Day 18-August 25th-

Still no picture uploading available.  Hope these don’t get too boring, but sure to find something soon.  Left Beatty Nevada on a nice sunny morning to cross the desert to Las Vegas.

Beatty was a main st. a few motel / casino’s and a gas station. I took a left at the end of town and was on the only road to Vegas.  Two lanes straight through the desert. The sign said “Las Vegas 115 mi.” Maybeline said we will be there in an hour.  It took an hour and five minutes.

We cruised the Vegas strip and stopped for a picture in front of Ceaser’s palace.  Holy ground as most of you might remember my childhood hero’s (Evel Kneivel) extreme accident attempting to jump the fountains. If not, check out you-tube. It’s worth a look. Keep in mind that this was a 600 pound Triumph twin with no real working suspension, not a modern motocrosser.  His wrists broke on impact and the rest was out of his hands. No pun intended.

On to the Hoover Dam. A miracle of engineering, but a traffic jam in 100 degree heat.  Very impressive, but I could not get a picture that would do it justice.  Construction crews are in the process of building a new bridge that bypasses the actual dam, but still allows you to view it.  Another marvel of engineering. It’s huge!

Onward Southeast to Kingman Arizona.  Another 120 miles of desert to the next stop for gas.  I have come to realize that as the day wears on the desert heat creates its own wind.  In my experience, by afternoon there can be 60 mph. crosswinds. This creates a problem and limits your speed because on a two lane road with nothing but a ditch on either side, you have little room to drift.  With the tank bag and rear luggage Maybeline is not as sleek as she was designed to be.  At anything over say 80mph, with her increased profile, the crosswind can push you right out of your lane.  We reluctantly slowed down.

At Kingman we gased up and headed for Flagstaff.  I am thinking another 100 miles of desert right?  Wrong!  Flagstaff is at an elevation of 7300+ ft. and as I climbed the temperature dropped 30 degrees and it started to rain.  Some pretty heavy stuff, but no lightening. Yet……. Then the lightening joined the fun and I pulled into a truck stop for some much needed cover.  I was able to check the radar on my phone and decided to sit it out for an hour to let the storms pass.  It worked out pretty well. When I left Flagstaff North towards the Grand Canyon, there were a few showers,  but not bad overall.

From there I drove into a place called the Vermillion Cliffs.  It was a very large flat desert valley surrounded by red stone cliffs in every direction.  It was also the Southern end of the Navajo Indian Reservation.  You get some wierd warnings from fellow riders out here.  One such warning was “watch your speed on the Indian Reservations”.  I had no problems as of yet. (more on that later) The roads were fantastic, winding, good pavement, and no vegetation to block your view of the local authorities or wildlife on the road.  Maybelline was laying it down,  but the further I went into the valley, the more the winds were picking up.  There were heavy rain storms to my left for miles and the road I was on hung a left along the base of the canyon walls.  The storms just seemed to hang there and pounded rain against the canyon wall.  (Wish you could see the picture I took that captured this.  Soon.)  It was obvious that the updraft was blocking their movement and you could actually see the water splashing off the cliffs.   The road turned right into the storm and ran along the base of these cliffs.  As I approached, the wind got so much stronger that I had to lean the bike way over just to keep her going straight.  Just as I was beginning to think I was going to be in trouble again, I saw a Motel on the side of the road.  Although I wanted to get closer to the Grand Canyon today, It had been 520 miles since Beatty and it was obviously time to duck indoors again.   Pushing my luck.  As things tend to work out, they had one room available (out of maybe 10 total) and I took it.  Lee’s Ferry was a scenic little place with adobe/log rafter buildings and a little restaruant in the front.  I sat on the old western plank style boardwalk out front and watched two huge rainbows form as the storms subsided.  Again, amazing pictures to follow. I am getting the “boot” from this computer or I should say the “Hitler Non Youth” so that’s it for today.

Mick