Monthly Archives: October 2014

Day 155 – 2014-10-21, Tuesday – Flagstaff, AZ to Albuquerque, NM

Travel day. Big one today, a little shorter tomorrow.

Stopped in Gallup, NM, for fuel – into a Love’s truck stop. First time they’ve disappointed me. They declined The Bear’s card. Not really a surprise, it’s supposed to be cut off today (don’t ask – it’s related to the Home Depot breach. YES – months ago, and it turns off today. WTF?). Ok, so I try my card. Also declined, same message – “see attendant”. Hmmm. So she heads up to the office (from fuel bay #22!), and finds out, oh, no, cards, cash, it doesn’t matter. You waltz your happy ass up here, then you go fill up, then you come back and get your change or your card and receipt. FUCK THAT SHIT! Time to go across the street.

GREAT news across the street – for one, fuel is 21 cents cheaper per gallon! Woohoo! For another, attached is this place:

Which had this:

I have to drive to a truck stop outside Gallup, NM to find the BEST Indian food I’ve ever had! Go figure. That’s Indians with dots, not feathers. I don’t give my money to the ones with feathers if I can possibly help it. That’s who ran Love’s, so it’s good they jacked us around. Don’t be nice, don’t get my money.

The funny thing was the bathroom. I walk in and see this:

It’s hard to tell, but if a guy isn’t six feet or taller, he’s peeing in the toilet. The REALLY funny part was this, written on the right wall:

“Damn tall plumber” indeed!

Made it into town late afternoon, went to Best Buy to get more movies, then went out to eat. ANOTHER great find! Cervantes, which I expected to be a Spanish restaurant, but no, it’s a Mexican Food restaurant, and excellent food it is! What a great way to end the day!

Home and to bed, get me some beauty sleep!

Day 154 – 2014-10-20, Monday – Flagstaff, AZ

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Today we ride! Yeah, my hip is killing me, but the hand is much better, so we’re gonna give it a go. A nice, flat, easy trail to tandem on. Off to the Campbell Mesa Trail Loops we go! This is a map of that trail system:

First, we did the loop to the left, which is the Continental Loop, and we rode it counterclockwise. Don’t know why, we just did. Fairly flat, a couple of rocky sections, but it went well. Nice, boring ride – no crashes! Next, we rode, again counterclockwise, the bottom loop, which is the Walnut Meadows Loop, then it ends where the actual Campbell Mesa Loop Trail continues, and we took that on back to the trailhead. Only about ten miles, all fairly flat, only two or three spots where we ran out of steam on the rocky sections of climbs and had to get off for a bit, but all very rideable. Good ride, and good workout. It’s tough, wrestling a tandem in the dirt!

So, after the ride – Satchmo’s! Decent Cajun food, though the portions were a bit small, but we need to diet anyway …

After that, off to Sedona. Hear a lot about it, so we had to go see it, and maybe do a ride. Well, the scenery going there is gorgeous, as is everything around Sedona … but, the town itself? UGH! Reminded me of West Yellowstone, or Jackson Hole, there were so many damned tourists there! Can’t stand that. When we come back, we’ll stay in Flagstaff, and drive to Sedona for every ride. Never did ride, it was getting late and we were pretty beat, so we just went home, got some movies at Best Buy, some groceries at Safeway, and filled up the truck. Eat a salad, watch some Arrow, Season Two, and off to bed! Traveling again tomorrow!

Day 153 – 2014-10-19, Sunday – Hurricane, UT to Flagstaff, AZ

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Early rise for the travel day, and on the road before 9:00 – YES! Long day today, as will the next two travel days also be long ones, but we do get a day of rest in Flagstaff.

Got in mid-afternoon, and it seems we may have gained an hour, so what to do? Hit a bike shop! Looked for and found Absolute Cycles, and got the skinny on the local trails, both here and in Sedona, which is only about 30 miles away, or so. Tomorrow, we ride!

We asked about places to eat, and were pointed to Satchmo’s, a New Orleans type restaurant, and that sounded good, so off we went … except they’re closed on Sundays! Rats! Maybe tomorrow. Off to the next place, which happened to be Beaver Street Brewing Company Whistle Stop. Not a bad place, decent food, and beer on tap, so all was well! So, we’re done eating, ready to go home and get some well-earned rest, and what do we see? RAIN! Yes, in Flagstaff, AZ. When we’re here. Imagine that! And I have proof:

Yup, the curse is still there! It was a hard rain, but we’ll try riding anyway, tomorrow. Got a feeling things dry out pretty fast around here.

Day 152 – 2014-10-18, Saturday – Hurricane, UT and St. George, UT

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Ride day! off to St. George today – a MUCH bigger town, so we’ll see how that goes.

I hate addresses in Utah. The bike shop yesterday was at the corner of East 100 South Street and South 100 East Street. Try that on your GPS. Hell, it’s confusing just standing there!

Anyway, first stop today was a bike shop on West 100 South Street in St. George. More confusion. Red Rock Cycles, nice folks, with a cool bike sculpture out front:

Got directions, food and gear, and we’re good to go. We’re going to try the Prospector Trail on the tandem.

Day 151 – 2014-10-17, Friday – Hurricane, UT

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Today WE RIDE!!!

Yup, actually did! Not terribly far, only about 9 point some miles, but it was enough to make my wrist hurt. Hopefully we can ride again tomorrow. I think so, tomorrow’s is a kiddie trail.

Here are some photos:

This was all the way up the road, where the jEM trail intersected with it. We had just come up the JEM trail – NOT the recommended riding direction, though it IS bidirectional. Riding up took a while, hopefully the ride back will be much quicker.

This is some of the scenery out there:

The return was MUCH faster – by how much I’ll find out later when I run the GPS track. This is the bike at the parking lot after the JEM trail:

She’s got REAL dirt on her now! Second ride! This ride also finally puts us below $1K per mile – woohoo!

Here are a few more photos, taken from my video of the trail – those of you who know me even fairly well know I’m scared shitless of heights. I think I did pretty well to ride these sections:

And the WiFi at this KoA … SUCKS. One of the worst. Good news (if you can call it that) is that at least the lady told us it probably would not work. And she’s right. And I found out what is probably most of the problem – they’re using 802.11b!!! This is technology from 1999!!! And it pretty much only worked for a half-dozen folks, and here they have 100 sites!! Jeez, folks, at the very least bump it up to 802.11g, though preferably 802.11n! The stuff is pretty cheap these days! In other words, updates will be when I can get into town to use my hotspot, which also doesn’t work way out where the KoA is.

Day 150 – 2014-10-16, Thursday – Cannonville, UT to Hurricane, UT

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Travel day! And a short one, at that. Stopped in Tropic, just up the road from the KoA, to get some breakfast, then continued so we could get set up and go visit a bike shop, to find out where to ride.

Got in about mid-afternoon, went in to Hurricane proper, to Over the Edge Sports – yes, they’re affiliated with the shop in Fruits. Sadly they can’t do the WTF (Welcome To Fruita) stickers, so they have WTH (Welcome To Hurricane) instead. Well, as I told them, they COULD do WTF stickers, but then people would be like “WTF?”. Yeah. They didn’t laugh either … though they DID chuckle a bit.

They told us about a couple of trails, and tomorrow, we’ll go check them out. BUT, before that, we thought we’d shoot over to Zion National Park to check IT out. Wow. Here we are, after the middle of October, and it is CROWDED. AND, to get to the good parts, you HAVE to take a shuttle. Well, that’s not going to happen. I’ll bet the scenery is spectacular, here’s a shot I got getting there:

Then, we headed back toward town. Well, it just so happens that “on the way back to town” took us past the trail we want to ride tomorrow, so … DETOUR!

We found the road, and “A” parking spot, but no sign (literally) of the trailhead. Damn. Ok, so we kept going out that dirt road, because on the map it shows the trail intersects that road, so … no signs. Then, out of the blue, a sign for Quarry Trail Head! Which is not on the map. Damn! Ok, keep driving, we’ll se what we come up against – and then, a rider! We pulled up to her slowly and then stopped, and asked her about it … turns out the trail intersected about 50 feet beyond where we were stopped now! Too funny. She told us a bit about it, and we let her get on with her ride, while we headed back. On the way out, we saw a guy walking his bike toward the highway, well, we HAD to stop and offer assistance! He’d flatted, and just wanted a ride to his car – no problem! Got his bike on the roof rack, and headed back up the road we’d just taken, but then he told us where the REAL parking area and trail head were! Not far from the parking area we found, but you can’t see it from there. Knowledge is a powerful thing! Took him all the way up to his car, with him repeatedly offering to chip in for fuel. Just pay it forward. If you find someone else who needs help, just help them out. Here’s Jarret? I think that’s his name:

I’m horrible with names. I asked him to leave a comment, hopefully he does, and I’ll know for sure how he spells it.

And that was our travel day!

Day 149 – 2014-10-15, Wednesday – Cannonville, UT

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Well, we did not ride today – again! My wrist still hurts, and both of us had sore legs, so we wimped out. Tomorrow we leave for Hurricane, and there we WILL RIDE.

Day 148 – 2014-10-14, Tuesday – Cannonville, UT

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New day, let’s go see what happens!

Canyonlands was ok, but nothing to really write home about:

So, with so little to show, we went to Kodachrome Basin State Park. I’d heard wonders. Well, the park spoke to me, but I didn’t care for what it said:

Thanks. With that, we left, though I did get a shot on the way back home:

Nothing spectacular. Oh, well. Tomorrow, we ride!

Day 147 – 2014-10-13, Monday – Moab, UT to Cannonville, UT

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Moving day. Got a fairly early start, then about 60 or so miles out of town we stopped for brunch. Want to get in early so we can go visit Bryce Canyon National Park. We’re going to be here two full days, so we can really get a look at Bryce Canyon NP and Kodachrome Basin State Park. Heard good things about both.

Got to the KoA around 16:00, so that leaves plenty of time to go to Bryce – we ditch the trailer pronto, and head out!

First stop is usually to the Visitor Center, so we can get a map and some advice as to what to go see. “So, what’s good to photograph?” I ask. “Not much”. Hmmm. Not what I’ve heard, so I guess I’ll have to just see for myself.

Well, maybe he didn’t lie after all. Or maybe I’ve seen too many colored rocks recently, but this place just didn’t do it for me. I did get some shots, but none of them really grabbed me. Maybe in the morning it’ll be different, what with the direction of the light …

Anyway, here’s some of what I got. This is an overview shot at Bryce Point: