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Day One – Sunday
My brother bought his own Volusia a few months back and we finally made a plan to head out together on a road trip. Since I was teaching 9 weeks of summer school and he was planning a wedding and changing jobs, it would have to be a short one. We decided that I would ride out on Sunday and pick him up in
Phoenix and then we'd head out somewhere.
The trip out started easily enough. I left AV about 4:30am and headed out to Phoenix. It quickly became hot as hell and stopping to fill up with gas was torture in the heat. I kept hydrating as I rode, however, and eventually had to pull over to pee. Somewhere in the middle of the AZ desert I saw a rest stop and went from 80mph to 0, parked the bike and jumped off to head for the bathroom. About halfway there, a car began honking urgently and I looked back to see my bottom tailpipe on fire! Ran back, tried to start her up but forgot the kickstand was down, jumped off and emptied the saddlebag, pulled it off, and kicked at the pipes to put it out. Finally died down and I loaded up and headed out to my brother's house......very paranoid and watching it closely. So closely, in fact, that I forgot that I had reset my mileage late after the last fill up and ended up running out of gas 3 miles from his house.....LOL...so much for a fun and easy start to a vacation! After he brought me some gas, we headed to his house and got ready for the trip and hung out a bit. It was great to see him and kinda funny to see him as nervous as I was when I took my first big ride.
DAY TWO:
Got to bed early, got up at 4 am, and pulled out of the house right at 5 am...almost. As we were heading out of the filling station, I started to put on my ipod and I heard him say, "Dammit!"....He forgot his...:) Back to the house for the second big start...:) As we got about 1/2 hour down the road, I looked down just in time to see my highway peg drop off the bike. Doubled back, picked it up, and mentally scheduled a Home Depot visit for Flagstaff to pick up a new bolt. Quite the auspicious start for a 5 day trip.....but worth it once we saw the desert sunrise...seemed to make everything much better!
Our first stop was at Denny’s after we had 100 or so miles under our belt. I always like to get a few miles under my belt before eating breakfast, and there’s nothing like a big road breakfast a few cups of coffee to get the day rolling!
Having fun on Highway 17 heading North towards Flagstaff! We look good!
Jody's Self-Portrait
Highway 17 is a beautiful road for an interstate highway!
Getting ready for rain….a storm had started to chase us as we left Flagstaff and it looked like it was going to catch us. Lightning tends to make you ride faster…..:)
Here’s one for you, Polo!
Jody's first ride in the rain...now I have to order him the official Wetbutt patch!
Light at the end of the tunnel?!
This is all there is to see on the Hopi reservation in Northern Arizona…beautiful, but not when you’re looking for a gas station and the closest one you’re sure of is 90 more miles…and you have about 80 miles worth of gas left! Time to tuck behind the shield and massage the throttle! (Yep…..I made it…with .05 gallons of gas left in the tank…J)
Crossing into Utah and pausing at the start of the Grand Canyon on the Glen Canyon Dam. At least I have a full tank of gas!!!
Highway 89 between Kanab and Long Valley Junction in Utah and highway 14 between Long Valley Junction and Cedar City are some beautiful roads! We’re almost to the campsite after 10 hours on the road!
Bikes unloaded at Cedar Point Campground off of highway 14. Great place that we pretty much had to ourselves for the week!
Our campsite:
Our kitchen:
Home, Sweet home….for the next few days at least….:) Time to head into Cedar City to buy some food, beer, and $3 Walmart pillows that we can use for a couple of days!
DAY THREE:
Got up early and headed into Cedar City to visit the local Suzuki shop we saw the night before. The service manager was a guy named Steve who, although he was too booked to do the job, helped me access Briman’s site to refresh my memory on rejetting and sold me a smaller jet to take care of my rich running condition. I stripped the bike down in their parking lot, rejetted and cleaned the carb, and threw it back together. Had a little scare when the valves starting clacking loudly on startup, but I topped off the oil (another mistake by me in not preparing adequately for this trip before I left) and the bike was fine and didn’t sound like it was drowning anymore and didn’t smell like it was ready to explode either! Nice to know how to fix these things when you’re on the road, and I owe it all to the Vol and VR members through the years that helped me learn. Thanks, folks!
Riding West towards Cedar City and the Suzuki shop. Skies looked like this most of the week, but very little rain dropped on us as we road. It was actually pretty cool!
Bike put back together just before we fired her up. Forgot to take pics as we were working, however...:)
Some pics of Highway 14 from Cedar City heading East to the campsite. Still running from the rain, but a great road with some great views!
Made it back to camp and had to set up for rain. Tarps are a biker’s best friend…cheap, easy, and you can use them anywhere….did I say tarps?
After the rain slowed, we headed up Highway 14 to catch some of the spectacular views and take some pics. Great day to ride!
Navajo Lake…formed by volcanic action with no visible outlet. I plan on camping and fishing this one next time we’re up here! I think these are my best shots from the trip and I'm making a poster out of one of these!
Artistic shot!
Overlook of Zion National Park from Highway 14.
Jody at one of the many mountain meadows.
DAY THREE:
We broke camp and headed up 14 to 148N towards Cedar Breaks National Monument. Amazing place!
Packed up and ready to roll!
Me at Cedar Breaks National Monument
Amazing Place! Beautiful....and it changes as the sun's rays change...
Jody at the Cedar Breaks overlook:
Panorama shot...add all these together to get an idea of how BIG this place is!
Headed East on 143 towards Panguitch Lake. Almost no cars, great scenery!
Panguitch Lake
My standard trip shot…..I always try to find a road where we can do this without getting run over!
Stopped in Panguitch and ate at the Cowboy Smokehouse Café. This place was recommended by the Great Rides of the Southwest motorcycling book. Built in the mid 1870’s, it has great food and history all rolled into one. Lunch was Pinto Bean, Mesquite smoked brisket, sausage, ribs, chicken, and peach cobbler. Glad I just had to ride after that since I surely couldn’t walk too far…
Good thoughts on that sign…but they forgot "Good Motorcycle"…
After lunch, we headed out Highway 12 towards Bryce Canyon. Some great roads, interesting rock formations, and a campground just outside the park where you can stay in Tipis. Pretty cool…I’ll have to bring the kids back to this one.
Since we were running short on time, we skipped the interior of Bryce this time and headed down 89 towards Zion. Southern Utah is awesome!
Mountain goats on the side of the road.
Two of the tunnels in Zion…pretty fun and one of them is veerrrryyy looonnnggg.
Traffic Jam for the longest tunnel.
The first pic is of a viewing hole inside the tunnel and the second is the hole from the outside. The tunnel took a good 6-7 minutes to ride through and is drilled right through the monster mountain you see in the second pic!
The end of the tunnel and the switchbacks that dropped us into the park. Awesome! This is also where my neutral light stopped working....one more little glitch on the road. The sending wire had finally worn through due to the many miles and its position on the bottom front of the transmission case. No big deal, but I had to be careful for the rest of the trip.
Heading through and out of Zion.
Finally stopped in Zion and picked up a hotel room where we washed 4 days of grime and road off of our bodies. Nice to be in a room, take a shower, and walk across the street for some pizza and a couple pitchers of ice cold beer!
DAY FOUR:
Today we road out of Springdale to the town of Hurricane where we split up.
I headed South on the 15 to get home to my fatherly duties and Jody headed South on Highway 389 to the alternate 89. He thought it was going to be all desert, but found out that it was an even better route than we had chosen to go north on earlier in the week. Racing seven storms and all alone for the first time on his first road trip, he cowboy’d up and road on…even detouring on his own to the Grand Canyon.
One more pic for the road...Can ya tell we're related???!!!
Jody's final day and pics from the Grand Canyon:
My final day consisted of 115 degree heat through Vegas, a fast-moving front whose winds almost dead-stopped my bike at 70 mph….I had to downshift to third and roll on the throttle just to keep the bike moving forward! An hour later and wind, rain, and light hail, I was back to the searing heat and my built-in squeeze bottle of water that doubled as my mist system. Made it to Riverside by 5pm, stopped at the ice rink to watch my stepson’s practice and cool off, and rode home about 9pm that night in the cool night air.
Great trip!!!!!
The Elkins brothers in action…..until we ride again…
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