Are We Alone?

At dinner we had a meeting and decided we have had enough of the desert.  Dave figured out the shortest way through the desert and we would be traveling on some roads that were new to us.  This is difficult since I think we've been on most of them.  This day was going to be really hot so we made sure to leave early.  The towns are few and far between so we would stop for breakfast in Caliente, NV at the Branding Iron.

The way we (actually it's mostly Dave) do this is by using Google Maps and mapping a route.  I honestly think Dave has all the roads memorized by now and just checks in with Google Maps. Then we Google the various towns to see if they have services (gas, restaurants).  We use TripAdvisor and Yelp to make our selection.  Sometimes this is really easy.......Caliente has two places to eat.

Our first new road of the day is Highway 375, aka the Extraterrestrial Highway  We didn't see any low flying aircraft, even though there were plenty of signs with that warning.

 The one and only stop is in Rachel, NV......the Little A'Le'Inn in Area 51 is VERY interesting.

I wish I had taken photos of the owner, Pat, and her two friends....and some of the stuff they were selling.

And yet another rest stop.....with a gravel lot.....and fresh toilets, even though they're not "flush".  Don't laugh, these are very welcome sites on a long, lonesome highway.  A comfort stop.....stretch our legs.....remove extra layers of clothing....drink some cold water (which we are grateful that Donna and Bret didn't leave their ice chest in the hotel room on the very first night like we did...our most favorite ice chest that we've had for years).

Refreshed, we can soldier on to Tonopah, NV!

Note*** Did you notice that this post is out of order?  I was just testing you.  It really should have been BEFORE the Tonopah post.  Let's pretend it was......

Tonopah, NV

We finished our ride on the ET Highway without event.  It was so deserted, even when we passed the Sandia Test Site.  We didn't think anything was happening there since our friend, Jim, was still at home in Livermore.  We also rode along on the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, U.S. Route 6, which honors the American Civil War veterans.  Will there ever be a time that we are not fighting one another?

We arrived in Tonopah, NV for lunch.  We heard that the Mexican place was really good.  That's info from Pat, the owner of the Inn in Rachel, NV.  She had also heard the food in the Mizpah was very good.  She said the people are VERY proud of the Mizpah.  And guess what?  That's where we're staying, the Mizpah Hotel!!!!!

The Mizpah was a grand hotel, once upon a time.  It sat vacant for eleven years and was in terrible shape.  A couple purchased it and completely renovated it.  You can tell they had a passion and put enough money in to it to make it special.  It just opened last fall and I hope it stays afloat because it is special.  The rooms are small, sort of a European feeling.  They have plenty of little touches that show they cared about the renovation.  The staff are all so proud to be working there.  And really....there isn't that much else going on in this town, that we could see.  The mines are booming.

I again ask...how do you get here?  Are you born here and never leave? drive through, break down and stay here?  I asked a woman working at the JC Penney catalog store/Western Store and she told me she came to town because of a man, that she no longer has anything to do with, and just stayed.  She was so nice, but difficult to listen to because I kept staring at her mouth which was missing many teeth....and I think she was about my age.  It's a hard life in the desert.

After a very good lunch at the Mexican restaurant we strolled around town.  Many of the stores were closed and/or empty.  We did find a used book store.  All hard backs were $2 and paperbacks were $1, we were in heaven.  If I stay in this town I'll be working at this store. The woman working there was wonderful.  They had a table set up with a jigsaw puzzle that people can work on.  I wanted to stay and work on the puzzle, but that would interfere with my afternoon nap. We each bought a book and we were off.

We had dinner and breakfast at the Mizpah.  You get a $5 credit towards breakfast when you stay there.  The breakfast I ordered, full eggs with potatoes, sausage, toast, coffee was $5.75....another GREAT value!  Plus the food was very tasty.

In the morning as we were leaving, a man came up and chatted.  He retired in this town from San Rafael.  He searched around for a place with a very low cost of living and infrastructure (hospital, etc.) and this is what he came up with.  He likes it here.  I suppose he was on a restricted budget though.  But really, everyone we met was so pleasant, I can see how you would like this place.

We were like horses headed back to the barn.....back to our home........

Marching to Zion, again

It was nice and cool when we left.  A little too cool for us.  We thought we had chosen our clothing properly, but as soon as we were in the shade it was just too cold.  We had to stop and put on sweatshirts.  Fortunately for us we found this lovely rest stop.  They seem to be big on gravel lots here. Again, treacherous for a motorcycle.  The toilets are somehow fresh smelling, even though they are not flush.  They also come equipped with hand sanitizers.  We are really appreciating these features....not the gravel.

This is our third visit to Zion National Park.  We LOVE the long tunnel on the way in to the Park.  And this time our visit put us in to the bonus of our annual pass purchase. LOVE the value!

The road driving down in to the park is filled with tight twists, HEAVEN for a motorcycle.  The down side is the SLOW RV that was right in front of us.  Most of the RV's are rentals and the drivers are so slow and careful.  Good for them, not so good for us.

We seem to be tracing our prior trips.  We stopped for the evening in Cedar City, Utah again.  We snagged the last two rooms at the Best Western where we've stayed before.  They got the King room with the spa tub, we got the Family suite with three Queens.  And we have experienced our very first Asian tour group.

Again, we had dinner at the Garden House of Cedar City.  The soup here is excellent.  We weren't quite as impressed this time around though.  It's located within a couple blocks of the hotel and an easy walk.

This was a lovely riding day and Zion is truly a national treasure.

Arches, CanyonLand and on to Richfield

We had a lovely evening in Moab, Utah.  We stayed at the Bighorn Lodge which was located right smack dab in the middle of things.  It's a funky old place and it's a good value.  Clean rooms and everything worked. The Wifi was a little iffy in spots though.

We had dinner at the nearby MicroBrewery.  Dave and I ordered beers here, we weren't in to the adventure of ordering wine.  Dave's received his wine in a single serving bottle with a screw top, similar to the old airlines style of serving alcohol.  And there was the time it was a plastic screw top bottle....that may have been the Gallo.  His only good experience was at Mesa Verde.  It's become a joke for us.

The sleeping hasn't been all that great on this trip.  The air is extremely dry up in this high desert which has dried out our sinuses and we're forced to run the air conditioning all night because of the heat.  When we stop early we do have time for an hour nap, decadent fun.

We ate breakfast at the diner attached to the hotel.  It had recently re-opened and we thought the food and service were both good.  Another good value.  Really, once you get out of California the costs are really reasonable.

We toured through the Arches National Park and then off to Canyonland National Park.

Canyonland isn't as popular as the Arches.  You need to ride in a bit and then you're looking down, not as spectacular as the Arches.  And nothing compared to the Grand Canyon.  Still, it is magnificent. The hiking is better in Arches too, not that we're concerned with that.

We finished our day in Richfield, Utah and ended up staying at the Holiday Inn Express.  This was the Taj Mahal compared to our other places.  The room was HUGE and we walked next door to a very good BBQ place for dinner.  Dave's only wine choices were White Zinfandel or Chablis...he ordered iced tea.  We left a bit later in the morning so we had breakfast at the hotel.....the world famous cinnamon buns!

Four Corners and on to Moab, Utah

Have you heard about the Four Corners?  Well I've always thought this would be very cool.  To stand in four states at once.  Donna and Bret thought it would be cool too.  It was on their bucket list.  Dave, not so interested.  It was out of the way and he really saw no use for it.  He was right, we were all wrong.  It was a bust.  Actually, it was worse than a bust.  I could say hate, but I don't want to use that word....even though it is the one that comes to mind.

Here's the scoop.  This is the only place that four states meet.  There's a monument that you stand on and you can be in all four states at once.  Some people get on all fours to take a photo.  In 2009 someone finally came clean that the monument is incorrect, this is not exactly where the four states meet.  Don't tell that to anyone, they get cranky.

The ride to the monument sucks, big time.  It was hot, the roads are straight, and there is NOTHING to look at along the way.  Unless you count the tremendous amount of litter on the side of the road.  I have NEVER seen so many beer bottles.  I didn't see any cans, only bottles.  And they were the quart size, brown glass.  So do the natives not drink out of cans? Or do they pick those up because they're more valuable to cash in?  Dave thought the bottles were thrown, but they weren't broken up and they seemed to be in clumps, as if they partied on the side of the road and left the bottles.  Dave did bring up that old commercial with the Indian (that's what we called them back then) with the tear running down his cheek because he saw litter.  He wondered what he would be doing if he saw this....UGLY.

Now when we ride up, we see that it's a National Park but they do not honor the pass because it's run by the Indian Nation, UGH!  I just cannot wrap my mind around allowing a separate nation within the US.....do we really have that much guilt?  Crazy.

Here's the photo that proves we were here.  It was so HOT, we were miffed, and we were also miffed at the gravel road and parking lot.....treacherous on a motorcycle.  These aren't smiles, we're grimacing.

 You basically stand in a line and then take a photo.  Some of the people were letting their small children take photos...which really ticked me off because I didn't want to be there, it was hot, and I didn't want to wait just because they wouldn't tell their precious snowflake "NO, you cannot take a photo while others are waiting in a line".  Oh, and can you tell the perimeter is lined with stalls where they're selling Indian junk? I wouldn't even look. Enough of me showing my cranky side.

We left here and continued in the heat along the absolute worse road on this trip.  Again, nothing to look at but litter on the road, HOT, straight, and the roads had ripples in them.  Hard to describe but we vibrated along the road.  We were so happy to arrive in Moab, Utah for the evening.

Mesa Verde vía the Million Dollar Highway

Off we rode to the Million Dollar Highway.  This runs between Silverton and Ouray, Colorado.  It is a small two lane road that winds through the mountains.  Beautiful, a bit annoying with the summer construction, but NO comparison to the beautiful passes through the Sierras right here in California.  Really, we are so spoiled.  Not complaining, just saying.

I have been longing to ride on this road for years.  Perhaps my expectations were too high?  As you can see, it truly is beautiful.  It's just that I had heard so much about this road.  The beauty, the twists, the treacherous view if you looked down.  Not so much.....

While we stopped for gas, just before the climb in to the pass, we chatted with two other couples who were riding.  They trailer their bikes from North Carolina to Denver every year and then ride for a month. Hey, sounds good to us.  Anyway, they were talking about how they were staying in Mesa Verde National Park for the evening.  We ran in to them again at a pull out.  They were looking forward to their stay at the Lodge.  They were really happy there was a vacancy.  So of course, since we get our dining recommendations from the gas clerk, it's only natural that we'd get our accommodation recommendations from complete strangers just because they ride Harleys.  We don't really have a plan, and we did mention that Mesa Verde would be interesting if it worked out, so this sounded interesting.  Dave called, they had two rooms, so we had a plan for the night.

We all agree that this is the BEST part of the trip.  It doesn't take much.....a clean room with a spectacular view and good food.  We are so easy...but NOT cheap.

This National Park has contracted with Aramark to run the lodge and dining.  It is fabulous. And the great view helps too.  There's something grand about sitting on the top of a mesa, looking out over the grounds...even if there is a thunderstorm brewing.

The next morning we took a tour of Mesa Verde National Park.  Just another use of our Annual Pass...we're loving the good value!  We ended up not taking the formal tour, which would have provided more details of how the Cliff Dwellings were actually built and their way of life.

There was also plenty of wildlife to see, right along the road.......here's a coyote and bear.

Now on to the Four Corners.......

Fruita, Colorado

We arrived in Fruita, Colorado hot and tired.  We're staying at La Quinta for two nights.  We have the great wedding rate, $89 a night.  Again, great value.  We each did a load of laundry because that's how we roll.  It was agreed, we all brought too many clothes.  We mostly did this because we have plenty of room...so of course we had to fill that space.  We just weren't up to the wedding party festivities that night, so we walked across the parking lot to Rib City and had a good dinner.

The wedding wasn't until 6:30 so we had all day to roam around.  The road to the Monument was right by the hotel, so we took about an hour and made the loop.  This also involved math because we had to figure out if it was good value to purchase an annual pass.  This isn't easy.  The National Parks have different fees.  For motorcycles we can get one pass and it will admit the two bikes.  The entrance can be anywhere from $10 to $40 for the two bikes.  Dave is just months away from the $10 lifetime pass!!!

We also took a few hours to visit a friend from California that now lives in Grand Junction.  We took a tour of her wonderful home and then off to downtown Junction to the Bagel shop for lunch.....where we saw two young women typing away on manual typewriters...that's right, not laptops.  One had bright, neon red hair so I'm pretty sure it's all about being noticed.

Not that we would ever move from our lovely home, but Fruita and Junction are really nice little towns.    Junction even has a Hobby Lobby!

then off we went to the wedding.  Now this was interesting.  I'm wearing my cute little dress over jeans and boots.  We arrive and park the bike in the soft dirt parking lot...placing a rock under the kickstand so it would be upright when we returned.  I slip off my boots and jeans and step in to my sandals, right on the side of the road....we walk across the street and there we are...so much fun.  Maybe I should have left the jeans on......sitting on the bale of hay would have been more comfortable.  At the reception we randomly chose a seat right next to a CPA...what are the chances of that? The wedding was so sweet and wonderfully done.  This is Lindsay's turf, so she really was the star.  Cliff looked content and happy to join the Fruita community, it's a love match.