Eventually I plan to pack my camping gear on the bike and spend the night under the stars, but I’ll save a couple of weekend trips for that so I can refine my packing methods. A week long trip is not a good time to find out what you really need, because there’s no easy way to send stuff home. So I packed up enough clothes to fill both saddle bags (with some room to spare). I took a variety of things, borrowing from my camping experience. Everything layerable, since I was going to be in the mountains I wanted to be able to keep myself warm at high altitudes (and I did get up there).

I normally stay off the freeways, especially during rush hour, but since I was on my way out of Phoenix I figured I would be going against the flow of traffic. So I hopped on 60 and headed East. 60 is a 4 lane divided freeway till Florence Junction, so the travel was quick. In fact, something I’ve noticed about Arizona is that even the mountain roads tend to be fairly straight and the speed limits high (55mph is on the slow side). There are exceptions to that here and there, but the riding is still nothing like what I would get to in Colorado. I figured on stopping in Globe for breakfast, which is only about an hour away.

I didn’t run into any traffic really, with the exception of one semi-truck hauling a massive concrete culvert up a mountain road at less than 5 mph. It was two lane at this point and not technically a passing zone, but I could see far enough up the road and the GS has power to spare, so with a quick check for the local authorities and a twist of the throttle I was on my merry way. =) I had come this way on my trip to the Petrified Forest, so I wasn’t taking time to gaze at the scenery. My first day out had a goal of getting most of the way to Colorado, spending the night in Cuba, New Mexico.

After breakfast, it was on to Show Low. This part of the trip has one small (compared to the rest of my day) portion of excitement; the Salt River Canyon. The canyon is gorgeous and to cross it the road winds down one side, crosses the Salt River and then winds back up the other side. This is one of those exceptions to the sweeping high speed curves found all over Arizona and a real joy to ride if you’re not stuck behind traffic, and I wasn’t. =)

One of my co-workers thought I was wasting time off by starting my vacation in the middle of the week, but I did it on purpose. That way my heaviest travel days (the first day out and the last day back) would happen during the week when most of the weekend motor hazards are busy at work. I think that was a good call on my part, as most of my journey I had very few people in front of me, and those behind just got farther behind. =)

I journeyed from Show Low to Springerville, where I planned to grab a bite to eat. The countryside was beautiful, not because of what was there after all it really was just scrub brush giving way to grasslands as I traveled, but it was countryside I had never seen before. The air was clear, the sky blue and I had the road to myself. It was beautiful because I was having fun cruising through it. =) From a motorcycling point of view this part of the trip, and most of New Mexico were not very exciting. The roads were straight for miles. The upside of that is that they were traveled as quickly as I felt comfortable. Let me just say that BMW recommends you not go faster than 80mph with the saddle bags attached, and I used that as a guideline.

One of the interesting spots along the way was the El Malpais National Monument. It was pretty stunning. There were white cliffs that rose up out of the plains and along the foot of the cliffs are the blackened remains of a huge lava flow. I’m not a geologist so I’ll sum it up by saying I thought it was pretty neat. =) The park also includes a natural arch, something I had never seen in person before, so I thought that was pretty neat too. (By the end of my trip I would see several arches.)

The end of my day was somewhat odd. I got to Cuba (which is a dot on the map) and I still has sunlight left and I was feeling pretty good. So I looked at my map and decided to push on to the next dot on the map (La Jara for those interested). So onward I cruised, and when I got to La Jara I discovered it was a dot on the map and not much more. =) So on to the next dot (Regina), which mysteriously had the same status as La Jara. Well I could go on and on but I’ll summarize. The sun went down and I was still on my bike. I had gained some altitude during the day, and with the sun gone it got a bit chilly. So I took some time to put the liner in my jacket and add a sweat shirt to the layers. With the heated (oh my God I never thought those things could be so nice) hand grips I kept on going. Past dot after dot on the map. I got to see a full moon rise over a mountain, which was breathtaking. After a while though I got a little concerned. My fuel was getting low (no light just yet) and thoughts of a hot meal and bed were creeping into my mind.

One by one the dots went by, and they were nothing but collections of houses with a post office. My fuel light came on and stayed on a loooooooong time before I got to Chama. How long? Well I fueled at the first station I came to and put just shy of 5.5 gal in the tank. I found a nice little motel for the night, and called it a day. When I did the math, I figured I did just a little more than 600 miles in one day! That’s a record for me. =)

New Mexico
Tue February 04 2003

Colorado
Thu February 06 2003

Utah
Thu February 06 2003