Category: travel

Home to Navajo Lake State Park, NM

Getting on the road in the morning usually takes longer than planed. Besides loading the bikes we also have to get the house ready for our trip. It’s not a big deal … just a lengthy checklist. We left Albuquerque around 10:30. Knowing that we would leave later in the morning we picked a destination that was reachable by mid afternoon.

Our route took us on US 550 to Cuba, NM. We were eager to leave the four lane highway and ride on smaller, less traveled roads when we turned north on NM 537 which connected us with US 64 and then to Navajo Lake State Park. Fun day of riding :-).

The challenge for the day was finding a level site in the campground since the camping area is along side a slope. I did a lot of walking around to check sites while Diane was cooling off in the shade ;-). Just kidding. <<Diane here: no shade for me! I was busy chatting up one of the campers to get the scoop on campsites and playing with Corky the Corgi.>> We were appreciative of the fact that the weather was cooperating especially since we had been having one of the wettest monsoon seasons in years. We eventually found a flat site and after setting up camp and taking advantage of the free showers, we finished off the rest of a bottle of wine we had started but not finished at home. We called it an early night and fell asleep not long after the sun went down.

Technical Note: When viewing the pictures you will notice a set of opposing arrows in the top right corner. If you click on them, the picture viewer will go ‘full screen’. To escape full screen simply click on the arrows again or hit the ‘esc’ key.

Getting Ready…

Camping gear and riding gear is spread throughout the house – it’s one big staging area :-). It looks (somewhat) chaotic but there’s order as we are putting our things together to go on another motorcycle trip.

The plan is to do more hiking and exploration this time. We’ll still get to spend plenty of time on the motorcycles but if we are in a state or national park/monument that has interesting hiking trails we want to explore them – staying more than one night so it’s not a constant ‘set-up-camp, sleep, take-down camp’ routine.

To avoid the summer heat and monsoon season as best as we can we will first go north, into Colorado. That’s the extent of our travel planning :-o. We have the first three stops mapped out but after that we’ll play it by ear.  See what the weather does, what we are interested in, etc. That’s no accident since the absence of a fixed, multi-week route with daily targets can be quite liberating. Once temperatures start to cool a little we’ll head south towards Southern Utah to explore Capitol Reef National Park and Canyonlands National Park.  Those are our current plans.

We’ll post pictures and updates as we make our way across the West.

Gear: Blue Duffle Bag

You have seen the blue duffle bags on our bikes numerous times in the pictures. The bag is made by Seattle Sports and is waterproof. The thinking, again gained by online research, is to have all the items that go inside the tent and need to stay dry in a separate waterproof bag that can be put inside the tent once it is pitched.

This system worked out really well not only for camping but also when we had to stay in hotels since we took it and our computer gear into the hotel. Our sleeping system consisted of an insulated air mattress (Big Agnes and Exped downmat), an inflatable pillow from BA, down sleeping bags (Diane’s used the BA system where the air mattress slides into the sleeping bag making one unit). I tried it but I sleep on my side and couldn’t get used to it so I used a regular down sleeping bag on top of the air mattress.

The towels are from Sea To Summit as are Diane’s and my sleeping bag liners.

Eating while on the road

Sounds easy enough but it can be a bit of a challenge as vegetarians. That was one of the reasons why we made our own breakfast (oatmeal and banana). We usually had an apple and some nuts or an energy bar for a mid morning snack. Lunch was usually late (after 13:00) and in the beginning consisted of cheese and bread and a vegetable, eating at the store or in the parking lot. Later on we alternated cheese with hummus. Continue reading Eating while on the road

Gear: Tools

Putting together a tool kit for our road trip was an interesting challenge. It’s a trade off between weight/space and being able to fix anything on the road. I did a lot of research online to see what fellow riders were carrying on their trips. I was aiming for a balance of having enough tools to handle most events without going overboard and trying to bring too much. Continue reading Gear: Tools

Gear: The Kitchen

Kitchen? Yeah right, you’re thinking, he’s joking. No, I’m quite serious. We were able to fix breakfast, make coffee and cook our own dinners while we were on the road. There’s two different philosophies: (1) camp only and eat at restaurants or (2) camp and cook for yourself. We followed (mostly) #2 since we are ‘picky’ eaters and like to start the day with our oatmeal/TVP/banana breakfast and coffee. We prefer this approach since we don’t have to worry about having to find a place to eat once we get on the road. It takes a bit longer in the morning to get ready but is less stressful for us, besides introducing a certain amount of continuity and familiarity. Continue reading Gear: The Kitchen

Cleaning Gear

I took a lot of pictures of the items that we carried with us during the trip. I have spent the last few days cleaning all our gear and getting it stowed away. Working on some posts to show what was ‘in the bags’. In the meantime, for the curious, we rode approximately 9733 miles (15663 km), based on the F650GS odometer which is more accurate than the one on the R1200GS.

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.