Trip to California - Day 2
Only three days into this ride, and already I'm behind. :) Catching up on Monday's events....
I woke up Monday morning to find frost across the bike cover. According to the bike, it was 34 degrees in Santa Rosa, although with the sun shining already, snow was melting off the roof of the motel and dripping down into the parking lot. I got the bike loaded back up, and was on the road just after 9am.
Once one the highway, temps rose from 34 to upper 30's, then dropped quickly as I got to the eastern edge of Albuquerque ... down to 32/33 degrees. Still, the roadway was free of any kind of moisture, with only some of the bridge shoulders having old snow and slush piled up on the sides. After passing through Albuquerque, temps gradually started to rise ... first into the 40's, and then jumping up into the 50's once I hit the Arizona border. I had a brief panic in Gallup NM when I went to dump my aux fuel tank into the main tank, but the fuel gauge didn't react for almost 20 miles. I eventually pulled off the highway to check on the tank status, and just when I got off the bike, the gauge corrected. The joys of not testing the tank before I got out on the road.
Monday's route was to take I-40 over to Holbrook Arizona, and from there take some local Arizona state highways to work my way into Phoenix. I'm glad Tom convinced me to not use my original plan for going through Flagstaff and down ... the bike really liked being off the super-slab for ~200 miles. If I go back through Phoenix on the way home, I'm going to have to try and hit that route again ... this time taking some pictures.
I got into Phoenix to find Tom already at home (I was ahead of schedule, getting in around 6:00pm instead of the planned 7pm). After some catching up, we decided to grab dinner at a nice little Mexican place just around the corner from his house. Man those margaritas were good. :) After dinner was done, we headed back to the house to catch the end of the Suns game, some general chatter, and then plotting through route options for Tuesday. With all that done, it was 11pm and time to hit the hay.
I woke up Monday morning to find frost across the bike cover. According to the bike, it was 34 degrees in Santa Rosa, although with the sun shining already, snow was melting off the roof of the motel and dripping down into the parking lot. I got the bike loaded back up, and was on the road just after 9am.
Once one the highway, temps rose from 34 to upper 30's, then dropped quickly as I got to the eastern edge of Albuquerque ... down to 32/33 degrees. Still, the roadway was free of any kind of moisture, with only some of the bridge shoulders having old snow and slush piled up on the sides. After passing through Albuquerque, temps gradually started to rise ... first into the 40's, and then jumping up into the 50's once I hit the Arizona border. I had a brief panic in Gallup NM when I went to dump my aux fuel tank into the main tank, but the fuel gauge didn't react for almost 20 miles. I eventually pulled off the highway to check on the tank status, and just when I got off the bike, the gauge corrected. The joys of not testing the tank before I got out on the road.
Monday's route was to take I-40 over to Holbrook Arizona, and from there take some local Arizona state highways to work my way into Phoenix. I'm glad Tom convinced me to not use my original plan for going through Flagstaff and down ... the bike really liked being off the super-slab for ~200 miles. If I go back through Phoenix on the way home, I'm going to have to try and hit that route again ... this time taking some pictures.
I got into Phoenix to find Tom already at home (I was ahead of schedule, getting in around 6:00pm instead of the planned 7pm). After some catching up, we decided to grab dinner at a nice little Mexican place just around the corner from his house. Man those margaritas were good. :) After dinner was done, we headed back to the house to catch the end of the Suns game, some general chatter, and then plotting through route options for Tuesday. With all that done, it was 11pm and time to hit the hay.
posted by Charlie at
10:50 PM
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