Arizona Adventures Part I

As you may recall, I am in the process of writing a series of articles about riding/driving in Southern Arizona entitled "Riding SoAZ." It can be found on our scooter club website. I have been trying to use my own photos for all of it as well. (I haven't quite succeeded, but the vast majority are mine.) Well, I realized as was getting into the next few sections, that, not only do I not have any photos of much of the area, but I actually had never been to several of the locations as an adult. So, I decided to head out to far corner of southeastern AZ for pics and a feel for the territory.

Unfortunately, I could not ride my scooter. The first area I wanted to cover was to be about a 500 mile trip. I have gone that far on the scoot, but it would take too much time to do so in a single day. Add the fact that I needed to explore a bit AND take pictures and it is really out of the question for a 150cc scooter. So, in the mini-van I hopped.

My travel pieces tend to ignore the interstates. Looking at the above pic taken between Benson and Willcox, can you blame me? However, I wanted to get to the area in question as quickly as possible, so I-10 it was. The plan was to go just into New Mexico and take Route 80 south. I wanted to go to the towns of Portal, Rodeo and Douglas first.
When I got to San Simon, AZ, I saw a sign that said "Portal - 25 miles." Ever keen for an adventure, I exited the interstate and headed south on some black top, which as you can see above, quickly turned into dirt 4-5 miles later. No problem. At least you can see oncoming cars a long ways away by looking for dirt clouds.
"Warning - Forest Road #42 Impassable to ALL vehicles over 28 feet long." At least the road would probably be fun to drive. Those are the Chiricahua Mountains in the background and Portal is located on the east side of them.
As Yogi Berra says, "When you come to a fork in the road..... take it." So I did. I went left where the sign says it's 9 more miles to Portal. The road was a tad rough in spots, but the scenery was great.

I arrived in Portal with no difficulty. The Portal Store, Cafe' and Lodge is the main hub of activity. The store in tiny and there is no fuel. If you're headed this way on a smaller bike, gas up in Willcox or San Simon. There is also fuel at "Road Forks" which is where Rte 80 meets I-10. (Remember the original plan?"

I wonder how good the rock selling business is there? If you look very carefully, the sign also says "Free Local Delivery." That clinches it for me. I proceeded past Portal going west. I was also here to see Cave Creek and check it out as a possible scooter club destination.

Yup, there's a creek here.
Critters, too. That's a pair of little bucks scappin'. There were several other head in this little herd of mule deer as well. It was fun to watch.. I enjoyed the amazing scenery in the canyon, then went back through Portal, back to Route 80 and actually into New Mexico briefly.
I was surprised to see this large monument on the road side. I looked at it closer and it the "Geronimo Surrenders" monument. Cochise was also very active in these parts.

If you closely in the center of this pic, it is said that Cochise's spirit is so strong, that you can see his face in the mountains. Can you see it?

I continued south on 80, noticing old railway bridges on the west side of the road. I tried to get a pic of the old rail bed. Can you make it out in the pic above? I think I need to get a bit higher. I was standing on the side of the van, but it's just not enough. On in to Douglas I went.
The Douglas police station is actually the old train depot. Very cool in my opinion. Douglas is right on the Mexican border. I had gone as far south as I could. Now my plan was to loop back up the west side of the Chiricahuas, up the Sulphur Springs Valley then over to the Chiricahua National Monument.
There is a lot of farming and ranching the Sulphur Springs Valley. Afterward, I looked up some additional information about the area. One article said that they had solar powered irrigation here in 1904! Amazing!
Just as you enter the national monument, there is a tiny cemetery. I love old cemeteries. This wouldn't be the last one of this trip, either.
I began climbing and came into pine trees. I always love driving from desert into trees. The rapid change never ceases to amaze me.
Chiricahua National Monument is known for it's amazing rock formations. They are everywhere.
I managed to wave to myself.
I snagged the pics I wanted, and headed back to Tucson. It was a lovely trip. It would have been better on a scooter, but I'm trying to remedy that as well. I am in the process of trying to sell one scooter, in order to buy a bigger, faster scoot. I'll let you know how that goes.

I actually took these pics on 11/8. today I took another, similar drive today, 11/8. I'll try to post those and the associate adventure, tomorrow.

Ride on,

Howard

Busy, Busy

I am certain that the title for this entry "Busy, Busy" has been by many bloggers for a lame excuse on why they have written nothing in quite a while. I am no different. I do have an an excuse, so, please, allow me to tell you what it is. After all, if an excuse told in the woods, and there was no one there to here it, was there really an excuse at all?

As you may know, I also write the blog for our local Tucson scooter club, the Sky Island Riders. Much of the stuff on the website is club specific: photos, video and our forum/bulletin board, for example.

In my mind's eye however, I have also wanted the blog, and it's associated data, to become a resource for people who live in, or travel to, Southern Arizona. Not just for scooterists, either. Motorcyclists, bicyclists or even people who just want to enjoy our state. That is one reason I started the "Ride Maps" tab. It lists maps of various rides around Tucson, but also include routes to Phoenix which don't require the interstate.

Three months or so ago, I thought of another idea. I thought of writing a series of posts about riding/driving in Southern AZ, which I have entitled "Riding SoAZ." I first defined Southern AZ, then subdivided that region into smaller areas to write about. I had decided to make each post about 1000 words long and add photos and hot links to the various points of interest that have websites. Most of the photos are my own. (Which means the quality isn't that great.)

Part VII is posted now and part VIII is almost complete. If you haven't already checked it out, you can find Part I here:

Riding SoAZ

I didn't quite finish writing about riding in Tucson, but felt like people who were reading to learn about outlying places might get bored, so I moved to the rural areas and I will return and finish Tucson later, probably after I finish the rural areas.

So, that is my excuse for not writing here lately. Is it a good one? I've written well over 10k words for Sky Island Riders, not to mention the time on the scooter to go out and get photos.

In other news, the editor of "Iron Butt" magazine had contacted me shortly after I completed the Saddle Sore 1000 and asked if he could publish my story. I thought long and hard about it (about 1 second) and said "Yes!" I have never been in a magazine before, so this sounded quite exciting.

Well, the day before yesterday, my copy finally arrived. He actually used my blog entry from this blog. I don't know what it says about my writing or his editing, but the magazine article is virtually unchanged from my original entry. So, without further adieu, here's the cover:

Naturally, I quickly flipped to the table of contents to find my piece.
There it is! Page 46! No picture here, but I flipped to page 46:
I am kind of flattered that it is called "Extreme Rides."

I really enjoyed the entire magazine. I have always enjoyed long hours in the saddle of my scooter. I don't put in the miles that the motorcyclists do, but I have put in some major hours.