Travelling Tales - Part 10

I actually started this post back in July, can't believe its taken me so long to get back to it.  I promise to get this and the rest of the trip documented by the end of the year.... so without further ado the trip continues.  Remember if you want to read the previous posts then search this blog for USA Trip 2004 or Travelling Tales

Encinitas was where we ended our day – booked two nights for a bit of a chill out.  A good Italian dinner with wine was a real treat, nice to have something fresh cooked and not mass produced. Spent the following day walking the beach, eating and doing touristy things and getting sun burnt.  My back was playing up big time, After nearly 7 weeks on the bike it had started to complain.

Week 7 –With no real plan on where to go next, we followed the Pacific highway, very rugged scenery and very hot, lots of sand and boulders, real desert country.  Stopped for fuel in Yuma and spoke to a guy who said it was 109F, not fun on a bike I can tell you.  After about another hour of this I started to have a panic attack, my boots made my feet feel like they would explode and there was no escaping the heat.  We had a stop and tried to cool off, we were in the middle of nowhere so had to carry on.  Luckily we found a motel in a place called Gila Bend (it was still 108F at 7pm) nothing much to eat apart from what we could get in a service station so it was beer and snacks for dinner then bed and pain killers for my back.

A marginally cooler day , breakfast in a Cracker Barrel outside Tucson then on to Tombstone. Tombstone was a strange place, touristy, usual trashy gift shops. Checked out Boothill Cemetery  which was fun. We got a real shock when we went to go out for dinner at 8pm everywhere was very quiet, we then found out that everything closes at 8:30, so we had a very rushed dinner, they practically threw the food at us and rushed us out the door.  There were a couple of bars open, one full of locals, the other just 3 people neither felt very welcoming so we decided on an early night as we had a long ride planned for the next day.

















The weather was still very hot, 98 degrees by 10am as we reached Phoenix - tempers were very short.  Our planned route was to go via Wickenburg then on to Prescott, as we climbed you could feel the air cooling and the scenery changing, lots 20mph bends so fun riding for Peter. The atmosphere was still a bit frosty between us when we checked into the hotel. I went off to do a wash and by the time this was done it was happy hour and by the time we had 3 margaritas under our belts we were friends again.





Thursday 17 June - we were heading for Williams and the Arizona State HOG Rally - just a short ride lots of twists and turns, the scenery was lovely, lots of piney smells, one of the joys of motorcycling is you get to smell ALL the smells and look at stuff above your head too.  Spectacular views around Sedona, a great day.