A cold ride Southern Utah, Las Vegas

This past 10 months have been difficult.... numerous medical issues nose to tail caused me to miss nearly an entire summer of riding....and now, well I'm feeling good enough to venture out in the world. 

I was able to do a very few rides over the last year but nothing like I had plans for. So anyway, here it is November and I think it is time to brush the cobwebs off my mind and one of the bikes and stir the oil!

It will be a cold ride so the Wing gets the nod as it has much better wind protection, plus heated seat and grips. I'm riding south to St George, then Vegas, and back home again.  8 days in the southern clime.

As always, when it is a cold ride I tend to leave the camera buried. so I only have a few pics...

Temps in Death Valley, Furnance Creek

Near the Visitor Center

The ubiquitous road construction. It looked like to me that a flood had washed out the road. This was one of two  sites within a short distance that were being worked on. I would much rather wait for some construction crew to clear the road, than to try to get the Wing through the deep sand I saw on a few parts of the road.

And that's it. I made it home tired but somewhat happy... All in all it was a good trip!

I hope anyone reading this has a very nice 2024 Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and of course an Extrememly Happy New Year!!!

 

Life is good!

The Rancho Vistoso experience

Rancho Vistoso, is in Oro Valley, Arizona. Bev and I decide to spend a few days there and .......'just like that' ......after two days of riding in the rain we arrive!

Beverly, of course, is in the car and I rode.

Rancho Vistoso (RV) is about 800 miles from home.

Dark skies dogged us for two days, but still it was two days on a bike! Win!!

More dark skies and some HARD RAIN as we motored across the reservation.

A small section of the grounds of Rancho Vistoso. I've stayed at RV at least 6 times and the place is always immaculate!

Looking out the front door.

Looking off the deck.

When I stay at RV its fun to sit on the deck at night and "talk" to the coyotes. There are a LOT there and once you get them yipping it can go on for a several minutes.

And a corner of the activities center.

(corn hole)

We take a walk and I get this picture.....

Then I ask Beverly to be in the pic....

Haha...its decoration in our room!

The US60. The road from Show Low to Globe. A fantastic road!

 

Butch Cassidy, the Sundance kid, Tombstone, and three other bad dudes!

(in Hanksville)

We stay at the Muddy Miners Cabins - and Highly recommend it! 

On our way home we change our plan at the last second and get a cabin at this place - The Muddy Miner (or at least close to that)

a

Southern Utah is absolutely the most beautiful place in the world!

Aaaaand its time to go home.....

As a kid,  when we traveled anywhere when we turned into our long driveway my mother would invariably say, 'travel east travel west, after all home is best'. 

It took me years of growing up before I understood her meaning. 

Bev shoots some photos from the WRX

Life is a roller coaster sometimes!

From the parking lot of Capital Reef NP

The colors are juuuust starting to change in parts of So Utah

I've Been Everywhere in Utah, Man! (Video)

A repost of my video

Trike time....Yikes, there's trikes!

Our annual couples ride has arrived! Well, not really, but close enough. Kenny picked up a new HD trike and hasn't exercised it enough.  Rooster wadded up his Wing so needed a new machine, enter that beautiful Spyder in the foreground. The Spyder needs to have some break-in miles so we are forced.....FORCED to go on a trip!

(The actual "couples ride" will happen in 2 weeks.)

So Rooster sets up a ride to Manila, Utah and then over to Lava Hot Springs, Idaho.

On our way we pass this veterans memorial...photo op!

(I can't remember the name of the town)

Sunrise in Manila.

After dinner and a very nice visit with mutual friends that live in Manila we hit the road for Lava....but first making a stop in Montpelier, Idaho to see the Butch Cassidy museum. Kenny's family had some connectons to Butch back in the day, so this is more significant than normal.

Three scoflaws! Rooster, Butch (Kenny), and your's truly.

We're smiling because we just robbed the bank! LOL

We see some old friends outside the museum after dividing the loot we make tracks to outrun the posse!

Posse successfully evaded we spend the night in Lava...and are treated to an incredible lightening, thunder, rain storm during the night.

Frivolity in the museum. ;)

And another great trip is in the books! 

We were able to put 684 break-in miles on the new Trike and Spyder. 

Had an incredibly nice visit with some old friends. Treated ourselves to too many great meals! And even avoided the heavy rains that happened all around us! Very VERY good times - Simply put, 

A WONDERFUL way to spend the weekend!

"Death is a scary, but not living before death comes calling is terrifying! 

 Life is exceptionally fine!

p.s.  thanks to everyone for the photos.

Cache Gathering 2024 (the last one?)

This will be the last Cache Gathering.

It's very sad to see this day come, but it was inevitable. Most of the 'regular' attendees seem to be giving up riding. Old age or health problems seem to get us all down at least some of the time.

Anyway, this year the Grand Pooh Bah is Len (again...I think this is his third year running the show).

Spearfish or bust this year the gathering is being held at the KOA in Spearfish.

I leave early on a Sunday morning and take i-80 East to expedite getting out of town. This is echo reservoir last year and last several years it was just a mud bog and now it's full to the top! 

I make my Way North to Grand Teton national Park where I got the National Park stamp then continued North to Dubois Wyoming where I stay for the night.

And the next day was a windy 400 miles to the KOA in Spearfish where I find the other attendees had already arrived.

Most KOAs are reasonably nice, you know what you're going to get when you stay at a KOA.

 But the Spearfish KOA stands out in a positive way, it was so clean and the staff was very friendly, which made it an extra nice place to stay. Another thing is they had an all you can eat for $5 ice cream social hour that was awesome I went twice.

We took some nice rides I didn't take a whole lot of pictures, 

Don says he is always being asked 'if he's been to Sturgis'.... I think that is one of the most common questions that motorcyclists get asked. Anyway he wants to take a short ride over to the town of Sturgis so he can answer....."Yes".

and here we go;

Don at the Sturgis museum

And one of the whole group after dinner.

Far right is Chad he trucked his Suzuki 400 from Minnesota and did a couple of days on the backcountry bdr trail. Don, far left, rode from Spokane. Len and his wife Karen came from Las Vegas.

The Cache rally originated from a "motorcycle cache" that was started on the East Coast and brought out West and ended up going all over North south and Central America being carried by several different riders. 

The object was, each rider hands the cache to another rider  and off it goes on another trip. You hand the cache from rider to rider The purpose other than just an excuse to get out and ride was meet new people and ride with them.  

Sadly some riders tended to drop the ball and didn't take it very seriously. Several let the cache sit extended periods of time or even lost the cache. Not everybody enjoyed the cache game, but there are others like myself who really enjoyed the interaction with other riders and carrying the cache around and keep it moving. It has been lost a couple of times and restarted  but now it seems many riders have lost interest so we're going to let the cache rally and the Cache die an honorable death.

A week of good times at this year's gathering and then this gathering came to an end. We all bid our goodbyes and go off in different directions.

Two nights later I end up in Lewistown, Montana. Tomorrow I'll go thru Yellowstone, get that stamp and then head for the barn.

I passed this place on the way to Roosevelt NP. I've heard of pet cemeteries but buffalo cemeteries??

(LOL)

Lewistown, Montana 

So this is likely the last blog post about the Cache Gathering.

It was fun mostly because of seeing friends every year, and hopefully we can continue to do that.

St George, Utah is up next for a family outing then Arizona to get some more park stamps

Ride safe, thanks for visiting!

¡la vida es buena!

Seeing is believing!!

 After two surgerys,  a couple of months of vision therapy, and six months of convalessing my battle with my vision seems to be over (at least I HOPE it is over), I'm finally able to ride again. I'll skip the boring details of what was wrong, suffice it to say I had a 'prism' that apparently was made worse by the unplanned dismount that occured in Alaska in 2015. So again...."finally"....I was able to  go on a longish trip on the bike.  (Sadly I didn't get out the camera as much as I usually do....there is definitely a shortage of pix in this post.)

We went to our son's place in Seaside, Oregon and had a SUPER visit with them. I (rode the Tenere)  stayed 3 days then had to get home for a follow up visit with the Doc. Beverly (drove the WRX) stayed several more days and continued to visit.

We made our first stop in Baker City, Oregon.  Sleep is elusive so at around midnight I hop in the car and take some pics of a few of the cool sculptures around Baker;

Mr. Scorpion should get a ticket for parking in a 'no parking' zone. Or...maybe he'll get a pass as he might a part of a ....sting ... to catch some bad guys.

Leaving Baker City, Beverly takes the fastest route to Seaside (freeway) while 

I pick a more scenic route that ends up leading me into some weather - rain and fog. When the fog grew heavy enough to make me nervous, I stopped at the first hotel I could find and hunkered down for the evening. I was actually less than 200 miles from Seaside - but fog...well you could say fog puts a hazy wet chill on my riding enjoyment.

Our view in Seaside

Chilling on the beach

Our visit in Seaside is LOADS of fun! 

We eat......to much, 

We sleep....... not enough,

and We smile and laugh.....until our faces muscles are tired!

Hanging out with family is soooooo much fun!

And then it is time for me to go home. Bev will stay for another few days. For my return trip, I want to relax and don't want to have to hurry so I plan on taking three days to make the (depending on your route, of course) 850/900 mile trip.

That first day I ride to Mitchell Oregon, which should have been a reletively short day of 275 miles but I take the bikers shortcut and I'm able to do that ride in only 323 fantastically curvy miles!!  

I stay the night at their hotel, a converted 90 year old house, which provided a welcome quiet night of good sleep. And the nearby eatery ("Tiger" something is all I can remember) provided some also very welcome bienvenida a la interacción personal because as it turned out I happened to sit next to a Mother and her adult son who, by an amazing coincidence both had the same names as my mother and I; "Ken" and "Mom".  I really enjoyed the excellent conversation and a pretty good burger as well!

Then its 5am the next morning and I can't get back to sleep, so I'm on the road a little after 6am, riding on a gusty-windy, intermintently rainy day through John Day - Boise - Twin Falls,  Wells, Nevada, and Wendover, making several stops for short naps and caffeine.... and then  finally home at 10:20pm....the return miles which (according to google maps) ends up being 678 miles...it is a good thing I decided to relax and take my time! LOL

During a gas stop at Wells I meet one of those families that just make you feel better about the future. Dave, his beautiful wife, and a van full of clean, well behaved children (I should add 'adventureous' children!) are off on a vacation to the Redwoods - Safe travels my friend! Darn it all, I didn't get a picture of the family!

Dave rides a Royal Enfield Himilayen and had I been less rattled by the miles, rain, and wind, I would have invited him to the Cache Gathering in South Dakota next week. SD Spearfish KOA June 17 - 21     https://www.facebook.com/groups/548877241830226  But I'm doubtful he'll be home from vacation by then.

Bight rainbow over Wells.

This trip ended up being a few miles short of 1900 miles. I've had some other short trips since my eye problems, but struggled at various times while riding.  However, this trip finally gave me some absolutely solid, no doubts at all confidence that my vision problems might possibly be behind me, maybe...at least I hope so!

Life is sometimes foggy and hazy but mostly life is GOODer than heck!