The Great Motorcycle Road Trip!

I left Phoenix today about 11. Many thanks to Bo for putting me up for the past several days. Had a great time and met some really nice people. I took the back way from Phoenix to Wickenburg then up through Yarnell and on to Prescott then up through Sedona and finally arriving at the Grand Canyon. The ride was really hot most of the day. It was 102 in Wickenburg where I stopped for lunch. It was not real exciting until I got outside of Yarnell. A great climb up the mountain with about 15 miles of great twisites. Nice hot roads and great twisties is a great combination. After that is was relatively flat. Got to historic Prescott. Great old West feeling town complete with Saloons! After that it was relatively flat until south of Jerome. Jerome is a mining town that sits on the side of the mountain. The road south of Jerome is a little bumpy but the BMW handled it nicely. It was a great set of twisites as well!! After Jerome it was on to Sedona. Sedona is awesome. Laura was right, well worth seeing!

After Sedona I went straight up to Flagstaff the a little jaunt over and up to the Grand Canyon!  Yes it truely is awesome.  Made a quick ride out to catch the sunset.  You really cannot grasp the enormity of it until you actually see it.  Nature is a wonderful thing.  I am going to find out about doing a helicopter ride tomorrow-will let you all know if I do and how it goes.  Met a couple from England, Gary & Isabell.  Gary sells English antiques and repros to companies in the US.  They took the chopper ride over the Canyon today, said it was well worth it-think I will do it tomorrow if possible, they said it was quite the thrill! Tired-going to bed.

So I had the BMW serviced at Scottsdale BMW. Real good crew, they got me in and out real quick. Great knowledgeable staff. Got me a new seat since the low seat for the BMW was killing my butt!

I met a great guy there, Dave Long. Dave is retired and rides a really nice Harley. Also has a real cool hot rod that he is building. He invited me back to his house and sold me a spare Air Hawk seat for my butt. I tried it out on a 400 mile round trip today and yes, it is a lot better! I talked to Dave for about 2 hours at his housse and he was kind enough to supply me with maps and all the inside info on the cool rides all the way from Phoenix to North of the Grand Canyon all the way to Vegas. Thank you for your great hospitality Dave! He also told me where to get gas and eat, which is even more important, on the ride going to Flagstaff.

After I left Daves’ place I headed to Payson. Stopped along to get some great pictures then continued all the way to Show Low. Should have turned around at Heber. Long ride got some really nice pictures that Chris will post up on here for me soon, thank you Chris. I also tried out my helmet camera. Got it back home and all the video was upside down and ponted to far down. I will make adjustments and hopefully get some quality video up sometime soon. I am leaving Phoenix tomorrow. Hopefully i will be sleeping at the Grand Canyon tomorrow night.

I am rested up now. It took me 2.5 days to get here from Birmingham. The hardest part was the last 400 miles across New Mexico to Phoenix, AZ. I came across from Socorro NM. It get up to 7800ft altitude real quickly. Well the temp dropped to 52 deg. Then it started raining and it rained all the way to Peyson, AZ. I nearly froze! In the desert, wet and cold.

Came out of Peyson, AZ and it dropped all the way to 3500 ft altitude coming down the mountain. In Peyson it was 66 deg.  When I got to the bottom—it was a glowing 100 deg!!! Totally dramatic change in weather! No humidity. Took a day to get used to it but its not bad. A lot hotter but drier than Birmingham. No this heat is not as bad as Birmingham at 96 deg with 100% humidity!

I got some pics of the ride over that I will try to get loaded this evening. Got to get the bike serviced tomorrow then I am going back up to Peyson so I can get some video of the ride down. The scenery is really awesome! Just like in the movies.

Never did a blog before, this is test 1.