Sin City Rollin'!!!

Some people might say that starting a ride west across the mountains of New Mexico and Nevada at the end of October would be a risky proposition…some of those people were our wives and friends. But what do they know???? More than we thought, apparently.

We took off anyway from San Antonio early morning October 26^th…or at least as early as we could after waiting for a huge cold front to pass through….bringing with it a torrential downpour that would last the first 5 hours of day one – which is why there are no pictures of the first part of this adventure. Something about stopping and setting up a shot of one or the other of us shooting through a low water crossing wasn’t all that appealing at the time…woulda made a cool picture, but we said that more than once on this trip.

So the first picture taken on this report would be in Junction, TX….where we stopped at Lance’s (aka AyeWon) mother’s house for him to “dehydrate”…he wasn’t completely set up for riding under water.

Man, that's a mean case of helmet-head I've got there!!!

So, the story behind this ride – Lance (AyeWon) is on the right – he’s on his Honda Shadow Sabre – and wearing chaps – not friendly attire when it’s raining like a sum’ bitch!

Me, on the left (White Noize), on my DL1000 V-Strom – prepared for the rain and dropping temps.

Our ride plan is to travel to Las Vegas in 3 days from San Antonio…we're in the sports television business and need to be in Vegas by the end of the day on the 28^th in order to report for work first thing on the 29^th at the Pro Bull Riding World Championships where we will cover the event on CBS, Versus and NBC.

Blah, blah, work stuff….let’s get on to the riding.

We head out of Junction after an awesome quick breakfast provided by AyeWon’s mom – and after his clothes get a tumble in her dryer. We were anxious to get out towards west Texas where at least the scenery is worth looking at. Our plan for day one was just to put away some miles of mid-west Texas on the interstate and make it to Las Cruces, NM where we would get off the interstate and head west thru the mountains on some worthy roads.

That was the plan, at least…some 40 miles short of Fort Stockton, TX, this fun insued….

[IMG]http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z155/MarkHarrier/PA260006.jpg[/IMG]

Thank god for the Cycle Pump Combo Kit – saved our ass! Not a soul stopped to see if we needed any assistance – some honyok on a big Harley even soared by without even a glance! We did run into him later at a gas stop and he was surprised to see us....we gave him the "hey, thanks a buttload for stopping and checking on us back there" look.

After the tire delay, we headed on – only to make it into El Paso for the day – but we were happy to have a warm room to settle into. We stayed at Hampton Inns the whole way and they were all very accommodating with parking for the bikes.

Notice the gas can tied on to AyeWon’s Shadow – he brought it along since his tank capacity is only 4 gallons and mine is 5.8 – just in case. Well, his unsafe manner of transporting this fuel earned him the trip’s first nickname – “Clampitt”.

Day two we rise early to make up for some lost time and to finally reach some roads worth riding – and worth getting the camera out for.

We cross into New Mexico,

turn north on I-25, and then per the suggestion of ADV’er Frenchy750, we head west on Hwy152 just south of Truth or Consequences….we can’t thanks Frenchy enough for this suggestion!!!! What a road!!!! Highly suggested to anyone that gets the chance to grace it’s wonderful twisties, switchbacks and un-guardrailed mountain routes!

We enjoy 152 thoroughly and then hit Hwy180 to head north and west over into Arizona.

This is where mother nature throws her next gauntlet at us – wind….wind like no wind you want to ride in….wind like a friggin’ hurricane….apparently, somewhere short of Show Low, AZ we are informed that we had been experiencing 60mph cross gusts. If you ride, you know how much this sucks. A Parks & Wildlife officer, who are normally fine people, informed us that “in these parts, some wicked snow usually follows this kind of windfest”….or something like that. This would have normally been appreciated information....except this guy delivered the news like he was enjoying the visions in his head of us re-enacting the scooter scene from "Dumb & Dumber".

That said, the wind and rapidly dropping temps kept us in Show Low, AZ for the evening. The wind battle of the day required some mini-bottle therapy.

After settling into our room, the sound of the wind called us to the window…..

Yippee…..yeah…..we are so happy…..can you feel the sarcasm?

We awake the next day to this (we’re told it’s the earliest snowfall on record in Show Low…..of course it is!!!!!):

And have to ride north out of Show Low on Hwy77 to I-40 to head west….in 22 degree temps!

We ride thru intermittent bursts of wind and snow all the way from Flagstaff to Kingman…..they thin out as we drop out of elevation…..and then we get to enjoy just the wind again – not as bad as the day before, but bad enough to make the riding a chore.

The looks of the other travelers on the roadways that day were priceless – every car we passed or that passed us, looked at us like we were completely out of our minds...maybe we are.

The new bridge being built at the Hoover Damn was awesome….and I was amazed at how low the water was at the damn.

More to come…..we had a couple days off in Vegas and rode out to the Grand Canyon and Zion Nat’l Park (with some great pix!)…..and then there’s the ride home….we picked up another rider for that leg.