Death Valley

Was hot! The ride past Vegas seemed to go on and on and there was just nothing but a road that lasted for 3 hours and had 3 bends in it. Then we got to the valley and wound down from about 2500 ft to 270 ft below sea level. By the time we stopped to take a look at the visitor centre the temperature had increased from 28 deg C to over 39 deg C. As I said we are in unusually cool weather at the moment - Death Valley has recorded up to 57 deg C!
There is no water in the valley now, it all dried up some millennia ago and left the worlds largest salt deposits. See the white in the photos, it covers large areas and is up to 6 feet thick. The Borax was mined from the 1860s until it became uneconomic.
On the way out it started to rain!!!
By the way try to spot Steven with the bikes.
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Grand Canyon - south rim to north rim

Now here's a problem! From the south rim on the canyon to the north
rim of the canyon is about 10 miles as the crow flys. We had two choices

A) trek into the canyon on foot all the way to the bottom and back out
the other side! eeerrrrr - that's a "no" for plan a; or

B) take the senic road route (about 350 miles) to the closest easterly
crossing point the Navajo Bridges.

We obviously took plan B and it was a lovely ride. Traffic free roads
with twists and turns rising and falling.

OMG! We crossed over the Navajo Bridges, stopped to take some pictures
and the got on the bikes. A quick check on the fuel situation showed
only 50 miles of furl remaing on Andys bike and 60 on Stevens.
Checking on the SatNav for the nearest petrol station shows a Shell
garage 65 miles away (in a direct line - about 75 miles by road - and
all up hill) Oh no!!!!!!!

Cautiously we drive out of the car park and 50 yards around the corner
there's a gas station :-))))))) Relieved, we brimmed the tanks and
head on!

Made good time across the open roads of the North rim and stayed the
night in a tiny town across the state line into Utah (where everything
seems twice as expensive as Arizona)

Monday - Grand Canyon

After seeing the Meteor Crater we are back on the road. Its hot and getting hotter as we rejoin R66 for Flagstaff, AZ.
We leave R66 at Flagstaff and head north for the Grand Canyon National Park. We start rising in altitude, the scenery changes and evergreen firs start to fill the landscape.
The Canyon is impressive and your mind cannot get the scale of the drops or distances. Obviously the photos don't do it justice. Its one of those things you just have to see for real.
On the picture note the dear in the trees - not really bothered by the cars or our bikes.

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Monday - Meteor Crater

Arizona has one of the best preserved meteor impact sites in the
world. This giant "hole in the ground" is about 40 mile south east of
Flagstaff. Caused by a meteor measuring about 150ft across, when it
hit the ground it left a dent in the earth nearly 4,000 ft wide and
750 ft deep. Maybe that's because it was traveling at about 40,000
mph! At that speed you could get from Paris to New York on 5 mins.
Check it out on Google Earth to get a birds eye view of the hole.

Sunday - New Mexico

We are pushing on well and covering a lot of ground. Well there is a lot of ground to cover and there is not a lot in or on it!
NM is hot (although cool for the time of the year) so we are quite lucky.
The roads here are straight dusty and there is very little to photograph, we are looking forward the Arizona where we have a few things we want to see.

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Blog updates on the way

I know our blogging has been poor in the last few days - but we're
been busy and / or in places with no WiFi to blog from. Having the
first "non-riding" day today so gonna catch up with the blog!

Texas

We rode across the "pan handle" of Texas today. As I was riding I
dicovered some facts about the "lone star state"

1) it's very big
2) it's very flat
3) and the roads are "arrow straight"
4) no... I can't think of a fourth one! Oh yes I can... It's bloody
hot!!!

Stopped for late lunch in Adrian, TX at the "mid point cafe". As the
name suggests it's half way along 66.

Texas

We made the Texas state line today.
We need to cross the 'pan handle' before entering New Mexico. The Texas section will include a fair amount of inter state as Route66 and IS40 are in effect the same road although some older sections of 66 do exist. There are even some dirt sections although I am not sure if we will attempt these today.
The landscape here provides some BIG views!

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Friday Night

Stopped early tonight to get some laundry done! Another week of riding
in the heat makes smelly socks and T's mount up. Stopped at the most
luxurious "Super 8" where the only channels on TV seem to be "home
shopping". Made reasonable time today considering we hit the mother of
all storms with wind and rain like you've never seen. Fotunatley a
local guy at a gas station had give us the heads up, so we drove an
addition 10 mins in sunshine to the local BMW Motorad dealer in Tulsa,
he put the bikes under cover for us an within 2 mins the storm hit! 5
miles away there were hail stones the size of cricket balls dropping
from the sky. Nice!

Where are we?

We seem to have been riding for ages but don't seem to have got too far!


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For Jack and Ben

By special request some pictures of the bikes...


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Thursday - Kansas

Been there, survived it, left there. Route 66 just clips Kansas. In
the words of Mr Gump "...that's all I have to say about that"

Oh... I do have something else to say. We got some tornado advice from
a local - as we are in tornado season and in tornado alley. Top tip is
to ride hard the opposite direct and avoid anything big falling from
the sky - like a combine harvester or a house.

Tomorrow we cross Oklahoma. Famous for being the No 1 state for the
incarceration of women; No 1 for child abuse but only No 6 for women
murdered by their male partners! 2 outta 3 ain't bad I guess!!!!

Thursday

Got up late today and left Springfield feeling refreshed and ready to cover some miles.



The weather was warm and a bit too humid; ok once we were moving on the bikes though.



Disaster! About and hour or so on the road and just outside Gay Parito - population 20 (yes that's 20) I got a puncture in the rear tyre. AAA would take about 2 days and the nearest BMW dealer is 150 miles.



What's a guy to do but find a Route 66 collectors garage owned by Gary who looked after us, provided ice cold soda and called some favours (thanks Gary).



Curtis (Harley man and certified 'Big Dog Engineer') tried to use his tyre 'plug kit' (thanks Curtis) but in the end the bike was hitched to a trailer (thanks Stan) and taken to a bike dealer. (thanks Ken) the only one with a tyre that fits (yes turns out the BMW tyre size is not easy to get in the US).



So 5 hours and $370 later we are back on 66 and heading for Kansas.





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Wednesday

Giant Alert.



The worlds largest rocking chair as certified by Guinness...



Note Stevens bike parked at foot of chair for scale.



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Wednesday Night

Stayed Wednesday night in Springfield, MO. Not sure if this is the
same Springfield where the Simpsons come from, but people here did
look a little yellow :-)