Two Weeks in the USA

18 FEBRUARY 2014  

Map

Time is a funny thing when travelling. In two weeks I feel like I have seen so much, travelled so far, met so many great people, yet it is only the beginning of my bigger journey. So what are the highlights?

LA. Big city, fast, noisy, touristy in places, yet very friendly and fun. Four nights wasn’t enough time to really check it all out, especially with jetlag, but for the purposes of my journey…there is a purpose to my journey?...it was long enough.

I rode the crazy highways out of LA heading east, with my sights set on Joshua Tree National Park, where I camped for a night and tested my gear against the cold. Well for this Aussie who has lived mostly in the tropics for the last few years, anything even approaching 0 Celsius (32 Farenheit) is unbelievably cold and extreme. What a softie! It was a cold night, my gear held up well but I could use another layer if I was to get into anything colder! I wore all of my winter gear to bed and still needed the riding jacket over me in the wee hours.

Joshua Tree was amazing and well worth the visit.

I rode straight through to Phoenix and arrived just on dusk, so grabbed the first hotel I came to. It was part of a cheaper chain of hotels, so I was a bit surprised that it cost me over $90 for the night. This was quickly made up by the next couple of nights. Thanks to Horizons Unlimited networks, I was introduced to Bevan and Clare, a couple of Aussies living in Phoenix who open their house to motorcycle travellers.

I spent two days and two nights there talking and playing with a range of bikes and met some other adventure travellers. Craig from Brisbane has just finished fourteen mths across Canada and the USA on his KTM 990 and is about to fly back and resume a normal life. Ouch! Glen and Leanne also from Brisbane have bought a Triumph Tiger 800 that they are prepping for their US/Canada/Alaska journey. My first night, Al Jesse from Jesse Luggage came over for dinner and some great story telling ensued amongst this group of people.

Many thanks to Clare and Bevan for your amazing hospitality, welcome and information. It was really, really appreciated and put me into the right mindset to start travelling.

What started as an overnight trip to the Grand Canyon turned into a journey in itself. I motelled at a town called Williams on the famed Route 66 

and the following day travelled to the south rim of the GC and did all the tourist sightseeing bit. It is a truly amazing large hole in the ground. It was around 20C all day with snow banked up along much of the road from two weeks earlier. Good timing!

I camped at Tuba city that night and met an American couple in their elaborate fifth wheeler RV. Blaine and Jennifer had a V-Rod Harley that parked in the back of the RV, a jet ski, two pushbikes, two cars, a truck, five dogs (plus three newborn pups). They were an animated couple who invited me over for breakfast and talked about their lives, family and travels.

I rode to see Monument Valley and was distracted by a Navajo Nation site, 

then was blown sideways and sand blasted on the way to and from the monuments. It’s not rocket science to figure out how these amazing structures are formed in this wind-swept valley.

Exhausted after dry desert riding and high winds, I motelled at Kayenta. The cheapest was $80. Hmmm these motels are adding up and not cheap. Time to get smarter and shop around a bit more. They are more around the $40 a night range in New Mexico, so I made the decision to continue travelling east rather than heading back to Phoenix. It was cold in the morning.

The next day I rode through some beautiful country with the highlights being the Canyon de Chelly and frozen Lake Navajo.

I stayed at Gallup, a couple of hours west of Albequerque. The weather has been dry and mild in the day and chilly at night, approaching freezing. Ziggy is going well but I have a bit of a brake light issue that I need to get checked. Also my tank bag zipper has fallen apart, so looks like I’m in the market for a new bag!

Over the next week I’ll make my way to Austin, Texas!