Day 110, Moab. Up, let’s do breakfast. Next door to the hotel was a classic diner experience, looks good. Well it did look good from the outside, not so much from the inside, with an immobile queue and no-one attending to it. People were also queued up at the register trying to pay. No-one attending to them either. Five or ten minutes in, we realised that breakfast was not getting any closer. Decision time, let’s go out the front and googs the options. Scottish family restaurant just up the road, at least we already know what we want. Wander up, inside, and waiting again. Finally ordered, waiting again. Remember when fast food outlets offered the “Served within 10 minutes, or it’s free?”. They should have been paying us to dine at the Moab Maccas. Never mind, keep calm and carry on trying to remain calm.
Plan for the day was rafting the Colorado River. Discussion on this had progressed for a few days, because when visiting a place like Moab having some sort of plan is mandatory. We were way past school holidays, but the major US National Parks attract tourists like a dead horse attracts blowies, so booking early is essential. Cindy hadn’t booked because the website was a nightmare – you know the sort – lets you book but only one person, you select a date and time, but at the checkout there are suddenly three people, and they are booked for midnight on the 4th of July 1776. Try again, now one person is booked for rafting and the other is booked for the mule riding marathon. Abandon this, let’s just bloody well walk down to the booking office and eyeball someone. Down at the booking office, it was sorted in seconds, and no-one would have to ride a mule. Pick-up at the hotel at 11am? We’ll be there.
Up the Colorado, the trip was punctuated with snippets of local history – see that ranch there? That was where John Wayne got into a fight with a pig after it ate one of his socks! The scenery is extraordinary and classic Utah which is totally awful and unproductive yet visually spectacular. A lunch at the launch spot, overlooked by more classic scenery where some star shot a bad person dressed in black and married the only one in the state with a Cert III in Sweetheartness, and we broke into groups for the rafting.
Out on the water it was very casual. Normally on our rafting trips we have been pressed, just like people by the Royal Navy in the early 1800’s, into paddling against our will. Not this time, we did nothing while Tyler rowed and guided us down the river. We did not complain, the scenery is relentless with the abrupt cliffs and lumpy sandstone slopes. Various interesting sights came into view during the cruise and occasionally we’d hit some rapids, which provided a cooling splash of water over the front, which was where we were sitting. Tyler mentioned that we could jump in if we wanted to, but the Colorado was more like a mud slurry than water so most decided that finding a laundry was not the first thing they wanted to do back in Moab.
Eventually floating into the landing place and out onto the beach, we could continue our doings of absolutely bugger-all besides having good discussions with our fellow passengers before mounting up and being driven back to the hotel. The second plan for the day could then be initiated, the Arches National Park. The popular National Parks in the US get extremely busy in the spring/summer/autumn season, and we had needed to book a time interval to go in. We tried to do this the previous evening, but no time was available. But once 4pm rolls around, it is open to those who didn’t plan ahead. With Cindy on the back of Storm Boy, off we went.
The Arches National Park starts at the visitor’s centre, which luckily sells fridge magnets and stickers, so we were set. The road into the park climbs a severe canyon wall, so is immediately awesome. Then onto the plateau where the amazing rock formations sit. We cruised along, and enjoyed the scenery.
The actual arches appear a fair way into the park. Although it wasn’t exactly sunset, the late afternoon scene and pleasant temperatures made us wonder why the place wasn’t packed, the lengthening shadows and westerly sun made it a great experience. Past the Phallus Pillar, obviously named by someone who had spent their entire career working in the Grossly Deformed Penis Research Division (GDPRD), and we were sliding past Balancing Rock. This just seems physically impossible which makes it fabulous.
Relaxed with the knowledge that one day it will fall down, leaving behind another odd pillar for the hard-working staff in the GDPRD to think about, and we rolled past some arches and headed back out. Down to the Spitfire Smokehouse for dinner, and a very good day was done.
Day 111 and on the road again after a classic diner breakfast when we waited for ages to get a seat but were assured it was worth it, and it was. Luckily it was in far nicer conditions leaving Moab compared with the stormy arrival. As it wasn’t a huge day up to Provo to the south of Salt Lake City, we decided we needed more Colorado River, so took the UT-128 road up past the section we’d rafted down the previous day. More nice scenery, until we left the river and entered the flat lands which are seriously bad Badlands, nothing has a hope of growing out there.
On the interstate for a bit for a coffee stop at Thompson Springs, where it was noted that the temperature had become pleasant since the sweating horrors of the Deep South back in June, we could now, in mid-September, comfortably sit outside and have the caffeine. More relatively quiet interstate to Green River, then northwest up the Grand Army of the Republic Highway. The Grand Army of the Republic was the Union Civil War veterans organisation, a bit like Australia’s Returned Services League, but it was purely for the Civil War so dissolved when its last member died in 1956, aged 109. The Memorial Day holiday in the US was the result of the Grand Army’s pushing. Up the Grand Army to Price for a luncheon, then a stop at the interestingly named town of Carbonville before heading up into the mountains on some very nice roads.
Into Provo via Spanish Fork, presumably named for a piece of cutlery someone said that they saw falling from the pocket of a chap wearing a big red sash. To the hotel, well out into the suburban wilderness of Salt Lake City and adjacent to the main highway. Strange choice by our standards, but for a very specific reason – shopping. The reason for the shopping started with a German chap, as it always does. We’d been travelling along just fine before we met him at Maverick Junction in South Dakota, one of the very few adventure riders we’d seen and on an identical bike to Cindy’s – the Triumph Tiger 900 GT Pro. Cindy was immediately taken with his bags, which clipped to the top of his Triumph panniers. The mental cogs were turning. How many extra pairs of “not up to the job” thongs or National Park fridge magnets could I carry if I had those? Heaps! I must have some! But where are they? Turns out not in South Dakota, but with a call to Cycle Gear in Provo to tell them that a set had been ordered and would show up, the plan had come together.
The new pannier extensions on, we could wander down to the local Suburban Wilderness Sports Bar for Monday Night Football. This is a huge event at sports bars all across the country, so had become an unexpected routine of ours, as we’d been on the road for so long we rarely remembered it was a Monday. Fully footballed, we moved onto Day 112. The target for the day was leaving Utah behind and getting back into Nevada. Up through Salt Lake City with its traffic madness because there is basically one road going north-south through it, and no east-west until past the city. The west is a straight run through to the Great Salt Lake, which set the target for sight-seeing and hopefully coffee.
There weren’t many sights to see at Bonneville, mainly just salt flats. A search for stickers also failed, but we did find a drink before completing Utah at West Wendover. As usual, half a millimetre over the border were a plethora of casinos, but nowhere obvious for lunch. OK, let’s try another one of the common fast-food places – Arby’s. This is easily confused with Applebee’s, but Arby’s is just classic fast food in the US style while Applebee’s is more like a proper restaurant with wines and beers. The usual stuff at Arby’s with simple carbs and cardiovascular cloggers all the way down the menu. Still enjoyable though if one can throw off the smothering doona of self-loathing and guilt.
Riding through Nevada, the basins and ranges take over again – lines of hills and mountains separated by flat bits. Not far in we turned south toward Ely. A feature of this part of the US is the nothing, right up there with the Australian nothing. It’s not as though there isn’t anything, of course there is stuff like rocky hills and dirt and saltbush everywhere, but there is almost no sign of humans which is rare in a country with a population of around 350 million punters. It is not exactly prime anything lands out there, the distances between ranches is somewhat large, and the distances between towns is even larger.
Into Ely, the most striking thing about the town was that the entire main street was under roadworks, so it seemed to take us an hour to go about 2km. We were staying in the famous Hotel Nevada and Gambling Hall, which we’d never heard of, like a lot of famous places that have to announce themselves as famous. The Great Pyramid of Giza doesn’t have to bother with the famous Great Pyramid of Giza, but the Hotel Nevada does. Inside, it ticked all the boxes with a combination of old-time western with ancient rifles, tobacco-store Indians, and casino facilities.
Across the roadworks and into Gino’s Restaurant for dinner, chosen because we’d been separated from Gino and Kim for a whole week. It didn’t let us down with the best Italian meal of the trip, or at least since the Italian meal in Las Vegas. We’ll call it a draw.
Day 113 beckoned with the sun coming up as we have started to take for granted, kicking off the show with a Denny’s breakfast. We’d done a bit of Denny’s through the US, but not a breakfast, so now could tick it off. The minimum standard breakfast option was of course enough to feed 20 people across 4 days, so we went to the sides section to just get eggs and toast and an OJ. Even that was more than enough for two people, but we pushed through. Out and on Highway 6 heading southwest, we’d gone about 5 miles when a sign appeared. Next gas 167 miles. Wow that would have been nice to see about 5 miles ago. OK, some mental arithmetic. We had 100 miles on the clock already. We had a maximum range of about 260 miles. Should just make it, hope and pray we don’t get a headwind. OMG is that a headwind? No, so let’s try not to panic for the next 167 miles, just relax and wait for the last 7 before becoming fully hysterical. It actually turns out that the 167 miles is the longest stretch between fuel stops in the lower 48, tick off another random achievement.
The fuel lights were on, but we knew we were going to make it into Tonopah. Into a very nice diner lunch in the little ol’ mining town after we’d fuelled up with a feeling of euphoria, and the fuel anxiety was reset for the next part of the journey. A mere 120 miles to our day’s destination of Mammoth Lakes in California or about half a tank so no chance of worry anymore. Hang on, what is that noise?
Over the border into California, which required a turn-around to get the official welcome to Nevada sign photo. Even though we’d entered the state twice, the need to push a casino up onto the border meant there had not been enough room for a border sign on both occasions. But out here there was nothing, so they’d had plenty of space to put one up.
Things started to green up once over the border, and happily it cooled down as we climbed up into Mammoth Lakes, a popular skiing destination. We weren’t as excited about the very big increase in petrol price plus the weird and annoying sock thingos on the petrol nozzles, but we had to suck that up. A wander into town to get some supermarket stuff, then dinner, then look out the window to see if that noise was a bear only to find it was a beefy squirrel, and we were done. Day 114 we were up and gone again, because a big trip appointment beckoned: HU. HU means Horizons Unlimited.
HU was started by the Canadian world-travelling couple Grant and Susan Johnson back 25 years ago and is a forum for world travellers and people who like to get around on motorcycles. The format besides socialising with lots of other riders and their stuff is presentations by some truly inspirational people. Events are held all over the world, and we’d been to one near home just before we left for this big trip. HU California 2025 would be our third such event, this one in the very nice little town of Mariposa, just south of Yosemite. That meant we had to ride through Yosemite to get there, not really a bad thing. A ride up to Lee Vining, then west up the Tioga Road, now glad that we’d run out of time to do this when we were staying in Yosemite three weeks previously. The scenery soon became classic Yosemite – solid granite lumps just poking up, before coming around a corner and seeing something very rare and interesting in a scenic lookout – a couple on adventure motorcycles. Perfect timing, we’d been going for about an hour, let’s stop. Not much hesitation from either party, let’s check each other out. Dave, Tammy from Ellensburg in Washington, Duncan, Cindy from Brisbane in Queensland. Right, where are you heading, HU by any chance? Yes and yes. Excellent. A delicious morning tea muffin provided by Tammy, this was already looking good. We will see you down there.
Onto the Oak Flat Road, this heads into the Yosemite Valley so was a repeat from the previous entry. The famous views once again, but then a sharp right to go back out west along the Central Yosemite Highway and Yosemite was done for the second time. The highway heads south-west along the Merced River, then leaps over the range and down into Mariposa. First things first, let’s head out to HU at the Mariposa fairgrounds and check in.
Meeting new people is what you do at an HU. There will always be the legends whose books you’ve read, at this HU it was Sam Manicom who has seven under his belt. Not only a legend traveller with squillions of stories but a truly humble, funny, and all-around positive nice bloke. Of course there are the presentations, including the “what the hell were you thinking?” ones, the funny ones, and best of all the inspiring ones where someone of extraordinary ordinariness just gets on a bike and heads off. A big highlight was the presentation by Louisa Swaden, who returned to motorcycling later in life and went on to set the land speed record on sand before competing at the Bonneville Salt Flats. Her philosophy of saying “yes” and embracing challenges was truly inspiring, bizarrely she also holds the world powerlifting record, how did that happen? We also had equipment discussions, where people could compare tools and camping gear and cooking bits and pieces they carry, and of course the socialising. Can’t wait for the next one back home now.
Day 117 we were up and heading north once more. No more distractions until the day we would be dropping the bikes back off in L.A. Just ride. This part of California is a great place to just ride, with some fabulous roads and scenery. Up to our old favourite Chinese Camp, which had unfortunately been burned since our last visit, but still had coffees, and onto Highway 4. Highway 4 is one of the four parallel roads that head north-east over the Sierra Nevada range and into Nevada, and if the rest are as good as this one it would be a great experience doing a repeat “over and back” trip one day.
Highway 4 gets really narrow and great for motorcycling, but there wasn’t a lot of traffic even though it was a Sunday. Up over the hills it got a bit chilly which was nice, we still hadn’t fully broken free from the daytime sweats although it was exactly 3.2 million times better than all of June. Through Cape Horn, which really wasn’t much like the real Cape Horn because there was no wind, and down into Markleeville for a lunch stop.
Heading north properly, we crossed the border back into Nevada for the third time. Then the uninspiring ride up to the capital of Nevada, Carson City. Carson City is named after Kit Carson, a legend of the westward expansion of the US whose heavily exaggerated and contested exploits sold a lot of dime books. The contesting was mainly by Kit himself, who said that most of what was written was something that rhymes with shiatzu. Never mind, the publisher insisted that more dead Indians sold more books, so no-one cared. Into the Hardman House Hotel, with its special feature of an underground carpark, and we were done and ready for Day 118. Just over the hill and Lake Tahoe ready.
Lake Tahoe is somewhat huge and suffers from curvature of the earth with the opposite shore below the horizon. Most of the lake is in California, so naturally we had to make yet another crossing and back for the fourth time into Nevada, but only after a Californication lunch. A feature of this lake and US water generally that drives Australians mad is the lack of access. Australians live the dream when it comes to natural bodies of water, for example no-one can own a river, the closest they can push the fence to is a chain from the high-water mark. A chain is 22 yards or a cricket pitch length. So people can travel around natural bodies of water, pull up on shore, and get a game going without trespass so long as they don’t do a Dennis Lillee run-up from way back up into someone’s property. On Lake Tahoe, access was either fully closed off by properties or paid parks, at least until we got to Kings Beach. Not many people around, so no-one will put a ticket on two motorcycles with foreign plates is the logic, and the logic in this case worked just fine.
Lunched, we headed back to Carson. Cindy decided that hair maintenance was required, I decided that meeting her at Jimmy G’s Cigar Bar was required after the hair maintenance was completed. For me, the cigar bar is the ultimate experience. Yes it is possible in Australia, but just a decent cigar there will cost around $50, let alone the beverage cost because of the taxes. Jimmy G’s laid on a huge and top quality cigar and large IPA for less than $15. Cindy showed up, and the Queensland talk to the bar staff attracted the attention of a Queensland couple who live in Carson City. Thus an hour or two later we had a view of life in the US from people who knew what it was like back on our side. The positives – huge personal freedoms and less Nanny State control, the negatives – health care is very expensive, and sometime your huge personal freedoms can clash with mine.
Day 119 and our plan needs to be revealed. The last proper service on the bikes was back in Colorado Springs in August, and it was that time again. We were heading north, and a familiar place was nearly in the way – Boise Triumph. So we could call in and get the last planned maintenance done, and relax for the rest of the journey. But there was a lot of Nevada between Carson City and Boise, so the day’s target was to get about ½ way there; Winnemucca. But there was an important place for those interested in mining history (and that’s everyone) to go first up, Virginia City, the home of the Comstock lode. Huge amounts of silver came out of the lode in the USA’s first silver rush. The money that came out of the Comstock gave Nevada a kick-start and helped with building of wealthy cities like San Francisco. All that is left now is a quirky western mining tourist town, fortunately with coffee and old record shops.
On again to the north-east, we stopped for lunch in a place I’d been for work earlier in the year, Lovelock. Nothing terribly exciting about Lovelock, but good places for lunch. Then the last bit up to Winnemucca. There aren’t many road options in Nevada, we were on the highway and that was it, so we got into town fairly early.
When I’d been up here for work my host had taken me to the Martin Hotel, which is a Basque restaurant and hugely popular. The Basque peoples had settled around here for reasons I trust you will explore via the googs, I don’t want to have to do all your work. Anyway, it was so good that Cindy and I had to do a repeat, and off we went. Unfortunately on the occasion my host took me there I wasn’t paying much attention, he knew what he was doing and I just sat back and cruised. This visit we were put on a table with four ladies, and it is stated that the dining experience is in the traditional Basque style, so I assumed that means sharing a table with strange ladies as that had also happened the first time. They took our order. Then they brought out soup and plonked it in front of me with two bowls. There was at least a gallon, and as a “if it’s put in front of you, you have to eat it” chap I went for it. Cindy tried but didn’t help much. Then came a humungous salad and I think a 44 gallon drum of beans. Cindy still not helping much. Alarm bells were going off, but the sound was deadened by the whole basket of bread I had to get through. Then the waitress came over and said words to the effect of “OMG did you just eat 6 people’s dinner? That was for the whole table!” Yes, but why are you only now bringing them plates I would have asked if I wasn’t in a food coma. Never mind, now that the rules were clearly understood they fed the four ladies and we had a fantastic night, with the only real victim my waistband.
Day 120 was simple, back to the Meridian hotel we’d stayed at for a few days when Cindy’s gear changing pivot plate had chucked it in. Up north and through the south-east corner of Oregon before breaking into the Snake River valley and all its agriculture, it was like a homecoming with onion spillage everywhere. Thoughts of stopping and picking up some of the nice big onions from the side of the road had to be pushed aside – of course they would be super-duper roasted or BBQed in butter, but how could that really happen at the Meridian hotel? It couldn’t, dammit. Stop noticing them. Into the hotel without any onions, again the homecoming was strong with the hotel staff recognising us. This hotel was probably one of the best of the entire trip, with power points and USB outlets exactly where we wanted them, and the holiest of holies of a tub of steel-cut oatmeal at breakfast. The steel-cut oatmeal concept was a common subject of conversation. How does oatmeal cut with steel lift itself above oatmeal cut with any other hardened edge? Why is it better than flint, Mycenaean bronze arrowhead, sharpened bamboo, cast iron, or broken Victoria Bitter stubbie cut oatmeal? The answer doesn’t come easily by just eating it.
Never mind the oatmeal cutting philosophy, Day 121 was about dropping the bikes into Triumph Boise for a major service each. But more on that later in what everyone is now begging to be the finale.
travellingbennetts 