2/3rds of todays ride since we had a long mileage day ahead, for us on a motorcycle anyway ;-). We are heading back home and planned to get to El Paso, TX today. Hence the three states: AZ, NM, TX. As previously mentioned, freeway riding is tiring and we had enough by the time we got to Deming so we took SR-11 south to SR-9. SR-9 runs about parallel to IH-10 in New Mexico.

Continue reading Three states in a day

A freeway day

Western Arizona doesn’t offer too many alternatives to make your way across the state to Tucson. After a stretch of about 50 miles of back country roads from Parker we hit IH-10 to SR-85, a connector road that goes to IH-8 to bypass Phoenix.

Once we got to Gila Bend on IH-8 we decided to keep going on the freeway since the long way around on SR-85 via Ajo would have been another 200 miles – after we had already gone about 190 miles. Probably a good call since we saw the towering thunderstorms forming to the south of us – right where we would have been riding. Not to mention that we would have been completely exhausted. Another day when I emptied my 3L water reservoir.

We are going to spend two days in Tucson just looking around, exploring the city and housing.

Todays route.

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson

: along the way from Parker to Tucson – rest area on IH-10

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

: Hotel in Tucson – rain clouds and cool colors in the evening. No rain though.

Travel fatigue

I don’t think there’s a single factor that’s making us tired but rather multiple causes. Staying in hotels, living out of bags and unpredictable hotel wall thickness and neighbors certainly plays a role. Unable to make our own breakfast you are stuck with the hotel’s ‘continental’ breakfast which offer foods that we rarely eat at home – pastries, waffles, toast, scrambled eggs with cheese and cereal. Not to mention the subpar (yes I’m a coffee snob) coffee. Continue reading Travel fatigue

Heading towards Arizona

Another late start for us. For some reason we both slept in late. We had decided on a route last night but we made a small change when we stopped for gas in Boulder City. Instead of taking US 93 over the Hoover Dam towards Kingman, AZ. we take US 95 to avoid all the traffic and windy roads. Continue reading Heading towards Arizona

Hoover Dam

Per the weather forecast we were greeted with overcast skies this morning. The plan was to ride out to Hoover Dam and then the scenic route around Lake Mead since yesterday was way too hot. There was a 30-40% chance of rain and we were OK with that. What we didn’t factor in was the wind 🙁 Continue reading Hoover Dam

Las Vegas, NV

Early this morning we heard a series of sirens going by the hotel, making us wonder what was going on. Later in the morning, just outside of Caliente we came across the remainder of a bad accident. There was debris everywhere and police was diverting traffic to the shoulder.

Continue reading Las Vegas, NV

The real ‘lonely’ highway – U.S. 93

For some reason we were on the road early – the earliest so far: 8:10 – maybe because we were up by 5:45 and didn’t have internet to distract us ;-). The remainder of U.S. 50 went through more forests and valleys. We reached Ely by about 11:00. After heading east for two days we started on our way south on U.S. 93…

Continue reading The real ‘lonely’ highway – U.S. 93

The loneliest highway – U.S. 50

After checking out of the happening Atlantis Casino, we went to Starbucks to wait for a call from the dealer to let us know that the part arrived. Once we were all coffee’d out we headed to the dealer around 11:30 since Mike had said that UPS usually delivers between 11:00 and 12:00. When we got there, he already had the part. Dropping the current lock keyed to the ignition key was a snap and the new gas cap installed in less than 10 minutes. Continue reading The loneliest highway – U.S. 50