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Dale’s wheels thru time is a cool museum in Maggie Valley NC if it’s reopened. The proprietor passed away and I don’t know what the families plans are.
Am in Santa Fe, NM now staying at Rich’s house about 20 minutes south of downtown. Rich is on Wild Guzzi and has 2 fun dogs and a really vocal parrot. He’s got 5 Moto Guzzis in the garage including a 70s era one with a side car. He also has a nice electric bike that I got to try. Wow! Fun! I had a New Mexico treat tonight, a green chilie burger that was great. Rode from just north of Ouray, CO this morning. Temps read 34 degrees when I went through Ouray. Had ice all over my bike when I woke up. Will be glad when I’m out of the high altitude west and in warmer, eastern places. The aspens don’t even have leaves on them and what grassy slopes that aren’t covered with snow in the mountains are still brown. Still, some places are spectacular, particularly Rte 550 betwen Ouray, CO and Durango, CO. Did encounter ice on some roads from snowmelt runoff freezing on the pavement. Have seen many animals crossing, standing in or standing beside the road including a fox, a big horn sheep, many longhorn goats, cows, deer and wild turkeys. Gotta watch out. No elk yet though despite the many signs warning of them.Did over 500 miles yesterday on some really interesting roads between Salt Lake City and Ouray, CO. I love those 2 lane roads where you can maintain 80mph, almost as much as I love the 25-35mph rated turns. Lots of 10-15mph turns over the last 2 days too. The long days are fine so long as they’re curvy. Rode Colorado National Monument, which is a super curvy 30 mile road near Fruita, CO. It’s unbelievably twisty. Got to see many "Earth ships" outside of Taos, NM, which are semi-underground, adobe, passive solar houses. Pretty fun!Tomorrow begins the grueling ride across Oklahoma to the Ozarks. Straight, flat, but they’re 2 Moto Guzzi dealers there, which is a comfort.Returning to New Mexico is interesting having gone to school in Santa Fe. I rode up the ski basin road for old times’ sake. It’s a 15 mile hill climb with endless linked, low and medium speed corners. No gravel to speak of. Tons of fun. Will try to contact an old friend who hired me as a bicycle mechanic back in 1975. The shop he managed is still here.
I left Santa Fe, NM yesterday morning after having breakfast with Rich, his dogs and his parrot. He’s owned the parrot over 40 years. They live to be 60. I asked Rich if he thought the parrot would outlive him. He said maybe, and that the parrot’s in his will! Anyway I set off east and south bound and found a fun little 30ish mile curvy road before I hit Interstate 40. I new this was going to be the grueling part of the trip. Straight superslab across eastern NM, northern TX and then OK. I thought about stopping at the Moto Guzzi dealer in Oklahoma City, but my back tire continues to have tread. Next MG dealer was in Tulsa. So I made it to the Super 8 motel in Tulsa after riding about 650 miles. It wasn’t as boring as I expected. Interesting to watch the dashboard temperature gauge go from 46 degrees to 60. New Mexico’s mountainous red earth and scattered sage yielded to Texas’ flat grass pasture land, feed lots and massive wind turbine farms. The low hills, green fields and scrubby oaks and pines appeared in Oklahoma. Kept a pretty constant 80 mph. Had my goose down jacket on under my leather jacket, and used my winter gloves that day. Strangely, at the end of the day I felt less stiff and sore and could have driven longer. Cloudy and cool this morning with rain in the forecast. Headed east on another superslab until I reached Rte 10 south from the town of Kansas. It’s rated as a good motorcycle road, and a scenic road. It was both in spades. So nice to get back on a 2 lane road. It wound along the Illinois River. Parks with boat launch ramps were named so and so “Hollow”. An occasional dead armadillo was on the side of the road. While standing next to a guy in the bathroom with all my gear on he said, “Ain’t gonna miss you in that helmet.”, referring to my hi viz yellow helmet. What a place! Heading further east the rain set in hard. On with the rain gear. Thought I’d shelter in a brew pub and try get some BBQ. Found Penguin BBQ in Fayetteville, next door to Crisis Brewing (heh heh). Got a couple of their IPAs on tap with my pulled pork sandwich and a rib. Delicious!I want to start riding the good Ozark roads with the “Pig Trail”, this areas most famous motorcycle road. So, I head south out of Fayetteville on a nice road to Alma, and then east on another backroad to the town of Ozark. Am now in an Army Corps of Engineers campground on the Arkansas river outside of town. Met a nice guy in the grocery store parking lot who owns a Honda Goldwing. He was interested in my Moto Guzzi. The park that I’m in is called Aux Arcs, which is French. When I pronounced it ohs arcs he correct me and said “aux, like auxillary". The guy’s a native and doesn’t know his town and area name are French. I didn’t press the point.Anyway, the rain’s let up, otherwise I’d be in another motel. Happy to be here in the campground. Pig Trail and hopefully many other great roads tomorrow.post image
The "Suggestions for trip" one, where I'm riding cross country and back? Did I post something offensive? I certainly didn't mean to.
Noted LoRyter. My apologies.
We did speak , I'm the one with the voice that sounds like kerosene and gravel mixed together . Dusty