Tomorrow I will rip out of my home in Bothell, WA and head to my buddy's place outside of Austin, TX. It should be a pretty good adventure as I'm routing through a lot of mountains and using plenty of out of the way roads. I'll try to update this thread as I go and maybe throw out a few pictures from the trip. I probably won't do dailies as I tend to ride hard and I'll be plenty crashed at the end of most days. But, I will try to throw out some highlights as I go. This whole adventure looks like 3-4 weeks of travel covering a whole lot of the American west. Routing will be fluid depending on mountain weather and any whim I feel. Should be a really fun adventure. Stay tuned...
Well, day 1 is in. Bothell, WA to Clarkston, WA. Got a little wet heading over Steven's Pass but the weather dried up and warmed up nicely once over the pass. Unremarkable ride except when I turned up Hwy 12 to Clarkston. Lovely country along the Snake River with the road running through the low hills and washes. I didn't catch the end of the Mariners' game, I fell asleep before it ended. But, go Mariners! Today we head over Lolo Pass to Lolo, MT then turn south to run along the Salmon River in Idaho. Will spend tonite at Salmon, ID.
The first day is good for checking load out and seeing if you brought the right stuff. Seems to be OK. Time to gas up and head out.
Looks like a great ride. You'll see moose warning signs on the straightaway heading toward the T-intersection of Hwy 12 and 93. Some say that you should slow down in moose crossing areas. Others say that you should speed up to reduce your exposure time!
A note before I turn in. Rode from Clarkston, WA to Lolo, MT; then down to Salmon, ID. This is nothing short of an epic ride. Clarkston to Lolo incorporates about 160 miles of twisties as the road follows the Clearwater River and then up and over Lolo pass. Mostly big sweeping corners and the road is in fantastic condition. The countryside is just staggering. Absolutely lovely ride. Leaving Lolo, you head south into Idaho again where you pick up the Salmon River for another bout of twisties and pretty country. I holed up in Salmon, ID for the night.
My only complaint is that the ride was wet, not soaking wet, but chilling wet. Temps were around 50 degrees and coupled with the pervasive dampness, made for a very chilly ride. I stopped in Lolo to pick up another layer to stave off the chill. Tomorrow I'll wander my way towards Salt Lake City. I'll stop around Alpine, WY to make my schedule fit. I'm supposed to meet one of my old interns for dinner in SLC Monday and that's where I'll be Monday night.
Yowza, that was a cold one. An unseasonal (sort of) cold front moved through and I had to change plans. I couldn't ride out to Alpine because it was snowing there. So, I made for Soda Springs, ID. Temperatures ranged from 36 to 44 all day. Whew! That was chilly. The day started with about 50 miles of nice twisties along the Salmon river then straightened out for the run across southern Idaho. Have to like the 80 MPH speed limit on the interstate - except when you're freezing your boy parts off. One of the lifesavers I have is a tall V-Stream windshield that when in the up position moves most of the air over my helmet. Almost like turning on a heater in cold weather. Woke up this morning to a frosty bike. I'll wait until it warms a bit, then off to Salt Lake City.
10-15-2025, 09:19 AM (This post was last modified: 10-28-2025, 05:25 PM by saread.)
Landed in Craig, CO last night from Salt Lake City. Not much to say about the ride from Soad Springs to SLC. Lots of straight roads and sage brush. I seem to have gotten my layering right. Although that was a chilly ride, I was reasonably comfortable. It was nice to have some 70 degree weather in SLC. The ride from there to Craig is mostly high desert. Not bad country, but a lot of the same as you travel. Long straight roads. Would have been a much nicer ride except that about 150 miles of it was in rain. Temps were in the 50 to 60 degree range depending on where you were. Low spots tend to pool cooler air in the terrain. I would have enjoyed this ride much more if I would have been dry.
Today we ride to Denver via Steamboat Springs. Expecting temps to be about the same but warming up in Denver. Should be some nice country today and it looks dry, mostly. Looking forward to having dinner with my granddaughter tonight. She's attending U of Denver so this is a nice stop. After Denver, I'm not sure. I really want to head down through Taos/Santa Fe before turning east. However, the warm route is down the I-25 slab. I will make my decision tonight. I'm leaning towards Taos, but I'll probably need to layer up good for one more day to do it.
At this point I have to report something we all know: the bike is performing marvelously. It eats miles with ease and has plenty of rock solid gumption when you want to get stupid in the twisties. I'm doing something a bit different for nav on this trip. I'm using a Carpuride I got a good deal on coupled with my android phone. The app I'm using is Here WeGo. A free app that has been developed by car manufacturers in europe, including BMW. It has its quirks, one of which that it won't send a route from the web site to the app. It will send locations. So the way you do it is you set your waypoints on your route, and pull them up as needed in the app. I know this is not how some us like to do it, but it's oddly not much of an issue. One of the interesting things the app does is that when you put in a location it will calculate multiple routes if available and list them for you to choose which you want to take. So far, I don't think I've used more than 2 locations per day to define my route. Very not cumbersome and I don't have to find an app to convert Google Maps routes to GPX. May not have all the cool bells and whistles that something like Rever has, but it is getting the job done. The Carpuride is also performing well. I have no issues so far.
Made it to Denver tonight. The weather warmed up and it was a very pleasant ride across Utah and Colorado. Went through the Eisenhower tunnel at 11,152 feet above sea level. Pulled the pass in 6th gear at 70 mph with ease. The altitude was not a factor at all. Really nice ride though high desert hills. Pretty country wearing its fall colors. Had a nice dinner with my granddaughter and her roommate. Dinner was only slightly more money than the chicken burger I had for lunch in Steamboat Springs. I have been waffling on whether to go south through Taos or stay east of the mountains. The weather looks to be dry, but coolish. I'm doing Taos tomorrow then on Friday we will head down to Roswell via Santa Fe. After that, I have to consider the run across Texas to Austin. I've been advised to avoid the Odessa/Midland area due to oil industry traffic. I may need to consult with my guy in Austin for a route.
Sorry for the dearth of pictures. The places I wanted to stop were all on the Lolo run but the weather was so miserable I didn't want to stop. Couldn't really find a neat spot for a photo on today's run. I'll find something somewhere.
10-17-2025, 08:39 AM (This post was last modified: 10-28-2025, 05:29 PM by saread.)
Made it to Taos, NM. Had to do a couple hundred miles on I-25 and that was a lot of meh. Cut across towards Taos at Raton, NM; just across the border from Colorado. Had a killer green chili Reuben sandwich there., making a mental note of that. The initial part of the run was a lot of straight, bad road. Then came the Cimmaron Canyon. A really nice part of New Mexico that winds and twists with the canyon. After that, the road runs up to Eagles Nest which lies in a bowl in the mountains at about 8200 feet. Leaving there you get nothing but twisties on a narrow road all the way to Taos. There was some construction and I was stuck behind a long line of cars and trucks with no passing zones. Pretty sucky at 30 mph all the way to Taos.
Today I'll start the run over to Austin. I'll drop down through Santa Fe, continue south to Roswell for the night. After that, it's about 500 miles to Austin. I'll arrive there Sunday night. 10 days after leaving home. Right on schedule. Probably spend Saturday night in Big Spring, TX. That's just about half way from Roswell. It's really chilly here in Taos, about 35 degrees right now. But, the weather is warming fast and it will be in the 80's at Roswell. I'm going to have to shed layers somewhere after Santa Fe. I'm really glad the weather cooperated to let me make this little run through New Mexico. Really lovely country out here.
If you don't hear from me further, I will have been abducted by aliens. Ad astra.
Almost forgot, obligatory photo of Pikes Peak from Colorado Springs. IMHO, nowhere as dramatic as Mt Ranier. But I may be biased.
Made it to Roswell, NM yesterday. The ride out of Taos was really nice going down the Rio Grande Canyon. Really pretty country. I must say, New Mexico has impressed me. Some very nice locations to ride. Well, Santa Fe to Roswell notwithstanding. Linear roads, empty country, a few cows. Probably more of the same today as I head for Big Springs, TX via Carlsbad, NM. I had always thought of Roswell as a tiny town famous only for crashed flying saucers. Not so at all. Roswell is a big town with everything you would expect of a metropolitan center. From the Texas Roadhouse I ate at last night, to the Wally World down the street, Roswell has pretty much everything with the population to support it. Cool place in pretty much the middle of nowhere.
I'm 2 days from Austin right now. I figured 10 days to get there and that will be right on the money. To this point, it has been a really great adventure with my motorcycle. I haven't stopped much to smell the roses, because this is about motorcycling for me. I came to ride, and ride I will. I haven't planned the trip home yet. It really depends on weather and my whims. Would love to ride up through southwest Utah, see Flagstaff, maybe run up through Mammoth. All of which present problems with weather and routing. One thing is for sure, once I hit Oregon, I ride until I get home. At that point I can smell the morning coffee with my wife. However, there are a few mountain passes to deal with to get there.
10-18-2025, 06:58 PM (This post was last modified: 10-28-2025, 05:32 PM by saread.)
Well, there's no other way to describe today's ride from Roswell to Big Springs, it sucked. Straight and flat. The only saving grace is that the speed limit over most of the run was 75 mph. The nav app found a little shorter route than I had planned and I had lunch in Brownfield, TX. Very nice mexican restaurant. The weather was nice, mid 50's leaving Roswell and mid 80's in Big Springs. Really pleasant in that respect. Tomorrow I'll wind up in Horseshoe Bay, TX. A little north and west of Austin. First order of business is to get some laundry done. I'm not out of socks and underwear yet, but I can see the end of the stash.
The motel I'm staying in tonite has a broken water system. So, no flushing toilets or showers. They are promising to fix it this evening, but we will see. They didn't bother to tell the clients that water was going to be out. Or, what we should do for basic sanitation. They have given us bottled water for drinking. If this isn't resolved in some reasonable amount of time, I'll have to find another place to live. That would just suck. A nice capper to the day. I did get an invoice from them, and they reduced my rate to 50 bucks. Fair enough.
Made it to Horseshoe Bay, TX and spent a few days hanging out in Texas Hill Country eating barbeque and swilling iced tea. I washed the bike and had to clean the driveway it shed so much gunk. Left there on Wednesday and jetted up to Pecos (pronounced peykus), TX. Right in the heart of oil country. Unremarkable ride as is the case in a lot of Texas (sorry Grumpy). From there I ran up to Socorro, NM. Mostly a flat and straight ride but finally got into some nice country as I ran through Lincoln County. Had a really good green chili cheeseburger somewhere around Lincoln. Looking forward to today's ride up to Winslow, AZ. If the weather works out I should see some interesting country in the next few days. My ETA for arrival at home is the end of the month. I'm hoping for a bit of a weather window up north so I don't drown. I still need to get over the sierra/cascade mountains and that's looking like I may have to ride the Columbia Gorge. Not the worst prospect.
We like the Hill Country, Big Bend, the area north of Big Bend near Ft Davis and there's a area in the Pan Handle we liked when we rode through it in 1987.
Lee
Iowa, USA
2022 R1250RS White Sport
Past BMWs: 2016 R1200RS x 2, 2011 K1300S x 2, 2003 K1200RS x 2, 1991 K75S x 2, 1987 K75T x 2, 1984 R100RT
Here I am just standing on a corner in Winslow Arizona... Cliche's aside, Winslow is a nice town. The run out of Socorro was a lot of high New Mexico country. Nice scenery but a lot of long straight runs. Weather dropped to the low 50's for much of it and that made me add another layer and put on the heavy gloves. I enjoyed my time in New Mexico, very pretty state with a lot of varied terrain. Most of Arizona I'm familiar with except Flagstaff. I'll be through there this morning. Although todays ride is a lot of I-40 as I work my way to Las Vegas. I know that area pretty well too and I'll be glad to head out for Death Valley and Lone Pine the day after. Kind of a dead day today except for Flagstaff. I-40 will be no fun as it looks like a constant stream of semis and it is just slab.
10-26-2025, 09:11 AM (This post was last modified: 10-26-2025, 05:02 PM by saread.)
As much as I grouse about riding slabs, the I-40 run from Winslow to Las Vegas is just spectacular. Especially starting around Flagstaff. Northern Arizona is really nice. From the pines in Flagstaff to the mountains and boulderscapes on the way down mountain to Kingman, a thoroughly scenic ride. However, the ride from Kingman north towards Las Vegas on US 93 is brutal. Flat, straight and ugly for about 70 miles. The road is atrocious. I have nothing good to say about that section other than it was dry and pleasantly warm. Then, you get to mountains around Hoover Dam. Holy moly, some fantastic scenery on that bit towards Boulder, NV. I have a photo on my phone and when I get a chance to transfer it, I will post it here. Being a civil engineer, I had to detour over to Hoover Dam to pay my respects. A truly amazing project in a stunning setting in Black Canyon. Recommended stop for anyone who is in the area. All in all, one of the better days on this tour. All that slab notwithstanding.
Today we leave Las Vegas and head for Lone Pine, CA via Death Valley. Really looking forward to this one. You want desert? Well I got some desert for ya. Ain't no desert like Death Valley. The weather should be mild, mid 80's, but I will take extra water and be sure I have ample fuel. Even in the fall, Death Valley is no place to take lightly. Especially now that there is no park staffing. Woo hoo!
I'm not sure I have the words to describe today's ride. In fact, I know I don't. Simply the best day of riding yet, maybe ever. The trip from Las Vegas to Lone Pine, CA is just staggeringly beautiful. Mountains, desert, canyons, mountain roads, joshua trees, creosote bushes, dry lake beds, expansive valleys, 5000 ft to -200 ft. Over mountains, thru passes, across deserts and dry lakes, back up into the mountains and more valleys. To have done this trip on a motorcycle is beyond my comprehension. Everyone who rides a motorcycle needs to do this at least once in their lives. That's all I can say. I have a few pictures, but I don't think they do justice to the beauty. I am gobsmacked.
