Bonneville Excursion 9/6/07 - Fixes, twisties, and neon

Today was an interesting day. We picked up where we left off with the tire issues the previous night by jumping out of bed and making it over to Flagstaff Hot Bikes about 30 minutes after they'd opened.



It's an old gas station that's been converted into a bike shop. Really neat place. Aside from its aesthetic coolness, they had a tire I needed! And, it was of higher quality than the one I'd found yesterday, AND it was a size smaller, so it fit with more clearance! I really don't know how this could have worked out better for me (unless they'd come over to the hotel and done the work while I slept for free...yeah, that would have been better.).



Here's my new tire! Aren't you happy to see it? I am!!! Andrew is too.



Compared to the old tire, you can fit a family of seven between that brace and the tire. I don't think this pic does the best job of showing it, but there is now room where previously there was none.

Tire done, we headed out of Flagstaff down Alt 89 to Sedona. We took several minutes before departing to finally rig up the video camera on my helmet, because Andrew said the next bit of riding was going to warrant some video. Before we began the recorded route, however, we stopped at the rest stop showing the a great expanse of the Oak River Canyon.



Me and the canyon. It was an impressive sight! Not too many miles away lies the barren desert and the meteor crater, and here we are in the middle of a green forest.



We were a bit high up at the rest stop.



Following our twisty trip down Alt 89 through the Oak Canyon Forest, we headed through Sedona and on to a little mining town called Jerome. Jerome was a boom town during the early part of the century when copper was discovered. Within a year of the town's largest mine closing the town went from a population of 15,000 to about 100! This is one of the cars from the mine.



Andrew manged to adequately capture the somber mood and seriousness implied by the rusting mine car.



It would have been fantastic to spend more time in Jerome, but we needed to be in Williams, AZ by dark, so we shoved off, me once again donning the video camera. Oh, we did have one notable conversation before we left where a German gentleman came up to us and spoke with Andrew at length about his Honda and never said one word about my German bike sitting right next to it. We both got a kick out of that one.

Our next stop after Jerome was at some random gas station in Prescott, where the above photo was taken. No real reason for the photo, except the setting sunlight rocked, and we hadn't done a gas station photo in a while. So here we are, gassed up and ready to head onward toward Williams.

We got off the highway for Williams at exit 161, which puts you on old Route 66. Just as with so many other stops on this fabled road, there were a host of independent hotels, motels, and other tourist-related businesses. We took some time out to snap some shots of the more notable signs from these places.



The Downtown Motel, where we did not stay. It was across the street from our hotel, and I just liked the sign.



Rod's Steakhouse, where we did have dinner, although I had the trout. Good food, good coffee, awesome dessert.



Random hotel sign.



I haven't really taken pictures of people on this trip, but while I was shooting the sign above this girl, she thought I was shooting her as she talked to some cops. I flipped the shutter at her once for the heck of it. She seemed to get a kick out of the attention.



Here's a closeup shot of the previous random hotel sign. It was one of the biggest on the street. I just couldn't resist playing with the perspective on it.

We're holed up at The Lodge for tonight. Tomorrow we head north to the Grand Canyon, which is blessedly close, only about an hour away. We'll tour around there a bit, and then head north on some scenic routes to eventually reach Salt Lake City. It looks like we're somehow staying right on schedule!

Look forward to another set of pictures of a very large hole tomorrow.