BMW Luxury Touring Community - Pix from my trip to AZ

mwnahas

May 27th, 2006, 10:07 pm

some notes (re:Arizona Trip) to go along with the pic

It was a dark and stormy night…We departed early April 14th. It had been raining and was just now sprinkling. Weather forecast said to expect thunder storms in the after noon between Cincinnati and Columbus. Heading south showed promise at first but then the rain started south of Medina. Pushing on, our Tourmaster gear worked perfect. Then it started to rain really heavy, but the sky looked lighter ahead. Visibility was dropping and I decided to look for cover, but there was none. After a few minutes we pushed though it just north of Columbus where we took our first beak. This was our first and last rain for the trip west. By the time we got to Cincinnati the sun came out and we took off the rain pants and the wind breakers we were wearing under the riding jackets for extra warmth. What can I say, this was Ohio. We headed south before turning west to get into better weather faster.

Kentucky was the most beautiful state we visited. Driving along the Wendell H Ford Western Kentucky Parkway, I thought I was on an alien planet. It was lined with tall green trees and purple bushes. The purple was gone on our return trip 2 weeks later, but was still lush green. Kentucky hospitality was great. Strangers were wishing us luck and praying for us, and giving us nice comments on the “good looking bike.” “that thar is a big bike.” One kid asked us “did you-all ride a motorcycle?” Yes, “what kind” BMW. He had seen our riding gear when we walked into the restaurant. At the motel we had lots of admirers and offers to bike sit. “If anybody touches it we’ll break there fingers for you-all.” OK, were going to go down and get some all you can eat cat fish. “Don’t you worry, we’ll watch it for you-all,… ya, we’ll pretend like it was ours till you-all get back”.

Our next stop was Texarkana. I thought this was a cool town. Great hospitality again as well. Further west hit 100 degrees while ridding, then we stopped at Big Spring Texas. We were advised at our last stop that there is nothing in Big Spring, they were right. Texas is big long and boring. Interestingly my bike in Texas was “big enough though.” (My K1200LT is not as big as a Goldwing).

On into Calsbad New Mexico, I had to laugh when a tumble weed bounced off my bike at a red light and went on to hit a car. It was just like the cartoons. Diverting south through the Guadalupe Mountains was well worth it. It cooled down to a perfect 77 degrees and the mountains were spectacular. It was really windy in the mountains and Gretchen was really “creeped out”. On one of our photo stops, I was worried the wind was going to blow the bike over.

El Paso and the Franklin mountains state park were pretty as well. It was really nice riding through the mountains without the wind this time. We got stopped between Las Cruces and Tuscon on Rt 10 by a boarder patrol check point. I thought what the heck did I make a wrong turn somewhere? They just asked if we were both US Citizens. I should have answered “see” instead of “yes”, well maybe not.

We treated ourselves to a nice quite hotel in Scottsdale for a few days rest and a visit with my Mother, Aunt Uncle, and Cousin. We just needed to veg for a few days before heading up to the Grand Canyon. I lost $20 in Casino Arizona, but had a good time with my Cousin.

On a stop on our way to Sadona we met couple on an LT. Nice LT! Ya, I got one too. He lived in Arizona and had their names painted on the trunk. We traded stories and he gave me a broacher on Bushtec trailers (I’m not a salesman for them). I told him to try out the K1200LT board on the internet. He was heading south and we were heading north to the Red Planet diner.

We stayed in Williams and road the train to the Grand Canyon. We spent the night at the lodge and road the train back. Part of the entertainment is a train robbery on the way back. This is a great way to do it if you can afford the money and time. I took some great pics of the Canyon and the bright angel tail then noticed I had the camera set to black and white. Doh! Ok, I got some color pics also after I discovered my error.

We had great weather for the most part. Mostly 80+ degrees. We had 5 minutes of snow Sunday night at the Canyon southern rim where it got down to the 20s that night, but was in the 60s the next day. Then on the way back we had storms chasing us from Shawnee Oklahoma to Columbus. For the most part we stayed ahead of the weather on the way back except for a few sprinkles.

Our gear worked great and GPS saved us time. On Rt 40 through little rock we ran into road construction warning sign saying four miles down the road they were doing road construction and to expect delays. We go off a mile later and noticed the three mile backup with traffic stopped on the interstate. We got some gas and asked if there was a way around this. The detour they proposed was about 5 miles northwest then south then to the 440 bypass. I though what the heck let’s just head south on this other highway and take something east and let the GPS do its thing. We’ll sure enough it recalculated my 10 mile detour parallel to the interstate. We did 10 miles of 45 MPH compared to the stopped traffic on the interstate.

Rt 40 and Rt 66 were interesting on the way back east. It was much cooler than the southern route we took going west. On one of gas stops we me a couple an a Harley doing an ABC ride. That’s were you find a county or city starting with A, then B and so on. She was envious of my heated passenger seat on the LT and didn’t want to hear any more from my wife how comfortable it was. Santa Rosa was really interesting and we had a nice walk along Rt 66 from our hotel to an old diner that’s been there since 1956. I wished I had more time to go off route and more stops like Santa Rosa NM on the way back but all good things must come to an end.