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.

Day 9

Sufficiently rested, Mutt N Mutter set out for the second leg of their trip home on Saturday, hopeful that they had experienced the worst day of their adventure.  Sadly, those hopes would be dashed.  But more about that later.  We headed westward, conveniently rolling into Amarillo, Texas, at lunchtime.  Anyone who has traveled through this area knows that there is only one place to eat when you're in Amarillo, the Big Texan Steak Ranch, where there are approximately 347 signs between Oklahoma City and Amarillo reminding you that the 72 oz steak is free!  There's one small catch - you have to eat the entire thing.  And they mean the entire thing.  Meat, fat, gristle, probably even the bones, plate, and silverware too.  Otherwise you shell out 39 bucks.  We opted for Hooters instead, where as chance would have it they were holding a car wash.  A car wash at Hooters?  Say no more!  We pulled in expecting to see something along the lines of this:

Hard to beat Hooters girls washing your car!

Uhhh, that's not exactly what we found.  Instead we found the local……ummm….."help" eagerly waiting to clean you out….errrr, your car.  

If you don't let us wash your car, we will kill your women!

We passed.  Lunch was tasty, though, and the fact that it took nearly two hours to order and serve a couple of sandwiches didn't bother us one bit.

Hmmm, where did I pack that rain suit?

Having escaped Hooters with our bikes, dirt, and belongings intact we set off for New Mexico.  Fortunately the trip was relatively uneventful.  We were able to make it to Gallup, New Mexico when rain appeared in the distance.  We decided that our day's journey had come to an end, and we searched for a place to stay for the night.  We considered the Quality Suites, the Hampton Inn, even the Regal 8.  And rejected them.  No, we preferred to get a room where we could park the bikes outside the door.  This would enable us to both keep an eye on the bikes and minimize the distance that we would have to lug our gear.  In that latter endeavor we succeeded.  As far as quality in accommodations we failed.  Greatly.  In terms of adventure, it will likely remain unmatched forever.  The Roadway Inn had a nice ring to it we thought.  Wrong.  The Gallup, New Mexico Roadway Inn is the kind of place where busts on the TV show Cops take place, where raids occur on a regular basis, where high speed pursuits end, - the only difference being that we still had our shirts on.  To say that this place is a flea bag is to say that Jerry Sandusky has a slight image problem.  The cars in the parking lot looked like the hand-me-downs from a demolition derby.  

Prepped for paint in 1973.

Guess there was traffic to the right.

From the primer gray Maverick (when is the last time you saw a Maverick?) to the car next to us with the dangling right side mirror and unusual antenna it was like finding one's self in a Cuban used car lot/salvage yard.  

A little tape should make that door look just like new.

Of special interest was the car whose door had rotted away, a vain attempt to repair it having been made using cellophane boxing tape.  

The hotel was located literally on the other side of the tracks - by about five feet.  Freight trains roared by with the frequency of Detroit Lion arrests, threatening to suck our Road Glides into the vacuum created by 180 car trains screaming by at 120 mph.  

Incredibly, our room was worse.  The "coat rack" consisted of a 2 by 4 nailed to the wall with picture hangers for coat hooks, only one of the lamps worked, and we're pretty sure that the chair had recently been used to perform abortions.  

Deluxe coat rack - for coats
that resemble pictures.

What could this chair possibly been used for?

The bathroom was devoid of soap and had no toilet paper.  Apparently drugs deals require none of these conveniences.  We decided to strip the bikes of every removable part and keep them in the room - where the lamps, coat racks and toilet paper would have been.  Fearing for our lives we decided that it would be best to get to bed and steal out of there as early as feasible.  We drifted off to sleep as the soothing roar and rumble of the adjacent freight trains lulled us into a restful assault on every one of our senses.  

Hope I don't "loose" my change
in the soda machine.

That train was much closer than it appears.

Things we learned today:

• The Cherokee Nation has embraced capitalism.
• Old gray American cars, moving or stationary are not to be trusted.
• Heat affects stick deodorant negatively.