Well, we started out of Phoenix Saturday morning on the Unamed Ultra
and my beloved Loki, heading
 North up the 17 to Camp Verde, then hung a left to Sedona
on a very lovely two lane road.  For those unfamiliar with the red
rock country (and what the rides look like):





Then on up through Sedona - red rocks, pink jeeps and trolley cars. A little
60's San Francisco meets New Age meets timeless rock.   Out of town,
congestion eases and the natural beauty of Oak Creek Canyon hits your
senses.   Tall trees cast cool green shade and the air is fresh evergreen.
The rocks are red and high above us and Oak Creek falls from view as
we climb the twisties to the rim...(ever notice how ya can't get pictures
of the twisties cuz you're busy riding them????)

along with a few other scoots ;^) .  From there we skeedaddled up to
Flagstaff, found our hotel and settled in for the night. OK, OK, for
the Ride to Eat crowd, we had fish&chips and (wait for it...) sushi.
Yes. and very good sushi.  In Arizona (restaurant "Sakura" in the
Radisson).  Lots of lightening and thunder and rain in the night, we
discovered Loki's hardbags are *not* waterproof. Fortunately I hadn't
left much in them.  We pack up and hit the road to the Big Hole... This is a beautiful
ride  on more blue line... lots of Bambi warning signs but fortunately no sight
of them.  We had a few bright puffy clouds and dry road, climbing to
8,046 feet, among the scrub forest and wildflowers (that's one of them
in my teef, it's not blood... really, it's not.





We got closer and closer, and there is no clue that there's a canyon
ahead.  A bit of a line to pay admission ($12 per scoot, it all goes
to the park service to maintain facilities) and one of
the rangers commented to Pops - "Ya got one of them hybrid bikes.
part gasoline and part feet." Heh.   A mile or so through country that
kind of reminds me of the Santa Cruz mountains- smaller trees, but
that same rocky and dry beauty.  The first parking lot was full, only
clue of the canyon was the pedestrians streaming across the parking lot
like lemmings to the sea.  There was an SUV just loading up and the
driver asked us if we wanted the spot.  YES.  SUV pulls out and
parks behind other parked cars, Pops pulls in nose first but I 
can tell I'll not be able to back out with my nose downhill so while i'm
pulling up and backing in, the tourists (Israeli, as it turns out) are
chatting up the Popster.  By the time I pull in, they're all over the
Ultra, taking pictures.  Joe mutters, "They wanted pictures!"  I'm
cracking up - " Hallo? Did you not use all your film
on that big hole over there?" (which I still haven't seen!).  Somewhere
in Israel there is a photo album with pictures of smiling children and
parents on a rented Ultra...  Finally, we stroll across the lot and down a
little stone pathway... and there is the House of Stone and Light:








There are no words to describe it.  It's hard to throw your mind around the
immensity - I kept wanting to believe it was a painting.  We stood and
stared. And walked along the edge and stared.  We watched the beautiful
white thunderheads gathering on the North Rim - far away and benign:



And then we turned around and saw what had been sneaking up behind us.
Black and gray and wet and looming just over our heads.  We hopped on
the bikes and boogied, but there was no boogie that was fast enough
to outrun it,  it was crossing out path. We had to stop for gas and Pops 
put on the rainjacket.
As we pulled out onto a shoulderless  road that leads through a lot of nowhere,
it hit.  Hard.  My leathers were holding up pretty good - lightening was
flashing all around us (we're at 8000ft - height matters).  I couldn't 
hear my pipes over the rain, wind and
thunder.  I couldn't see the road through the rain, mist and splash.  I
could see the yellow line and the white line and the pale red tail light on
the Ultra.  Then, the brake lights gleamed, the right turn signal came on and
with a breath of relief I followed him off the road onto.... a deep
gravel driveway.  Gravel is not my favorite road topping and this was about
8" deep.  No matter, there was shelter ahead.  OK, sort of.  It was
an abandoned motel with a leaky overhang, but enough for Joe to pull
on his rainpants as the wind whipped up a notch higher and hail started
blowing in sideways.  Then we notice that the little puddle out in front
is rising and if we don't get our tails outta there, our pipes will be under
water on the way out.  We did a reasonably elegant job of riding out
over 8" of gravel with 10" of water on top.  My one thought on the way out
was, "Gee, this would be a real bad time to drop a bike." So I refrained.
60 miles of blowing rain, hail and no viz whatsoever.  At one point
I was grateful that while my right side was soaked and running water
into my boots, my left side was merely damp.  Then the wind shifted. Naturally.
A couple of miles out of Flag we outran it - imagine two black scoots
and two riders, streaming steam...  We pulled up to the first red light
and looked at one another.  The first words outta my mouth were,
"What a GREAT RIDE!".   I'd do it again.  I'd wear a rainsuit, but
I'd do it again today. Soaked to the skin, literally.  Hot shower cured
most ills.  Warm bed and sound sleep cured the rest.  The road back 
was without incident, we took  Hwy 17 and
stopped at  Sunset overlook (so I could remove a couple of layers of 
clothes - the drop in altitude pushes the temps back up to where
they should be - upper 90's, low 100's):


and home.  Somehow gettin' home just makes me crave the road more...








 last modified 08/02/2006