Another day of rain.  I think I’m growing gills.  It was 38 degrees when we left Frisco at 10:30 a.m.

We spent last night at a very nice Best Western in Frisco, CO.  Every night we’ve had the most comfortable rooms, and this was no exception.  I got my dog fix there as well.  The manager had 2 beautiful German Shepherds there in his office and I got to give them some love and hugs.

Frisco is a cool little town surrounded by beautiful mountains.  The view from our room was so pretty and it was interesting to see how the view of the mountains changed as the clouds came and went.

We began our day with a stop in Vail, CO to visit Josh Tolles, Steve & Teresa’s son.  It’s always so good to see him whenever he comes home to visit, but seeing him in his own element was really fun.  He showed us all around Vail and gave us the grand tour.  The weather even cooperated for us.  The rain stopped and the sun came out!   We had a great lunch and before we knew it, it was time to get back on the road.  Our destination today is Durango – at least 5 hours away.

We hadn’t gone more than 5 miles from Vail when it started raining again.  We took US 24 to head toward Durango.  It’s a scenic route and under good weather conditions would have been a beautiful ride.  However, maneuvering twisting curves and hairpin turns through the mountains in the pouring rain wasn’t that much fun.  Our glasses kept fogging over and at one point neither of us could see and had to pull off the road.  We had to ride without glasses which wasn’t easy either with the rain stinging our eyes.  At least we could see though.

The rain let up for a while and we were so happy to have drier roads again – and to be able to wear our glasses.  It didn’t last long and before long we were back in another pouring rain storm.  After 2 hours or so we made it to Buena Vista, CO and Mark pulled off the road again .. our glasses were fogging up and we couldn’t see again.  We still had at least 4 hours of riding in this crappy weather.   It didn’t look like there was any end to the rain, and the temperature was only about 40.  Snow was predicted for Leadville, which is just a bit north of us.  Mark suggested we get a room there in Buena Vista and call it a day.  I thought it sounded like a great idea.  We were both soaked and cold and it was already 4:30.

Hopefully tomorrow we’ll get a break from the rain.  Especially since we’ve now got 100 miles or so to make up.  We’ll be heading to Sedona, AZ tomorrow.  I checked the weather forecast .. it’s supposed to be 88 and sunny there.  We can’t wait to get there!

Here are some photos from our day today!

We’ve gotten a couple of emails from people saying they aren’t able to make comments here on the blog.  My technical advisor/geek sister has figured out the problem and corrected it.   We’re looking forward to hearing from all of you!   s

Thanks everyone for your good wishes!  We’re so glad you’re enjoying our blog.  We sure love hearing from everybody.   Blessings to you all!

It was so good to wake up to sunshine this morning.  It’s wasn’t warm .. but it wasn’t raining.  You can’t have everything!

We rode through the San Luis Valley today.  It’s so beautiful and so flat.  It’s a little world all tucked in between two mountain ranges.  Most of the ride was long straight roads with pastures of cattle grazing and a few horse ranches.  

Unfortunately the sunshine didn’t last long.  We had to stop at a gas station in the middle of nowhere to put our rainsuits on.  While we were stopped, we got an up close and personal look at a thunderstorm that was barreling toward us.  The sound of the thunder gave me goosebumps as it pounded across the valley.

We managed to skirt around the edges of that storm and just when we thought we had beat Mother Nature, she blasted us with both barrels.  We handled the rain with no problem, but when big hailstones started hitting us in the face, we gave up and stopped at a convenience store in Center, CO, had some hot chocolate and waited for the storm to pass.

While we waited we visited with a real life cowboy who was waiting for someone to meet him.  He looked like he could have played any part in any western I’ve ever seen.  I asked him if he owned a farm or a ranch.  He said with a slow drawl, “I lease some land and run cows over by Pagosa .. up into the mountains”.  He was so genuine.

As we visited with him and the convenience store owner they gave us some pointers about Wolf Creek Pass which we were about to enter.  The most memorable being .. it could be raining here but it’s 10,000 feet at the summit of the pass, and the roads could be icy.  Great …. 

When the rain stopped we hit the road again.   Fortunately the roads were drying fast and we had no trouble with ice.  We did have to stop along the way for construction, which was a good opportunity for me to take a few pictures.

Once we made it over that mountain, the land turned flat again and we began to see huge rock formations.  By then we were passing though the Ute Mountain Indian Reservation .. a barren, God forsaken part of the world.  We traveled for miles though this reservation and eventually crossed into the Navajo Indian Reservation where we stopped to see the marker for the 4 corners (CO, NM, AZ, and UT).

We rode and rode and rode and still never made it out of the reservation land.  The weather at least was beautiful.  It was warm and the rock formations looked so mysterious with the sun sinking low in the sky and then finally disappearing leaving nothing but silhouettes.  It was a beautiful night to ride off into the sunset with Mark.     

And that’s about where the fun stopped.  As we rode through this part of the Indian land, we passed several signs for deer crossing, elk crossing, and horses and cattle.  Apparently they don’t fence the animals in.  So riding after dark was pretty nerve wracking.

At 9:00 we stopped at McDonald’s in Kayenta, AZ .. still on the reservation land.  We still had about 3 hours before getting to Sedona.    I told Mark I just didn’t think I could make it the rest of the way.  There was a Holiday Inn right across the street, so we stopped there to get a room.  There was nothing available but smoking rooms.  I was sure we could find something else at one of the other 2 hotels in town.  Unfortunately they had no vacancies at all.  They suggested we continue to the next town, Tuba City.  It was the longest hour of my life.  My muscles were aching, my nerves were shot from seeing more signs warning us of loose cattle and horses, plus wild animals.    

We finally made it to Tuba City, which is also on reservation land and stopped at one of the few hotels there.  They had no vacancy.  By now it was  after 11:00 and I was kicking myself for not taking that stupid smoking room.  The desk clerk in Tuba City said the only place left in town was at the local high school.  They have a hostel called the Gray Hills Inn for high school students which we could stay at.  The rooms didn’t have private bathrooms, just a community bathroom at the end of the hall.  At that point, I didn’t care if the place didn’t have running water.  All I wanted was a bed to sleep in.  It was nearly midnight when we checked in.  We’d been on the road since 9:30 a.m.  To say it was a long day is an understatement.

Here are some pictures I took before my near meltdown later in the evening.

After the long, exhausting ride yesterday, we woke up at 5:30 and decided to get up and head to Sedona.  We actually had a great night’s sleep.  The Grey Hills Inn was spotlessly clean and the beds were comfortable.  And once we were on the bikes and headed down the road, all of yesterday’s aches and pains and exhaustion seemed to blow away in the breeze.

We stopped at the McDonalds in Tuba City and met a couple named Everett and Arlene.  They are from Gallup, NM and were in Tuba City to take their daughter, Adrianna, for a checkup with a specialist there.  She has an autoimmune disease.  The doctors said she would not live past age 4.  She’s 8 now and looks like any other healthy child.  

We had a nice visit with Everett and Arlene.  Everett is Native American, was in the Army during the Gulf War, and now has a lung disease caused from chemicals while he was in the Gulf.  They were a wonderful couple and we enjoyed talking with them during breakfast.  They invited us to visit them in Gallup on our way back to Michigan.

The ride from Tuba City to Flagstaff, AZ was so beautiful.  The scenery kept changing from huge rock formations to absolutely nothing but dried up grasses and sand, to mountains, and finally to forests of cedar trees.  We stopped at the city limits of Flagstaff to take a picture for the contest.  While we were stopped we noticed how fragrant the cedar trees were.  It smelled like one of those tourist places in Mackinaw City.

The drive from Flagstaff to Sedona along 89A was absolutely spectacular.  I didn’t get a lot of pictures .. because SOMEBODY wouldn’t pull over. (Editor’s note: She wanted me to pull over even though there was just 6″ of pavement to the right of the fog line? WRONG!!) When he finally did stop, I told him he was lucky because I would have kicked his butt if he didn’t stop soon!

You have to cross a mountain on 89A to get to Sedona.  It was just an amazing ride.  It’s 20+ miles of nothing but twists and hairpin turns surrounded by amazing red rock.  You just can’t describe it.  All of you have got to come here and see this for yourselves.  I promise you, you’ll want to come back!  I know we’ll be back here.

The first thing we did after we checked in was dig out our swim suits and head for the pool.  Mark got us a poolside room so it was nice to just run out the door and hop in the pool.  The bad part of that was, I had to go to our room for a potty break, but wasn’t sure which door was ours!  We hadn’t bothered to bring our room key, so I couldn”t just go in that way.  Mark was in the pool laughing like a fool as I searched for the right door!  The first one I tried was locked .. definitely not our room!  How embarassing would that have been? (Editor’s note: Sandy’s actually a latent window-peeker! LOL – love ya, babe!) We had the whole pool area to ourselves for the hour or two we were out there.  It was peaceful, quiet, and relaxing.   

The town of Sedona is absolutely gorgeous.  You can see beautiful rock formations from everywhere in town.  And as the sun moves across the sky, the colors of the rocks change so they never look the same for long.

Sedona is filled with very cool shops .. even a Harley Davidson store where we got a couple of T shirts.   The people here are so friendly.  Twice we had people offer to take our picture so we could both be in the picture.

We found an ice cream shop and sat at an outside table enjoying our Rocky Road ice cream and taking in the sights of the town.  While we were there, we got to meet Sparky, a golden retriever who was patiently waiting for his owner to finish talking with a friend.  Mark and I kept Sparky company while he waited.  He was a sweetie!

We also listened to some live music by Scott Beck.  We bought one of his CD’s and visited with him for a bit.  He is a former massage therapist who gave up that profession for music.  He’s working on a new CD right now that will be great for massage music.   We wish him the best of luck and will be looking for that new CD!

We had dinner at the Red Rock BBQ.   It was a great place!  We both ate so much!  The food was delicious and the service was perfect!  Thanks for the updates on the Red Wings game, Teresa .. wish it would have been better news though.

It was a beautiful warm night, so we walked back to our hotel rather than take the shuttle.  This is an amazing town and we can’t wait to come back here again and stay longer.

See you tomorrow at the Grand Canyon!

We spent the morning walking through one of the canyons near Sedona with Victor and his wife, Vicki, who took us on a vortex tour.  The tour was very peaceful and spiritually enriching.  It was a chance for Mark and I to feel connected spiritually, to get away from the chaos of the rest of the world and feel grounded and let the energy of the rock rejuvenate us. If any of you visit Sedona, I highly recommend you take a tour with Victor or any one of the other spiritual guides in the area.  It’s a beautiful experience you will never forget.

The rock formations are amazing to see from a distance, and up close they are just as beautiful but in a much different way.  There are so many different types of bushes, wildflowers, trees, grasses and cacti.  I was pleasantly surprised.

Victor told us that the rocks are actually white.  What makes them red is rust in them that makes the outer edges look red.  If you scrape it, it’s white underneath.

Sadly we had to leave Sedona today.  I know we only touched the surface of it.  We’ll be coming back again.

Our plan was to leave Sedona and ride to the Grand Canyon.  Again today, the weather wasn’t very cooperative.   There were high wind advisories at the Grand Canyon, and it was overcast and chilly, and very windy all the way from Sedona to Williams, AZ which is where we planned to stay tonight.  We decided to pass on the Grand Canyon today, had a nice dinner at Doc Holiday’s Steak House here in Williams, and went back to our hotel room to relax for the evening.

We did take a few minutes to check out Grand Canyon Harley Davidson which was right on our way.  We met some great people there, bought a couple T-shirts and headed out toward Williams.

Tomorrow we will try the Grand Canyon again.

One of the advantages of having done this blog for Mark and Sandy is that I can just jump in here anytime I want and post something and they won’t mind. It is Sunday afternoon, June 7th around 3 PM here in California and I am going crazy waiting to hug my baby sister! I have cookies in the oven baking that I hope Mark will really like – Cherry Garcia Cookies. They are yummy. And the lasagna is made and ready to go in the oven in a little bit. Did I mention I can’t wait for them to get here?

My gorgeous daughter, her handsome husband and my wonderful grand daughter are all coming over to greet them and have dinner. I’m the only one who has been fortunate enough to meet Mark. Sandy has met Richard but neither of them have met Justin, Jenna’s husband yet. Nor have they met Amara, they’ve heard lots about her and seen tons of pictures but nothing is as good as live and in person.

About now they should be having brunch and visiting with Mark’s relatives out in Corona. Google says Corona is 30 minutes from here — and maybe on their bikes they can make it in 30 minutes but most people in this area will tell you that you can’t do it in 30 minutes — traffic!!

To all my family and friends back in Michigan – I wish Sandy and Mark were bringing you along. We are going to have a wonderful time — if they ever get here!

Our stay in Williams, AZ was short and not too newsworthy.  We had a great dinner at Doc Holliday’s (sp?) Steak House in Williams which was really good.  There were lots of restaurants there and other steak houses with old west themes.  It’s a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere within an hour’s drive of the Grand Canyon, which is why we chose it.

Our ride to the Grand Canyon was really nice.  Like I said, it’s a quick trip from Williams and it’s very pretty with rolling hills and lots of Ponderosa Pines.

We stopped at the Grand Canyon airport to buy our ticket to get in the park and took the shuttle bus to the Canyon.  We considered taking one of the helicopter tours, but they were a little pricey … $149 per person. And because of the high winds, they were only running the shorter of the 2 routes that day.  High winds in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon … I don’t think so!

It was our first time seeing the Grand Canyon.  It’s hard to even describe, and pictures just don’t do it justice.  I had a hard time even comprehending how far down it really was .. you can barely see the bottom it’s so deep.  The colors are just beautiful.  We only saw one small part of it .. and it was just absolutely enormous.

We still had a long ride ahead of us, so we didn’t stay a long time at the Canyon.  When we left there we were headed for Las Vegas.   We got off the freeway and took old Route 66 for about 70 miles.  It was a beautiful drive.  There were huge cattle ranches all along the way.  There wasn’t a lot of traffic and it was a peaceful and serene ride.  We found several city signs for the contest along the way.

We had lunch at the Roadkill Cafe on Route 66 in Seligman, AZ, an old, old town that was probably quite busy before the freeway went through.  Now there’s not much left.  The restaurant has been there for years and years.  The food was fantastic and the menu was hilarious. The theme of the restaurant is obvious .. some of the menu items were Swirl of Squirrel, Fender Tenders, Splatter Platter … you get the picture.  Mark and I had a Tried to Pass Me By on Rye (patty melt).  It was delicious!  Drinks are served in a quart mason jar.  The decor was interesting as well, some stuffed deer heads on the wall, a couple of mountain lion hides, and a stuffed mountain lion ready to pounce on you as you walk in the door.

After a late lunch we were about half way to our destination of Las Vegas.  Mark was there a few years ago on a homicide investigation.  I’ve never been there.  My first view of it was from the freeway as we came over the last mountain top and saw Las Vegas in the valley ahead of us.  It was just spectacular with lights for as far as you could see!  As we wove our way through the city to find our hotel, we stopped for a stop light in front of New York, New York.  It was just amazing.  The Statue of Liberty standing in front of the New York skyline was breathtaking.  And on the opposite corner was The Excalibur.  All the colors were so brilliant.  It’s all bigger than life itself and a bit like the Grand Canyon .. almost too much to take it all in.

I thought of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr.  All of them undoubtably traveled down Tropicana Blvd like we were doing.  Only they were in limos, no doubt.

We found the Hampton Inn and unpacked our bikes and decided we still had enough energy left to check out a casino.  We freshened up a bit and headed out on the hotel shuttle to the Mandalay Bay which was nearby.  I must have looked like a deer caught in the headlights when we walked in the place.  I’d have tons of pictures to show you, but Mark wouldn’t let me take the camera.  He said, “You don’t want to look like a tourist, do you?”  (Ummm … I think we are tourists.)  Anyway, I didn’t take the camera.  I don’t know if I can begin to describe the experience.  There were chandeliers that were as big as our hotel room ceiling,  live trees growing in the atrium that were 20 feet tall,  everything was shiny and gold and huge!  We found our way to the casino and I really went into culture shock.  The place was packed with people, it was noisy, smoky, and a little bit creepy to me.  It was the ultimate Chucky Cheese for adults.  We just walked around for a while watching people play different games and finally got up the nerve to try a slot machine.  I found a nickel one and played $2.  It took about 20 minutes to lose it.  Mark lost his $1 in less than 5 minutes.  He was bored with it after that, and so was I so after only about 45 minutes, we left the casino and headed back to our hotel, which required taking a cab because Mark said it’s not that safe to be walking around there at night.  The cab back to our hotel cost more than we’d gambled.

I couldn’t stop thinking how out of place I felt in the casino.  I would have been much happier to be walking through a cow pasture in Iowa or South Dakota, or enjoying the beauty and quiet of Sedona or Vail.  Las Vegas just isn’t for me.  I do wish we could have just driven around so I could see all the lights and the other casinos.  Maybe next time if we’ve got a car.

From Day 11 Las Vegas

Hi everyone!

I’m way behind on the blog again.  We’re enjoying spending time with Mark’s cousin, Geoff and his wife, Susan.. and a precious hour or so with their son, Spencer.  And with my sister, Kc .. her husband, Richard … my niece, Jenna .. her husband, Justin .. and their daughter, Amara.  I will try to catch up tonight and post a bunch of new photos.

It’s so good to hear your comments.  I don’t always have time to respond to them, but just know we read all of them and so enjoy them.

We’re both starting to get a little homesick.  And it will be even worse after we have to say goodbye to our families here and start heading home.  These next couple of days are going to go by way too fast.

Blessings to you all,

s

Today we rode through the Mohave desert from Las Vegas to Southern California.  I was happy to see Las Vegas in my rear view mirror.  The ride across the desert was hot but not unbearable.  We made a couple of stops along the way for Gatorade and to hang out in the shade of a gas station overhang, so it wasn’t too bad.  I didn’t take any pictures of the desert mostly because there just wasn’t much to see except sand and more sand.  It was cooler as we went through the mountains again .. in fact it was so cool I thought I would have to stop and put on my leather jacket.  I toughed it out though.

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