Long Beach (again) - tour end

We left Palm Springs in what was going to be another day in the desert in sweltering heat. We were only about a two hour ride from the end of our tour. 

We headed out on Hwy 111 and then linked up with Interstate 10 until Riverside where we stopped for a break. From there we took Hwy 91 and descended through the Sierra Nevada mountains towards Los Angeles. We merged on to Hwy 710 and this took us to our final stop of the tour - Long Beach, our original departure point back on Tuesday, 2nd July.

We will spend 3 days in Long Beach. The bike will be taken to a self-service car wash bay tomorrow and cleaned thoroughly. NZ Customs are very particular about 'foreign matter' being imported back into New Zealand and you can be charged a hefty fee to have your bike cleaned properly if it is not up to standard.

The Harley has served us well this tour, it didn't miss a beat and gave us no problems. It carried us through 25 states across the USA and Canada and clocked up 16,000 kilometres (10,000 miles)!

The bike will be 'crated' at the Mainfreight USA depot on Tuesday, ready for shipping back to New Zealand. Tracee and I fly out of Los Angeles on Wednesday evening. With the time zone change we land back in New Zealand in the early hours of Friday morning (23 August).

Like our last tour of this great country in 2010, this has been another one of those great 'life' experiences, where we can say we ticked a number of 'must do' things off our 'bucket list' such as; Canada, New York, Route 66 as a few examples of some of the many highlights.

There is nothing like traveling through North America on a Harley Davidson. To have the ability to view scenery without the constraints to your vision that a car gives, the smells and the exhilaration of speed and wind in your face (bugs aren't so great though!). The only real downside is the daily routine of packing and unpacking the bike and the adverse weather you can be exposed to at times - but that is all part of the adventure. 

Like last time we will 'feed' off the memories of this trip for years to come. I know when I finished our 2010 tour I kept saying to myself; "Did we really just do that?". I feel much the same now. It has been a great experience, we met some great people and saw some amazing landscape - full of contrasts, from the Oregon coast, to the mountains of the Canadian Rockies, New York's Central Park, the forests of Virginia and Tennessee and the desert country of Arizona and California.

So, back to New Zealand we go and 'normal' life! Will there be another tour 3 years from now?

Palm Springs

With the prospect of baking in the heat in the desert not that appealing, we woke up at 5:00am and were on the road at around 5:45am to get as much of our ride over with before the heat climbed to an unbearable level as the day progressed. To give you an idea, the overnight low was around 82 Fahrenheit, or 28 Celsius, so it was still pretty warm when we left before dawn.

We started out on Interstate 40 west and then soon branched off on the historic Route 66 and rode for an hour through to Amboy where we stopped for a stretch and some water. This was where we said 'goodbye' to Route 66. We had enjoyed the many towns between Oklahoma City and Amboy that we had visited during our tour following the 'Mother Road' across 4 states. We took a photo of the iconic Roys Cafe/Motel, jumped back on the bike, turned left at the intersection and rode another hour south through the desert to the town of Twentynine Palms (I wonder how it got it's name!!). We stopped for fuel and breakfast and then carried on along Hwy 62 to the town of Joshua Tree. Now as a U2 fan, I had to do my Bono impersonation and have my photo taken next to a Joshua Tree in an attempt to replicate the cover of the U2 'Joshua Tree' album (the photo shoot for the album cover occurred here in the Joshua Tree National Park area). I didn't quite pull it off as I am about half a metre taller than Bono - oh well!

We rode through the Yucca Valley and past a huge wind farm with rows and rows of giant turbines. After about an hour of riding since we left Twentynine Palms, we arrived in Palm Springs. We took our riding jackets off as the heat was climbing steadily by now and we spent some time looking around Palm Springs (short rides between air conditioned shops!). We were fortunate that we could also check in to our motel early at 1:30pm to escape the worst of the days heat! 

Needles

It was a nice cool morning and a clear sky when we left Flagstaff.  We were at an elevation of around 7000 feet above sea level, so cooler mornings are to be expected at this altitude. We rode through the town of Williams on Route 66 and then after an hour and a half of riding, we stopped at the famous Route 66 town of Seligman. This is a town that has really embraced its Route 66 heritage and has made a concerted effort to be true to the era Route 66 represented. You will see shops all down the main street that have classic cars out front, mannequins dressed in 1950’s era fashion and a plethora of gift and souvenir shops chock full of Route 66 memorabilia, clothing etc. It was very well done and we saw tourist buses stopping, which must be great for the local economy. Seligman has been bypassed by the interstate like a large number of other small communities along the original Route 66, so it shows what can be achieved if the business community pulls together and markets what is unique about the town to make it a destination point.

We had a cold drink in one of the stores and then made our way to Kingman where we called into the Harley Davidson Dealership for a look around. At this stage of the ride we had been descending down from the mountain divide and the landscape was becoming more arid and barren. The temperature was also heating up! We had intentionally restricted our ride to about 3 hours riding time today, as we knew we would be entering Mojave Desert country and there have been extreme heat warnings. 

After Kingman we had about an hour of riding to make it across the state line into California and our stop for the day at Needles. As we rode into the start of the desert there was a strong wind that made the air feel like a furnace in your face. I counted the km’s down until we finally made it to Needles around mid-day. Tracee was starting to get very hot legs from the heat off the bikes pipes! By the time we got off the bike the temperature was 114 Fahrenheit or 46 Celsius! And in this part of the country the temperature tends to keep climbing as the day gets longer!

We grabbed some lunch, fueled the bike up and then were fortunate enough to get an early check-in to our motel for the day. We are now hunkered down with the air conditioning unit down as cold as it can go and it is struggling to keep the room cool!

Flagstaff

We left our Wigwam motel and headed west around 7am. After about a half hours ride we pulled into Winslow for breakfast. I recommend the Falcon Diner – a great feed to set you up for the days ride. I had cornbeef hash, scrambled eggs, hashbrowns and lashings of toast and strong coffee! Tracee had the pancakes which also got her seal of approval. There was another reason for calling into this historic Route 66 town. I am a big fan of the Eagles band and Winslow inspired a legendary verse in one of their most popular songs - ‘Take it Easy’, so I just had to get my photo taken ‘Standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona….’! The town has done it well, there is actually a corner in downtown Winslow (along Route 66) dedicated to the famous song. There is even a flat-bed Ford parked at the curb!

After Winslow we continued west another half an hour and then detoured south for about 10kms to another famous landmark – the Meteor Crater. I had seen pictures of this massive hole in the ground, but to see it for real is ‘mind blowing’ – to imagine the power and impact required from a giant rock falling from space to create a hole in the earth that is 700 feet deep, 4000 feet across and about 2.5 miles around its perimeter. The scientific ‘boffins’ estimate that this hole required a meteorite about 150 feet across, weighing several hundred thousand tons, traveling at 26,000 miles per hour, generating an explosive force greater than 20 million tons of TNT!

We made a fuel stop before rejoining the highway and then rode for another half hour before detouring north up Hwy 64. We rode for about an hour and stopped at Tusayan for lunch. It was only another few kilometres further north and we were at the Grand Canyon. We visited here during our 2010 tour and had it on our ‘wish list’ to come back. Like the Meteor Crater, photos do not do the Grand Canyon justice. To stand close to the rim of the viewing areas and look at a landscape of deep canyons, variety of colours and rock formations as far as the horizon, has to be seen in person to be appreciated. 

We had been experiencing cooler (but pleasant) riding conditions today, with the odd shower of rain. We soon dried out in between showers. However, at the Grand Canyon a thunder and lightning storm was starting to ‘fire up’ close to where we were, so we decided to jump back on the bike and make our way to Flagstaff - our stop for the day.

Holbrook

We continued west out of Albuquerque with the sun shining, nice and warm riding conditions and not a rain cloud in sight (for a change)! We stopped for lunch in the historic Rout 66 town of Gallup. Again, we saw evidence of quirky, Route 66 themed buildings, although apparently one or two of the more historic buildings were allowed to fall into a state of disrepair and ended up being burnt down by the local fire brigade for fire practice! Such a shame!

It was only about 34 kms further up the road that we crossed the state line into Arizona. After about an hour of riding we detoured through the Petrified Forest National Park. This park is known for finds of fossilized remains of dinosaurs and also for petrified tree logs that were washed down into what once were flood plains. A mixture of silt, mud and volcanic ash buried the logs. Silica-laden groundwater seeped through the logs, replacing the original wood tissues with silica and petrifying them. The landscape was very interesting and reminded me of the Badlands of South Dakota.

The day was heating up by this stage (it got to 98 Fahrenheit or 37 Celsius). The park is a 45km ride from the entrance to the southern exit and then it was only about another half hour ride to our stop for the day at Holbrook. 

We decided to get into the spirit of Route 66 and booked a room at the famous WigWam Motel. Each unit is made of concrete and shaped like a WigWam. Each unit has a permanently parked classic car outside to add to the 1950’s vibe of the place. Very cool and a fun place to stay!

Albuquerque

We woke this morning to pouring rain (sigh!). We had breakfast and waited until it eased to a light drizzle before donning our wet weather gear and heading west to continue our journey following Route 66.

Just out of Amarillo we pulled over and took some photos of the 'Cadillac ranch'. This is basically an 'art' sculpture in the middle of a paddock comprised of 10 Cadillac cars buried nose down in the ground! They are 'base' painted every so often and the public are welcome to graffiti them. Unfortunately the paddock was a bog because of the rain, so we couldn't walk across and ended up just taking photos from the side of the road in the rain.

Another interesting stop was the small town of Glenrio, right on the state line between Texas and New Mexico. This town is now officially a 'ghost town' with derelict, abandoned buildings and is a great example of the 'death blow' the opening of the Interstate was to many towns along Route 66.

The town of Tucumcari was a great example of the 'art deco' flavour to the garages, motels and diners that can be found along Route 66 - very kitsch with bright pastel colours everywhere and quirky themes, such as the Mexican Hat diner and Blue Swallow Motel. It almost felt like we were riding through a town in the 1950's - very 'Back to the Future'!

We met a couple of bikers from Arizona who were traveling east to take part in a 'wounded veterans' tour. A great couple of guys to chat to. Tracee and I enjoyed the ride today, the early morning rain had disappeared by the time we crossed the state line into New Mexico (we also gained another hour with the time zone change to 'Mountain Time').