2021 MOTORCYCLE TRIP DAY ONE

The funny thing about motorcycle rides is how much time we put into planning them. We plan our routes, our side trips, our downtime. We pour over maps and look for twisty roads, then check them closely to see if they are paved. 

We plan our planning even. We set aside time for the planning and then we plan some more.

And never does it go to plan.

Because that is not what motorcycling is all about. At least not solo motorcycling.

I travel alone on my bike.

Most of the time that is the way I like it. 

It’s quiet. It’s without drama. It’s without small talk or meaningless interactions meant to dispel the silence.

I like silence and cannot do small talk.

Ever.

So I ride alone.

And due to that fact, I can change my plans in a heartbeat. No checking with anyone else. “I wanna go left today…” and off I go.

Plans be damned.

I’ll make new ones when I get to wherever I end up.

Occasionally I meet someone along the way and we have a perfectly short and polite conversation. Usually one centered around the fact that we are both outside on a motorcycle.

This trip was no different in many respects than most of my previous trips. I get on the motorcycle in the wee hours in Phoenix and head north. Wee hours because it is hot as hell in the sunshine, north because that is where it is less hot.

I have three escape routes north. Highway 87 to Payson where I decide if I am going through Utah or Colorado. I can make that decision other places along the route but that is the one where it makes the most sense.

The other route is Highway 60 northeast through Showlow and then over to New Mexico.

Where it is less hot.

Well, to be fair about it, almost anywhere else is less hot than Phoenix.

This trip saw me leaving the house at 5 AM, Tuesday, August 3. This is, well, according to the plan that I planned.

I headed north.

I went left through Payson and headed to Flagstaff. It was remarkably cool the entire ride.

Except that first hour heading out of Phoenix… already in the 90’s at 6AM.

As far as motorcycle roads go, from Payson to Flagstaff is a pretty good one. Mostly gentle turns, but a lot of them, and spectacular forest scenery. Elevation is over 6000 feet and the air is clean and cool.

Recent forest fire damage is now up to the road near Strawberry and Pine, and I can only imagine how terrified those folks were when that inferno was raging.

The bike is in tip-top condition this morning.

Got a new tire on the back, some fresh fluids, a full engine check, and a spanking new oil filter and crankcase of oil.

This is my first day on a motorcycle in quite a few months so I am gently getting used to it. Earlier in the summer I took a full day of motorcycle instruction in advanced riding techniques and they are coming in handy so far.

I practice a few U-turns in a parking lot in Payson, and then some slow-speed maneuvering between the parking lines. 20 minutes and I am getting it back pretty well.

This will come in very handy later in the journey.

Flagstaff traffic is crazy busy when I ride into the first of many road work challenges. This one has the traffic narrow to one lane and then we have to go through stoplight after stoplight in a narrow, choking pack of cagers on their phones.

We finally break clear of that and begin the turn to head north up through the Reservation. 

Highway 89.

What a wonderful road. It starts near Wickenburg, AZ and heads north to the Canadian border just east of Glacier. I have ridden every mile of it at one point on my journey.

Wait… no, there is still a patch from Yellowstone up to Glacier that is on my list.

Next year.

North on 89 wipes out any thoughts of twisties and wide sweeping curves. Nope, it is pretty much a straight shot. 

Through some of the most spectacular scenery on the planet.

It is hard to explain the feeling I have toward this land. It is mystical, magical, lonely, desolate, and beautiful. This land seems to not have changed much since its creation back when the meteors were causing hell on this floating ball of dirt.

Some of the landforms were created by dirt falling from the skies after the meteor hit what is now the Gulf of Mexico. Still in piles, still looking like someone dripped them onto the land.

Cliffs have sheer walls with the rocks at the base all but as perfect as the day they dropped eons ago.

My favorite place in the world is up here a ways.

The Vermillion Cliffs is a formidable edge of a plateau that begins in the rock deserts of southern Utah. It is home to slot canyons, incredible natural carvings (look up “the Wave”), and a rich history of early inhabitants.

89A gives me an opportunity to see them every time I go to Utah. I could go up through Page and get to Kanab a bit faster, but why.

I am me. On a motorcycle. I don’t need to get anywhere ‘faster’.

This part of Arizona is also hot. While not as hot as Phoenix, it is still hot. I stop to hydrate every hour, and use that time to get off the bike and move around. 

Moving around once per hour at least is good for geezers. Prevents a lot of nasty crap that can happen when you sit for long periods of time.

I stopped on the north side of the Marble Canyon bridge and found a bit of shade to sit under and have another bottle of water.

That’s when it happened. 

A small bus carrying a girls cheerleading team from somewhere near the coast pulls up to me and asks if I would like to help them work the kinks out.

“You can help reach the hard to get areas…” said one perky blonde.

OK, no.

That didn’t happen.

That was just the heat. It was actually a very nice Sheriff asking if I was OK. 

“Just cooling off,” I said and he smiled and took off.

Probably to stop that bus full of cheerleaders.

At the far west end of the Vermillion cliffs, the road begins a winding climb from the heat-filled desert valley to a far cooler climate of the Kaibab Plateau and pine forest. You can feel the heat melt away and be replaced by much cooler temps.

By the time I reach Jacob’s Lake it is in the low 80’s and far more pleasant than the previous three hours or so.

Kanab is the destination, and it is still early. I figure I can spend some time at the outlook just before descending off of the Kaibab Plateau. It was surely going to be much warmer in Kanab, so I decided to hang around in the cool for as long as I could.

Devastation. 

A fire has cleared the forest along the edge of the Kaibab. Across the road it jumped and everything, including the lookout, was burned and decimated.

These are moments of quiet reflection. Moments of rage, and sadness combined with the utterly hopeless understanding that we expect so much from things that have no understanding of expectations.

The forests are there until they aren’t.

Whether by man’s hand or lightning or some combustion somewhere, the forests are not immortal. They are not ‘ours’ any more than we expect ourselves to be immortal.

I ride down the west side and into Fredonia thinking about how that part of the world, that tiny, tiny part, is changed forever by a simple element; fire.

The bike is purring along.

My bike likes 65 MPH. It just gets smooth with a nice quiet rumble at that speed.

I pass several cops going east with lights flashing and eventually a Paramedic’s vehicle joins the high-speed race to where I just was.

The forest changed in what would be considered an instant in the grand scheme of things. 

I think someone was experiencing a change of some sort behind me.

Up on the mountain somewhere, change was as inevitable as that fire was.

I decided to forgo a night in Kanab, it was still early.

There was plenty of sunshine left, so I got some gas an a cold diet soda and decided on a night in Cedar City. This would save me two hours on the following day and that meant more cool morning riding through the deserts of central Nevada.

Taking 89 north I looked for the Cedar City turnoff.

That road – from 89 to Cedar City – is one of my favorites. All the way up to a high pass somewhere around 10,000 feet. Along the way there is incredible forest scenery and the majestic Navajo Lake. Which was pretty low.

All the water is low in this area of the world.

The drought is taking its toll. The worst in recorded times out here.

The big lakes that we expected to be full forever… aren’t full anymore.

Navajo is fighting the good fight, and I wish it well.

The bike is beginning to feel like it is welded to my ass at this point and when I rolled up on the hotel – which was conveniently on the road I am going out in the morning – I quickly checked in, unpacked, and hit the shower.

Before turning in, I gave the bike a once-over. Check the tires, look tt over for any leaks or problems. As expected, good for the day.

My plans are to leave before dawn to get a jump on the road.

Tomorrow will take me right by “Great Basin National Park” and I am wondering if I will take some time out to go and see it.

For now, some writing and a few phone calls to make.

See you tomorrow.