Viva Vegas

For four days, from 2/25 - 2/28, I went to Las Vegas for the High Rollers Scooter Rally. It's the biggest rally I've ever attended. Picking a handful of photos for the blog from all the ones I took is the hard part.

It's more than 400 miles from Tucson to Vegas, so we decided to trailer some scooters up there. I got together with some friends from the GGR Scooter Club and we shared the trailer and a hotel room for the rally. The drive up was enjoyable as I got to spend some time getting to know some folks that I had never really talked to before.

In the trailer is Bald John, president of GGR. On the ramp is Smiley and that is his Rattler 110 being unloaded. John K. who rides with the Sky Island Riders and is a member of GGR was also along. At the base of the ramp is Grumpy. He's from GGR in California and mets us in Vegas.

In this pic is the reflection of the scooter parking area as seen from our hotel room at the Golden Gate Hotel located at the end of the "Fremont Street Experience."

This is the same parking lot from a different view point. This is taken Friday afternoon. There were a lot more scooters there on Saturday, but I was busy enjoying the festivities and didn't get back up into the parking garage.

There were a lot of scooters, but this was my favorite. It's a Heinkel Tourist and it's in beautiful shape. This is the scooter featured in the book "I See by my Outfit" by Peter S. Beagle.

Another view of the Heinkel.

There were scooters with weapons and gas masks. They are probably preparing for the zombie apocalypse, which a common concern amongst scooter folk, but I'm not sure why.

Some beautiful Lambrettas brought down from Washington state. They were telling us in the hotel that their truck broke down en route, so they sold it to the tow truck driver, rental a u-haul and drove the rest of the way. Now THAT'S dedication to a rally.

Friday night two of the attendee's got married! I can't remember their names, but they seemed like a nice couple. It was a great time.

Here's a pic of their scooter "limo."

Saturday morning was cold and blustery. John and I decided to find something indoors to do. We found the Pinball Hall of Fame! It really took me back to my childhood. If there was an arcade nearby, I would be there.

Another row of machines. All of them are functioning and are playable.

Saturday afternoon at the Golden Gate parking lot.

Sunday morning was a group ride out to Red Rock Canyon. I was riding in the middle of the pack. This, obviously, is a pic looking forward......

This is looking back. I think there were 30-40 scooters along on this ride. It was a blast.

At a fuel stop, there was a group of crotch rocket riders. They really enjoyed coming over and looking at all the scoots. We had one sidecar rig with us, with the obligatory dog. The bikers loved that.

red Rock Canyon is beautiful. It reminded me of Sedona, AZ or the mountains about Albuquerque, NM. Pictured is John K. accompanied by our two scooters: my black Stella and his red Stella Fireball.

For the most part, we road through the park in groups of 2 and 3. Quite a few of us did stop at this plateau for some pics.

Stella and I stopped for a couple of pics.

At one point, John and I saw these Bighorn Sheep. What a treat.

At the end of the ride through the park, we stopped to get the group back together. Naturally, there a little bit of screwing around while we waited.

Once the group was back together, we went screaming through town for the gymkhana and concourse. There were more scooters there, including this beautiful Honda Gyro.

Some of the scooters gathered at Fred's Bar.

A pic of a scooter going over the jump on the gymkhana.

I'm not really a fan of Las Vegas, but I love scooters and scooter people. That made the trip worthwhile. I'm not sure if I'll being going back again next year or not, but I did have a good time this year.

Below is a youtube video done by Scooter Space. It gives you a good idea of the flavor of the rally. You can see my Stella at 0:33 in the video.

U-Haul to U-Ston (Houston)

My oldest son moved to Houston a couple of months ago, but only took a car full of stuff. So, he flew back to Tucson, we rented a u-haul truck, loaded up his household good and drove it to Houston, actually, Kingwood, TX on the north side of Houston. It's about 1100 miles door to door.

If you've read my blog entry about the Iron Butt Ride, you know that I hate driving through El Paso. You can't by-pass it to the south, because of Mexico being in the way. I knew I could go through Las Cruces and go around that way, but that is probably an extra 100 miles. After a bit of research, I found Transmountain Road, aka Route 375. According to Google, it is 5 miles and 10 minutes further. Friends, I will NEVER, drive I-10 through El Paso again!

This is a view looking east from a little rest area on Transmountain. Fort Bliss is out there. I have several scooter friends in the Las Cruces, El Paso areas and wish we would have had time to seen them. We re-entered I-10 at N Americas Ave and resumed our eastward trek.

Stopped at an interesting Rest Area. This is a cool mural on the wall. Our plan was to drive as far as Ozona, TX (about 600 miles) and drive the rest of the way the 2nd day. 25-30 miles east of Fort Stockton, we got a blowout. We called U-haul and they sent a tire guy from Ozona (75 miles away) to come help. After a 3 hour delay, setting along side I-10 in the dark, we arrived at our hotel around 1130pm.

Thanks to Yelp!, I located the Cafe' Next Door and we had a very tasty breakfast for exceptionally good prices. ($4 for my 3-eggs ham and cheese omelet with taters and toast.)

We stopped for fuel and more coffee in the town of Junction. Fueled up next door to Coopers. I just had to take a picture of their sign. If I have to explain to you why it's funny, you shouldn't be hearing it, so please don't ask.

My son was born in San Antonio, but hasn't been there since he was 2 or 3 years old, so we decided to take some extra time and sightsee a bit. Naturally, we stopped at the Alamo.

We took a boat along the Riverwalk.

Stopped for lunch at Casa Rio, the oldest restaurant on the Riverwalk. Foursquare folks gave it mixed reviews, but we decided to try it as much for it's locale as for the food. We weren't disappointed. The food was super, prices were very good and so was the service.

The worst part of San Antonio is driving the Texas Hill Country and not having a scooter. I didn't ride when we lived there, but I can see how there are many great rides there.

Here is the street where my son lives. After living in Arizona for a few years, seeing trees and water are quite the treat. I know it's humid, but it sure is pretty. We took a few back roads in the little bit of time I was there, but it sure looks like there are some good riding roads here as well. In town, not so much. The highways in Houston are a nightmare.

In the one full free day I was there, we decided to take a trip to La Porte, TX to see the San Jacinto Battleground. On the way, we saw a sign for the USS Texas museum and stopped there as well. I had never seen a REAL battleship before and had a blast.

Here's a view of the San Jacinto Memorial taken from the park area near the Texas. If you look carefully inside the globe, you can see the US and TX flag flying.

This is looking from the memorial, right back where the previous photo was taken. That globe and flag pole are are the end of the reflecting pool. You can see the Texas in the upper right hand corner.

This is me, enjoying my tour of the Texas. These are the aft turrets, each housing 2X14 inch guns. Because we were the only people on the ship, at the time, we got a "behind the scenes" tour and got to go behind many locked doors.

After our little excursion, we started home. We were feeling hungry and stopped at the "Crawfish Shack" for dinner. This is a fun place. All the table are outside with wood chip floors. I had a great time with Nathan and we both learned some fun stuff about Houston and Texas history.

I'm looking forward to my next trip to Houston

Remiss Resolutions

Okay, I have been a bad blogger and have not posted in 2 months. I have absolutely now excuse for the first month, although, I suppose I could try the old "Hey, it was the holiday season" ploy.

Nah, I'll just take responsibility for my lack of action.

Now, I do have a couple of good excuses for the second month. Here they are:

On the left is Lucius and on the right is Serenity. They are my grandtwins. My daughter and her husband moved in with my wife and I after finding out that they were having the twins. They were born on 1/12.

I expect that the picture above will be re-enacted multiple times over the coming years. Lucius shaking his fist and Serenity yawning at him. What do you think?

So, on to my 2011 scooter resolutions. Above is my current stable of scooters. The nearest is my newest bike, a SYM RV 250. I'm still getting used to it and have only put about 500 miles on it thus far. Behind that is the Genuine Stella. Just beyond that, partially covered is Iron Buddy.

Having added a 3rd scooter at the very end of 2010, I do not resolve to add another scooter to the current herd. I do love to ride so most of my resolutions will involve putting more miles on the scoots.

Today, 2/1, I went out and photographed the odometers of each bike. Above, Iron Buddy has 20,855 miles. I resolve to have more than 24k miles on I.B. by the end of the year.

I turned over 10k miles on the Stella on 1/12 and have added another 71 miles on her. I resolve to have 14.5k miles miles on her by 2011's end.

The '08 RV250 have a whopping 2,383 miles as of this morning. (I bought it with 1900 miles on the odo.) I resolve to have in excess of 7000 miles showing by the end of the year. I am, therefor, resolving to ride a minimum of (hmm, let's see carry the one, cross multiply, add the square root of pie..... ) 12,191 miles. That seem like a good distance to attempt.

Here's another pic of the RV250. They are pretty bikes. I'm getting 65mpg and have gotten it up to 80mph (indicated) with no difficulty at all. That gives me a 200 mile range and I can travel interstates without too much difficulty. All things considered, though, I still prefer my small wheeled scooters.

I also resolve to do my part to help this year's Sky Island Riders' rally to be our best yet. (It's only our second, so I'm not setting the bar too high.)

I further resolve to design and build a scooter theme rocking toy for the twins to ride when they are ready for it.

Ride on,

Howard

Arizona Adventures Part III

I left off last time at the Coronado National Monument just below Geronimo Pass. The Nice lady at the visitor center and I talked for a while. She asked what my plans were and I told her that I was just out exploring for the day. She asked how I felt about birds. I told her that I'm not a bird watcher per se, but that they're okay.

She asked how I felt about Sandhill Cranes. I have fond memories of them when I was little, growing up in Roswell. The Sandhills would land in out fields every fall. I commented that I didn't think they would be here yet on their annual migration. She replied that there were several thousand in the area already and gave me directions.

I had to go through Bisbee, then on to the north and east of there. I was already planning on going to Bisbee, so decided, "What the heck, might as well." So off I went.

I left the park, til I hit Route 92 and turned toward Bisbee. The first little town is Palominas, AZ. I don't know what this domed building was originally built for, but it is deserted now. The sign at the entrance has only the word "church" on it, and that probably wasn't what it was originally anyway.

Several months ago, there was an article about Jimmy's Hotdog in Arizona Highways. I love hot dogs and when I drove past Jimmy's on my way into Bisbee, I made a u-turn and went back.

(Click on any picture to enlarge it.) I ordered a Chicago Dog and a Frito Pie. Both were very good.

That's Jimmy. He and his family are from Chicago and they "import" virtually everything they serve from the Chicago area to make sure it is as authentic as it can be. I love it. If you're now living here in Arizona and are pining for some real Chicago foods, go to Jimmy's.

After my tasty meal at Jimmy's, I meandered over to Central Highway. Passing this little house with a gallows with noose outside, resulted in another u-turn and a couple of pics. Is it left over from Halloween, or is it some kind of warning?

Are a couple more miles of dirt road, I found the sanctuary where the Sandhills reside for the winter. Most of them are out feeding for the day, but there were still several hundred here. They are impressive bird with wingspans up to 8 feet.

I had decided not to return to Bisbee. I checked out my map and saw to road that led back west to Tombstone. I had never been on either one and picked the one which appeared, on the map, to be a bit more windy. Gleeson Road was a few mile north of the bird area. I could return the way I came, but, instead, decided to follow another dirt road which went in a northerly direction. Not to bring politics into my blog, but I did come upon a couple of asses.

I passed this cool looking church on my previous adventure to the southeast corner of the state.

I turned on Gleeson Road and found this freshly dead rattle snake. It's just a foot or so long.

Gleeson is a ghost town. I don't know what this used to be, but it was pretty big. It had a nice pair of columns at its entrance.

The old dry goods store is still in pretty good shape.

Here is another one of the buildings. In the top right corner of it's front are the words "Joe Bono." I'm not sure what happened to Joe, but the building his business used to be in, is one of the few left in Gleeson.

The cemetery is very large. Surprisingly, there were headstones as new as 2002. I guess people who used to live here, wanted to buried here. Gleeson must have been a nice place where fond memories were formed.

Here's another view of the cemetery. Shortly after leaving Gleeson, the road turned to dirt. I continued driving toward Tombstone. I got the feeling that the van was making sounds it didn't usually make.

I stopped to look around and found that I had a flat. Well, I knew I didn't have a jack, because the one that came with the van broke the last time I changed a tire. Secondly, I was in the middle of nowhere, and didn't feel that I could get a service truck to my location. I decided to drive on it until I was close to Tombstone. Long story short, I drove til I hit pavement, the 3rd car that came past stopped, went and got a jaw and I put my spare on and started driving toward home.

I took Route 82 back toward Sonoita, because I didn't want to take the spare on 75mph interstate. Shortly after turning onto 82, you pass the ghost town of Fairbank. Quite a few of the buildings are still here, including the original schoolhouse.

I liked the late afternoon light. Look carefully and you can see the nearly full moon above this old building.

Here's the moon again above the hills.

I liked the way the shadows were falling on the sides of the hills.

Amber waves of grass with grazing cattle in the late afternoon.

This completed my little adventure. I got new tires a few days later so I'm ready for the next drive. My wife wants to come along next time. That should be fun.

I hope you enjoy the photos. If you want more specific directions to any of these places, drop me aline.

Ride on,

Howard