A Very Good Day

From: Flagstaff, AZ
To: Needles, CA (aww, I spoiled the surprise ending...)
Mileage: About 606kms

I woke up feeling very tired.  I didn't get much sleep - at about 1:30-2:00am I had some foreign guy using skype and sitting just outside my room.  He was loud enough that he woke me up, and I donned some pants, went outside, and told him to take it downstairs to the lobby.  Then at about 3:30am I disturbed again by some (drunk?) guys arguing with the hotel staff about getting into their room and having lost the key, etc.  Then from about 4:00am on, there was a ridiculously loud banging noise as though someone was smashing down a door.  And there was yelling and cursing.  I think a drunk (homeless?) guy locked himself in the bathroom downstairs and claimed he couldn't figure out how to get out

After breakfast, I went to get gas.  I noticed that the bike was really underpowered and the exhaust smelled rich.  I pulled her up to a tire filling station and cleaned the air filter.  It was dirty and somewhat sandy from desert wind storms, plus I was at a high altitude.  I gassed up and off I went.

I took the scenic route north (highway 180).  The ride was amazing - a nice easy winding path through a wooded forest:

The 180 ended and I followed the 64 North.  I arrived at:
 

BAM!

YUP!  The grandest of all the canyons!  Well, it's no Valles Marineris.  I parked the bike and walked to the canyon rim.  Here are some more pics: (sorry, for some reason the server rejected a bunch of them, so I don't have my best pics up)

The greenish part is actually the Colorado River

I was completely blown away when I first saw this thing.  I didn't even take a photo, I just kind of stared at it for a while, unable to comprehend.  I found the Grand Canyon was captivating and surreal.  At first it really does look fake.  Since I couldn't actually understand the sheer enormity of this thing, I couldn't properly gauge distances, and it just kind of looked two dimensional.  But after staring for a while (and giving my brain time to process), I started to realize the scale of the canyon, and it started to come to life.  It just doesn't seem to end!  It stretches as far as I could see, and when you think you're looking a the bottom, you notice that the part you think is the end has an edge that overlooks a huge canyon.  It's stunning though, and I was pretty well taken aback.  On the way back, I passed 5000km since I started.  This is where I was at the time:

Anyway, I needed to push on, so I took the 64 south until I hit I-40.  I took it to the next town: Ash Fork.  From there I followed the longest continuous stretch of the old Route 66 still in existence.  It runs all the way from Ash Fork to Topock, making a stop in Oatman.  This was a brilliant ride, and ended up being an incredible experience.  The ride started nice and easy with pleasing landscape and scenery.  I gassed up in Saligman and chatted with a Canadian who'd been living in the US for over 50 years.  I carried on and filled up again in Truxton, just to be safe.  From that point on, the road was just incredible.  In fact, it was probably the nicest road I've ever ridden.  It started nice and easy with beautiful scenery all the way to Kingman:

I have better pictuers, but I can't upload them.  Very annoying.

From Kingman to Topock was absolutely incredible... It starts as a simple ride through the desert, but it heads toward mountains.  I kept thinking "okay, where is the break between the mountains?".  But then all of a sudden, you reach the mountain, and the road starts climbing.  Unfortunately (and I really mean that!) the sun had just about set:

But this road was the most amazing road I've ever see, nevermind ridden or even driven!  It climbs up this mountain with these hairpin turns.  It's an historic old road, so it's not that well kept and it has an old fashioned feel to it.  It's up the side of a mountain, so there are rocks and gravel all over the road.  It's old, so it doesn't have a guard rail.  It's on the side of a mountain, so on one side of the road is a cliff face.  This is no amateur road, believe me.  But to make matters worse, I was riding it at night!  That was an ordeal, let me tell you.  I couldn't get good pictures at night, so this photo really doesn't do justice to the road:

This is a long exposure picture.  It was actually very dark in real life.

 

I kept calm and relaxed (and surprised myself in this regard), and I focussed and rode through it carefully.  It took me forever just to get to the top where I was expecting the town of Oatman.  But of course I had to come all the way back down the other side with more of the same hairpin turns.  I finally reached the town of Oatman, and I really wish I'd arrived during the day.  The town is an old, wild west sort of town, set in mountains!  I couldn't take proper pictures at night with gloves and a lack of time, but see if you can get the gist here:

Before setting out on this stretch of the road road, I called a campground ahead of me to see what the story was. I mentioned I'd be taking 66 through Oatman, and the lady said that I'd take longer because I'd have to drive slowly and watch out for wild donkeys.  I figured "yeah, okay lady... I'll watch out for wild donkeys..."  When I started on the road up the mountain toward Oatman, I saw a sign for "Donkey Crossing" (an image of a donkey).  I thought "that's ... weird...?" and continued.  I put myself on alert, but still thought it was crap.  Then I started noticing that I was dodging donkey #$%@ on the road.  .....  OK.  Then I started dodging frickin' donkeys!!!  Sadly, the pictures didn't work:

[Blogger keeps rejecting all my images.  It's VERY frustrating and taking up a hell of a lot of my time trying to upload]

So to recap, I was riding a mountainside road with tight, hairpin turns, gravel and rocks on the road, no guardrails, a cliff face on one side, at night.  And I was the only living soul on the road, aside from the donkeys (and bats).  Since it was so dangerous, I took it nice and slow and easy, so that it was late and dark by the time I finished.  I rounded off route 66 in Topock and deided to continue on to my campsite.  I was going to try a KOA (my first time).  I jumped on the interstate and pressed on.

A little way down the road, I actually crossed the state line and entered California!!  I also crossed into the Pacific time zone!

I found my campsite and called it a night.

I still need to post for Wednesday and Thursday, but I'm having a lot of trouble from Blogger.  It takes a long time to upload a single picture, and 90% of the time the server rejects my images.  I'll do my best though. Sorry, these images kind of suck, but they're the only ones I could upload.