We said goodbye to
Ray and Marguerite as they left for work, we’d be gone by the time they
returned. We headed west towards the coast and then south and headed for Los
Angeles. We’d met Pete at the HU meeting in Cambria (do you see a pattern here
– meeting lots of lovely people through motorcycle websites Horizons Unlimited
and ADV Rider) and were going to stay with him for a couple of days. The road
down the Californian coast is stunning. That night we stayed at El Capitan
campsite, just above Santa Barbara – expensive we thought at $35 for a night
and the few facilities they did have were not that good! Only saving grace was
getting to see a pod of dolphins playing in the early morning surf. From there
we headed down through Malibu (very nice!) and then over Topanga Canyon Road –
a great road to ride. Pete and his wife
Margaret moved out to the US about 30 years ago but thankfully Pete hasn’t lost
his love of a good cup of tea and that was the first thing on the agenda when
we arrived!
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| Pete on his outfit |
We also went to a British bike meet held at Hansen Dam Park by
the Norton Owners Club. We have never seen such a huge display of British bikes
in one place and the great thing is that they’d all been ridden there – not
brought by trailer. We then had the great privilege to spend that afternoon
with Mike Parti. Mike is a bit of a legend in the US motorcycle world. We spent
a few hours listening to his stories of his outlaw motorcycle club days and
then his racing days. A real treat.
We said goodbye to
Pete and headed for Death Valley National Park visiting the Trona Pinnacles on
route. As we left the Trona Pinnacles and headed along the Searle Valley, the
sun went down, making the mountain tops glow a dusky red colour before throwing
them and the salt patches on the brown dusty valley floor into darkness. As we
enjoyed Pete’s homemade soup for our tea, the sky was illuminated by millions
of sparkling stars. More than I think I’ve ever seen. It was fabulous.
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| Trona Pinnacles |
Our first stop in
Death Valley was the charcoal kilns. They were only used for a short time in the
late 1870’s and are in remarkably good condition.
There was a very cold wind
blowing while we were there so we put our warmer layers on but then found
ourselves melting when we reached sea level at Furnace Creek. From there, the
only way was down – to Badwater Basin at 282 feet below sea level anyway. We passed a group of folk travelling in old
wagons which was great, lots of waving to each other ensued and then we headed
to Las Vegas.
Before getting to
Las Vegas, we ventured to Red Rock Canyon. This, for us, was the highlight of
our weekend in this area as Las Vegas is just not for us. We did get a superb
view over Las Vegas at night though, from our 29th floor window.
We continued our
journey east, catching a small piece of Route 66, towards the Grand Canyon.
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| Gettin' our kicks............. |
It is absolutely stunning. It’s difficult to
gauge the distance to the other side but where we were was at least 10 miles,
it’s further in other places. We camped that night close to the south rim and
it was absolutely freezing. We left some water in a plastic cup to see when it
froze – about 2 minutes after sunset. The temperature continued to drop but we
were ok in our warm sleeping bags and our bivvy bags. Other campers ended up
sleeping in the toilet block.
As we continued
east, we had another puncture but nothing as exciting as the blow out although
we did have to buy another tyre. We rode over Wolf Creek Pass in Colorado and
beat our elevation record – 10818 feet. There was a lot of snow but none on the
road thankfully. We decided that it was time to head south towards warmer
climes and after a few days we found ourselves in Woodward, Oklahoma. There is
not much in this town but it has Boiling Springs State Park just outside it
with cheap all year camping and good clean toilets with free hot showers (El
Capitan State Park in California please take note). While there we popped into a local bike shop
which turned out to be Covington Customs. We got chatting to the guy behind the
counter and then Dave, the son of the owner. He invited us through the back for
a tour of the workshops. They do everything in house – design, machining,
painting - not like some customs places who outsource all the parts and
literally just put it together.
Then down to Vicksburg
in Mississippi. Vicksburg National Military Park preserves one of the
battlefields from the American Civil War. The Battle of Vicksburg was fought in
1863. The park has plaques to show which troops attacked and defended where. Some
of the plaques are only metres apart. The park also shows the USS Cairo, a
naval ship sunk in the Mississippi River during the conflict. Then onto the Old
City Courthouse, which was an interesting insight to a time gone by.
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| USS Cairo |
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| Old City Courthouse |
Upon returning to
our hotel that Friday afternoon, we received a message to phone home urgently.
Iain took the phone call that we all dread, being told that his mum was
seriously ill. At this point we were over 1000 miles from Miami but we covered
that in 2 days and left the bike at the shippers on Monday morning and boarded
a flight back to the UK later that evening. Thankfully, as I type this, she is
making progress in the right direction and for this we are very grateful.
We had both admitted
some time before, that we were missing riding on our own 2 wheels. We had
already planned to be back in the UK just before Christmas so this unfortunate
news just brought the end of our trip forward by a few weeks.
We count ourselves
very lucky to have been able to take this trip and cannot thank the people who
have helped us along the way enough. We have seen and experienced amazing
places but the folk we have met along the way have been equally amazing. There
are too many to name individually but you know who you are. It has been a
wonderful experience and now we have a good basis for our next trip. We still have a great desire to explore South
America – watch this space.
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