My winter trip

[Ivan]

I really hate suicidal owls. Makes me want to wring their neck, not that it would do any good. (get it?)

[thebottle]

If there is ever a zombie apocalypse I know where I am heading....

[XSokieSPECIAL]

Darned newbies and thier owls!

Sucks about your windshield man.

Nice lookin' rig.

[Ivan]

If there is ever a zombie apocalypse I know where I am heading....

Funny you should say that. There is a MMO that I play called "Fallen Earth" which is based post apocalypse and in the southwest US.

[Wildkat]

Geez David!
Next time... wait until you're driving your Dad's vehicle before you hit any large birds... he's accustomed to it...
We don't call him the Stinky Butt Buzzard Buster for nothing...
okay... maybe it's just me that calls him that...

Glad you're okay... windshields can be replaced a lot more easily than body parts...

Ivan... that was funny

[4.0xj]

Yea I am good. It scared my little brother bad though. After I was done laughing at him yelling AHH WHAT WAS THAT!!!! I just said ahh dang it and he said what? DId we hit a deer? I just said no just a stupid owl.

[XJOK2PLAY]

David,

Your quite welcome about what I said... came from the heart.
In all seriousness... when it comes to the friendship thing with your Dad... I don't kid around when I say how blessed I've been since meeting him.

(I just have to be careful about him hearing me say it... ) OHHH shoot! I just realized this isn't a PM!!!

Sorry to hear that happened to your windshield! Wow... bet that was a wakeup call & a half! One of those... "First you say it, then you do it" moments...

I can't resist saying this... (so I won't...) I can already see the resemblance...

HeHeHeHe LOL You are indeed your father's son... no ID required!

But Kat's right... if your gonna do that kind of stuff... at least use your Dad's... not yours!! Especially if he's gone off on some kind of lone adventure across 3 states!!! He'll understand when he comes back... Trust Me!!!

[cywelchjr]

Tombstone, now that sounds like a real peaceful place.

It is now. Bit of a tourist trap though. Spend 4.5 years down in that area. Sierra Vista is I believe what you at least need to skirt to get to Tuscon from Bisbee and it has one of the best kept secrets in the army, Ft Huachuca, which was built to keep Pauncho Villa on his side of the border and is still active as the Army's Development site for communications and electronics. Has a nice (or at least had) museam (sp) dedicated to the buffulo soldiers. Interesting fact (that nobody else is actually likely to be interested in) is that SWMBO's grandfather was stationed there back in the Cav days and then I was stationed there at the proving ground in the early 80's. Of course I understand things have grown a bit, I hear they even have fast food joints there now . I remember when they went from having only a McDonalds and added a Burger King right outside the main gate.

Rumor has it that the first McDonald's drive through was in Sierra Vista to cater to the soldiers on their way home from work because they were not allowed to get out of their cars in their work uniforms, they had to go home and change, but coud pick up something to eat if they didn't have to get out of the car.

Also local "knowledge" was that the rat in the bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken actually happened and that it was in Sierra Vista and was a plant because they would not join the local chamber of commerce. Locals were really persistant that it was done by the chamber to try and force KFC to join.

[Montreux_Blue]

Yea I have asked dad his opinion on the Suzuki Vstroms, but I suppose it would be easier to just get an xj since we have i think 4. I like the vstroms, and I have read some good reviews about them, but no personal experience with one. I dont know how the moderators around here are. I hope talking about potential bikes isnt against any of the ride report technical info.

Get the Vstrom and let your dad break it in. My TLR has the same engine as the Vstrom 1000 but mine has more power. And I have gotten as much as 47 mpg on a tank with it.

[Larrym]

"A Stand-up Guy!!"

Tod,

Ya get an "A" with a gold star for the ride report. (Congrats on avoiding the "epic fail" due to a forgotten sidestand...)

When you get to Tucson take a look this:

http://www.motorcycleroads.us/roads/az_ch.html

Look but don't touch cause it get's icy even though it's in the desert. Lot's of twisties and a lot of elevation too. Best done when the temps are up.

If you're gonna stay with an "underground" theme then you might check out "Colossal Cave" in Tucson as well. It's actually in "Vail" and the road out to it called "Old Spanish Trail" has enough sweepers to keep ya from fallin' asleep.

For the record I was one of those kids who climbed down into one of those abandoned missile silos. Your friend did a great job of turning it into a home.

Thx!!

[trbig]

Well crap Jeremy... My XJ will lean that far. I just don't hang off of the side like that like an Ivan.. I mean ape.


I woke up Monday morning in Deming, NM, and this was my view from my front door at the motel.



I went to get a cup (OK.. my "cup" is a jug) of coffee in the lobby. Heading back to my room, I saw a guy heading down some stairs with what I thought was a seeing eye dog due to the harness. He looked up, saw me and said hello, and even my uncaffeinated Okie mind deduced the guy wasn't blind. I looked at his dog and saw he was walking a bit funny and the guy (Chris was his name) seemed to ward off any questions with "He's getting old and needs a little help sometimes."

The harness was there for Chris to help Duke, not the other way around. Without any asking or prodding, he continued, "We probably need to put him down, but we just couldn't do it before Christmas, so we're taking him one more time to see the folks." Duke is a large breed dog and SIXTEEN years old! Meet Duke...



It just hit home a bit. I'm sure we've all had animals in our lives that were part of the family. I shook Chris' hand and thanked him for letting me take Duke's picture, and wished him a very Merry Christmas.. then turned away with tears in my eyes.


I packed up all my gear and rode next door to the gas station. As I fuel up, I lean the bike to the left against my leg to get in a little more fuel into the tank. Only this time, I didn't notice the oilly spot on the ground. This inattentiveness to detail was followed with a slip.. a clumsy dismount that ended with me laying on a curb.. and a crunch followed by gurgle gurgle of gas I had just put in... running out on the ground.

I headed out on I-10 westbound afterwards, assuming I was going to be much more aerodynamic now that I was minus one of those pesky turn signals sticking out there in the wind. I turned off the highway later at a small town called Lordsburg. I fueled up, got another cofee, then went to get back on the highway, but missed my turn. So, I just cruised through town, then saw a historic sign and stopped to look.






On the other side, it had a map of the area.. then I saw the Goldhill Ghost Town site, along with Red Rock Game Refuge.





I had time to kill, so I thought I'd go take a look at this ghost town. I headed out on this 464 highway, and it was a lonely stretch of road. I never saw or heard another vehicle the whole time out here. I got to about the halfway point to Red Rock like the map had shown.. and there was a "Road.. err.. trail heading out into the desert. What the heck.. it's a ghost town...





So I put the bike in 4 wheel drive and rode down this trail that slowly got worse and worse until it was basically riding an overloaded pig in soft sand. I rode probably 15 miles across this trail and a few washes, until I got to some big mound of dirt in the middle of nowhere. No.. really...





The XJ1100 Dirtbike...





Honestly, the bike did pretty good. It brought back a lof of good memories of riding endless miles in the desert when I lived in Vegas. But back to the search... After looking around, all I could see was a line of rocks someone had put there long ago.





I didn't hear or see any damn ghosts... so I decided it was time to go check out the red rock. So.. when I got back onto the highway, I headed that way, hoping to see some really nice rock formations.. or something? What I saw, was a cattle guard with a sign saying, "Welcome to the Red Rock Community. No trespassing of any kind!" So Basically... Hi!! Now leave! Not one to listen too well.. of course I rode on. I wanted to see the community and all. Then I went through another catle guard and a keep out warning. "Aww.. they don't mean it!", I thought. So.. when I came to the third one.. I decided I'd broke enough rules.. stopped took a couple pics and went back the way I'd come.








When my family reads this, they'll love me.. lol. But when I headed back and I hadn't seen a soul, with 20+ miles of straight black top ahead.. what's a guy supposed to do? I knew I was within fuel distance this time.. ahem.. So I pulled on the throttle a bit. I tried to get a pic of the GPS reading 120, but every time I'd get close, one of those dips in the road for washes to go across that you don't really notice at 55.. you notice a bit now! As I would get to a wash, I'd have to chop the throttle, but I still caught some air 3 seperate times at over 100. This is the closest I could get in a pic though.





Mom, just kidding.. that was really just kilometers...

[trbig]

So back to Lordsburg for fuel again, then onto I-10 until I turned south on Hwy 80 headed towards Rodeo NM. Nothing to report on this road really, except the main vehicles you see are border patrols. I looked at a map and saw I was getting pretty close to the Mexican border. I was in search of an old monument commemorating Geronimo's surrender (For the final time). The don't have it on any maps, or even signs there. I stopped in Rodeo at the museum to ask directions to the monument. If anyone is in the area, the gal running the place is worth stopping to look at.. lol. The monument is 10 more miles down the road, and you actualy cross into Arizona about a mile out of Rodeo. I finally saw the monument... and here's a little more on Geronimo if you care to read it.

http://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/18_geronimo.htm

And the monument. This isn't the exact spot of surrender, but is put on the highway since the actual spot is on private land.








Continueing on to Douglas, Arizona. I sit here, free, riding across the U.S. and those mountains in the distance sit on Mexican soil.





On to Douglas.. and a quick run to the actual border fence. What a difference 50 feet makes.








Riding along slowly down this lane taking pics of the fence, earned me some attention from the border patrol. I saw a truck tailing me.. thought maybe my imagination, so I made a few turns... made a complete circle as a matter of fact.. and there he still was. So I started laughing, gunned it through some traffic, split a couple cars and headed out on the highway, and he got left behind. Honey.. if some government people knock on the door there at home, just tell 'em I was only playin', OK?


Headed to Tombstone... but on the way, you go through Bisbee. Bisbee is a really neat looking town with homes built into the hills into solid rock. It started out as a mining town, as many of them around here did, and you can see the evidence of it all around... including this giant hole in the ground. The pics don't do it justice.. this is a big-azz hole!









Back on the road until....





I parked the bike in town and walked towards signs that advertised the OK Corral gun fight.








Of course,you had to PAY to actually see the corral. You can make a buck off of history, you just aren't going to make one off of me. What I was really interested in seeing was the Birdcage Theater. It was a theater, brothel, and bar all mixed into one. Here's a couple pics of the downtown though.








Now... there really wouldn't be anything left except a pair of boots sitting there would there?





And finally,





Back in the early 1900's the main mines hit water and they started filling in. Most of the town closed up and left, but many thought it was a temporary thing and the water would drop back down.. and life would resume as normal. The Birdcage was boarded up, and left for more than half a century. When the new owners purchased the Birdcage, they expected it to be just a shell. What they found was everything absolutely complete. Every furnishing.. from the candles, to the bar glasses, to even the linens on the beds. Here's the front section where the bar was. You can see the rest of the Birdcage... for a fee of course.


This is the stairway going up to the "bird cages" where the ladies of the night made their money. Notice how small it was. The average height of man at the time was 5'8" and the average female was just 4'2"!! TC... you would have been traveling in P.T. Barnum's freak show! lol.








This is Lady Fatima. This was a bit of a rowdy place. She has 6 bellet holes in her that have been repaired as well as two knife attacks around the bellybutton and heart.








She later went to Europe, changed her name and got very famous. No internet then to have her past bite her in the butt!

There are over 100 bullet holes in the place, but here's one at the bar...





And one in the wall to the right of Fatima where you can still see the bullet in there.





Back down the road a spell.. (Ehhh.. it starts to wear off on you some.. lol) Here is Big-Nosed Kate's place... long time girlfriend of Doc Holiday.








I went to get back on the bike and saw this place down an alley.





I went in and asked the lady if I could look around.. and she said, "Ummm sir? This is an actual marshal's office, not a tourist building." Ooops.. lol. BUT.. I could see the cell in front of me was old and asked if I could take a pic. She said, "I guess so. That's our drunk tank. The cell isn't original or anything, but I guess you can take a picture.." So I did. lol.

[trbig]

And on to Boot Hill Cemetary. Some of these I took because of the unfortunate names... and some were.. well.. you'll see. I'm sure you have seen many of these before.























Remember the names from the OK corral??




















Here's a pic of one of the original ones that isn't out there now. It says, "John Blair- Died of Smallpox. Cowboy throwed rope over feet and dragged him to his grave"





And finally...





I left Boot Hill and decided to go ahead and ride the rest of the ay into Mesa, Arizona. I rode a couple hours in the dark, but made it just fine to the hotel. I then called my brother and we went out for a couple beers and a burger.

I went to ride a canyon here today, but started to get rained on. This canyon is a "Screw up once and die" type of road, so I decided to head back and do it another day. It may be a few days before I can report back on here, but I'm going to spend time with family before my return trip home on the 26th. Nothing planned on that though except get my happy azz back to that family at home, but if I make that canyon run, I'll take some pics for you guys. If I don't see you before then, you all have a very Merry Christmas.


Tod

[XSokieSPECIAL]

Hey bro',

Glad you didn't get caught in that sandstorm around Pheonix I've been hearing about on the news.

Nice to hear you've been lollygaging. I was worried you might have hit that mess.

Once again, great pics. Now I've gotta go see Tombstone too.

By the way, you got a great son there.

Be safe man!!!!!!!

[4.0xj]

Ok so just because you have to type a lot and paste a lot of pictures in I will let all the misspelled words go this time, but really just look for the red squiggly lines next time.