Day 10 - The Finale

The final push.  Day 10 would be the last day of our adventure…….providing our bikes were still outside our door.  We held our breath, undid the seven locks, cracked the door open, and……..breathed a sigh of relief as not only were the bikes still there, but they had not even been vandalized!  We began to reinstall all of the removable parts and load our luggage back in and on.  As we did, we noted with amazement that the primer gray Maverick's trunk was open and being loaded.  Someone was driving that car!  Probably to the paint shop.

As we departed, we noted the nearby Thunderbird Inn, advertising rooms at a mere $19.95 a night.  We shuddered to imagine what a room which costs a third of our stately accommodations at the Roadway must be like.  It probably lacked a coat rack.  A block away was a McDonalds, at which we stopped soley because we were pretty sure they had toilet paper.   Indeed that was the case, and, having taken something so valuable from them, we felt obligated to purchase an Egg McMuffin.  We wolfed down the corporate concoction, set off, and found ourselves almost immediately in need of that toilet paper again.  So much for fulfilling obligations.

Pine trees in the middle of Arizona?

In no time we found ourselves passing through Flagstaff.  If you've ever traveled Interstate 40, you know of the odd oasis of trees and beauty that define this part of Arizona.  For miles and miles east, west, north, and south of the town all that can be found is hot, barren brush covered desert - except, of course, the bountiful plastic dinosaurs and meteorite superstores.  Flagstaff, though, sits at roughly 7,000 feet above sea level, and the July weather is quite reasonable.  As one travels between Barstow, CA, and Oklahoma City, OK, especially on a motorcycle, it is the one location that offers a bit of relief and scenery.  Sadly it ends much too quickly as soon you find yourself screaming down the winding interstate with crazy truck drivers exceeding 90 miles per hour.  Well, at least we did.  We thought we had come upon Snowman chasing down Bandit as one particularly anxious trucker whipped his 18 wheeler in and out of lanes, hurtling down the mountain with so little control that we expected to see Stephen Spielberg at the bottom filming the remake of Duel.  

Our road mate seemed to be auditioning for
the part of the villain in the remake of Duel.

When he failed to opt for the runaway truck escape, we simply decided he was insane, and stayed a safe distance behind him.  Sadly when we got to the bottom of the long decline, he had failed to crash, but fortunately he also failed to take anyone else out.  

We had only one more hurdle to overcome - the Mojave Desert. The challenge hit us as soon as we entered the shaky state.  The city of Needles greets all who enter California via I-40.  Needles' claim to fame is that it is the city most frequently cited as the storied "hot-spot-in-the-nation."  Legend has it that NASA tested their spaceship reentry shields by leaving them out in the open in Needles.  And in mid-July of one of the hottest summers in history, the city of Needles was at its best.  It was so hot that Mayor Bloomberg would have ordered every citizen to drink three Big Gulps.  If Guy Fieri had been in town, his shirt would have actually been on fire.  And we now know why it's called Needles.  It's because the needles on one's temperature gauge can literally bend around the peg that limits their maximum movement.  On the Road Glide, the air temperature gauge (or the inner fairing temperature gauge, as we refer to it) pegs at 120 degrees.  Like a highway car crash, you try not to look, but you find you must,.  And indeed a glance at our gauges showed them to be pegged at that 120 degree mark.  How much hotter is really was than that we don't know, but we both concluded that the surface of the sun couldn't be a whole lot worse.  We downed another gallon of Gatorade and set off across the desert.  By some miracle we made it through the final hurdle without spontaneously combusting and soon found ourselves entering greater Los Angeles.  

The continuous war that is LA area traffic didn't bother us in the least.  After what we had been through, this was a breeze - literally, as it was actually a bit chilly.  Ironically, the land of sunshine was the coolest weather we had experienced during our entire epic journey.  And before we knew it, we were pulling up in front of our houses, our epic adventure having come to an end.  Just under 5,000 miles had been traveled.  Multiple layers of skin had been blown off of our faces and arms.  Dozens of fingers had been thrust.  And we both agreed that it was yet another great motorcycling adventure.  The engines went quiet, the bodies ached, and the joints creaked.  And we were sorry that our trip had come to a conclusion……..until the next one!!

Things we learned on this trip:

• Corn isn't all it's cracked up to be.
• The Road Glide is the finest piece of design, engineering, and construction ever created by man.
• Traveling to Le Claire, Iowa, on a Road Glide, in the worst heat and worst drought in recent history is an awesome experience.