Getting out kicks, among other things....

[Pittsdriverwes]

Once upon a time myself and three friends rode the Trans America Trail from North Carolina to the Oregon Coast. Those familiar with this ride know that it's about 85% off the pavement using forest and farm roads from one side of the country to the other. NC going west all the way out through the Ozarks was pretty interesting - then we got to Oklahoma. It was going to be 400 miles of laser straight dirt and muddy road across Flatistan. We huddled up at breakfast and discussed how much we were looking forward to riding in the Rockies and decided that Oklahoma was northing more than gratuitous dirt in our travel to the promised land of the Alpine Loop. So we skipped it. We hopped on the highway and pinned those KLRs until we had Oklahoma behind us. It was just a means to and end - riding nirvana in the Rockies. Didn't regret the decision then and still don't.

Why am I starting a ride report, you may ask, that includes the famous Route 66 with a tale about skipping Oklahoma on dirt roads? I'll get to that.

The three of us met up in St Louis with a great deal of excitement about being on a 3+ week ride that was to begin with the Mother Road. Lots of research done, special navigation apps loaded, and this being the 100th anniversary year of Route 66, we were looking forward to soaking up all the nostalgia we could handle. The special navigation app I used promised to faithfully connect the bits of Route 66 that still existed in a way that didn't miss an iconic moment or sight along the way. Here's the first point of interest we came to as we were leaving the St. Louis area:



I stopped on the side of the road to get that photo and tried really hard to feel nostalgic about all the people that had stayed at this motel on their trip to the land of palm trees and Hollywood. Nope, not feeling it. So off we went for another hour or so, every now and then I'd point out another iconic point of interest. Uh, guys...we can keep doing this or we can make a left turn in Cuba MO and dive in to the Ozarks for a day. We topped off the tanks in Cuba and rambled off down the most excellent Hwy 19 down to Eminence MO. That was a good choice that took most of the day before we turned back in the direction of Springfield MO to reconnect with 66 the next day.

[Pittsdriverwes]

Springfield MO has its own fair share of special Route 66 attractions like a car museum and a visitor's center for the route. Because we sometimes act like a bunch of squirrels we immediate set out the following morning to the home of Bass Pro - the largest and original home of that amazing purveyor of all things needed for enjoying the outdoors. This place was MASSIVE with elaborate aquarium exhibits and a movie. theater with Bass Pro feature films and god knows what else.





I thought the Bass Pro near me in Maryland was massive. You could put 10 of those inside this place in Springfield MO. There was a gallery of all the US Presidents and famous celebrities that have been there for special occasions. After getting lost in this place for a hour, I bought a large packet of "The World's Best Beef Jerky" to sustain me in my travels and we hit the Mother Road in search of nostalgia. We followed the app's guidance until we were overnight in Tulsa OK having not seen anything else photo worthy that day.

The next morning we were excited because leaving Tulsa we were going to come across the largest gas pump in the world:



After a full day's riding the next most interesting thing we came across was the Bucky's in Amarillo TX where we spent the next night.

[Pittsdriverwes]

Crossing Oklahoma and the pan handle of Texas we pretty quickly discovered that hundreds of miles of Route 66 was nothing more than an old, call it "access road", that runs alongside I-40. I have to confess that we all became somewhat overcome with that feeling that we were being subjected to gratuitous routing. What more can I say except that maybe the PTSD resulting from the Oklahoma TAT long ago was still there below the surface in my mind. We jumped on the expressway, set the adaptive cruise control on our spiffy new R1300GSs, and crossed this part of the country at considerably extra-legal speeds. However, leaving Amarillo there was one place we didn't want to miss. The Cadillac Farm just west of Amarillo:



Somebody decided that this would be a worthy art project to bury a bunch of Cadillacs in the Texas panhandle dirt:



As we walked out from the road to the crop of Cadillacs, we noticed a stream of people carrying paint cans for putting their own special touch on the display. I've been known to leave one of our trademark stickers in our travels and this looked like an inviting place:

[Pittsdriverwes]

Who here has not seen the movie Wild Hogs? Four guys cut loose on the ride of a lifetime across the Southwest encountering the Del Fuego biker gang and the friendly little town of Madrid NM for the big chili festival. We hit the expressway leaving Amarillo to the turn off north and rolled in to Madrid, the place where the movie was filmed, just in time for lunch at Maggie's place.



Except that Maggie's Diner is now a gift shop with all the memorabilia you could imagine from the movie - and no food. Luckily there was a fine burger joint were we had lunch and then walked about town keeping a low profile in case there were any Del Fuegos lurking about looking for trouble.





The inside of "Maggie's":



The roads up to Madrid and back down in to Albuquerque were some pretty fun twisty riding throughs he NM hills. We stopped in at a large Cycle Gear in town to sort out a problem with one of our Sena headsets and decided to stay over there on the west side of town for the night. The next morning packing up the bikes we were treated to this sight:



Not the ballon festival but still pretty cool to see all the balloons drifting by.

[Pittsdriverwes]

With the lure of the California coast in our minds we had skipped through most of Route 66 on our way in to NM and Arizona but there were a few bucket list stops to make along the way here. We whipped out our National Parks geezer passes and checked out the Painted Desert and Petrified forests:



What ride across Arizona could be considered complete without stopping and "standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona?"





Of course, the flatbed Ford truck is now sporting a ride sticker:



Continuing bucket list stops in Arizona, we visited a place where something hit the earth hard enough to make this giant crater:



We rolled on in to Flagstaff AZ for the night thinking that our cup of Route 66 nostalgia was about as full as it was going to get. Where to tomorrow?

[Capnrip]

Great stuff Wes. I always thought the Petrified Forest NP was severely underrated.

[Pittsdriverwes]

Over breakfast the next morning we sat around a few minutes discussing how uninteresting the ride on 66 would be in to California and how none of us had any interest in getting anywhere near LA traffic. What's that you say? You've never been to Death Valley? Actually my wife and I spent several days there just a few years ago but the other two guys had never seen it. We did take Route 66 out of Flagstaff to Seligman AZ:



This is where we turned north to Las Vegas and over to Pahrump NV - a place I never have to visit again. It was a convenient stopping point to launching in to DV the next day and we tucked in to a HI Express there for the stay. While we were at dinner I got a call from the hotel front desk to tell me that our bikes were parked in a fire lane and could be towed after they were run over by the fire trucks. Huh? They were parked out front against the far curb outside the front door of the hotel where we'd parked them, well, everywhere. I asked the agitated front desk lady "Is there a fire at the hotel?" No, but if there were your bikes would be crushed and towed away and you'd be fined a lot of money! You must move them immediately. *sigh* OK, here's what we're going to do. We're at dinner right now and I'm going to hope and pray that there is no fire at the hotel while we're eating. When we return to the hotel we'll move the bikes. Sound reasonable? I think she begrudgingly said OK but they have to be moved then. Copy that.

Sheesh. They had actually called my wife first because I was using her Hilton Honors numbers and she called me in a panic to tell me our bikes are being towed by the fire department. I calmed her down letting her know that we were dealing with an over exuberant rookie front desk person. So, after a stupidly expensive casino steak place meal we returned to the hotel finding no firetrucks as expected and moved the bikes in to nearby parking.

[Pittsdriverwes]

Our trip through Death Valley was mostly just a ride through but there were a couple of places I thought would be the highlights. We left Pahrump and rode on up to a place called Dante's View overlooking the Badwater Basin of DV:





We left there and went down to check out the Furnace Creek visitor's center before we turned down in to the bottom of Badwater Basin, the lowest point in N. America at 282' below sea level. From there we walked out in to the middle of the great salt flat there:





This place seems vast but it's nothing compared to where we'd find ourselves in about a week. Went rode on out to Stovepipe Wells for lunch and emerged from the west side of DV in to California. There's a place there where the military conducts low level terrain flights through the winding canyons:



Phil waiting on a fly-by that never happened while there:


We wound our way on out and through the lower hills to stop in a quaint little town, Kernville:





Apparently this place comes alive during fly fishing season:

[Pittsdriverwes]

Our goal from Kernville was to cross over directly on to the PCH via 155 leaving Kernville (amazing twisty road), through Paso Robles (really good wine) to Cambria on the PCH. Somewhere along the way we started feeling peckish with nothing much available along the way. We ended up stopping at an excellent little deli and made use of our camp chairs in the parking lot for our repast:



And somewhere along the way we found the place where Halos are packaged. We crossed through many miles of orchards of Halo oranges. The largest Halo box in the world:



And whadda ya know - if you go west far enough you come to this:

[Susan]

I love Halos!

[BillGsa]

The new GS is broken in now...nice

[Lee]

, the lowest point in N. America at 282' below sea level.]

It's sinking It was only 280' below sea level in 2000