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Thanksgiving Week Sport Touring 2005 |
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Written by Daniel Hienzsch
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Wednesday, 14 May 2008 |
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Page 1 of 5  Climbing out of Zion
My goal was to go a minimum of 1000 miles. I looked at the map and
tried to find a route that would take me past some interesting sights
while racking up the time in the saddle I was looking for. I thought
first about riding up highway 395 to Lake Tahoe and then coming back
down via Highway 1. While I like that idea, my hope is to be able to
combine that with a trip even farther north, up towards Lassen and
Shasta-Trinity so I didn't want to cut that ride in half for now. I
live nearly as far south and west as you can get in the continental
United States, and since I had discounted going north, the only option
was east. So it was that I decided to go to Bryce Canyon.
I had originally wanted to head through the canyons of Utah during that
first Arizona sport touring ride, but dropping the bike and the
resultant set back it caused forced me to pass by Zion. This trip
would set that right. In fact, I was going to try to hit as many
national parks as I could: Zion Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Cedar Breaks,
Yosemite, King's Canyon and Sequoia. . I have a National Parks
Passport and since I was a kid, I've wanted to fill one up with the
stamps that they have in the visitor's center of most of the parks. It
seemed ambitious and I was ready to undertake the effort
Thanksgiving Week Sport Touring Photo Album
Tuesday, November 22
Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me, happy birthday dear meeeeeee, happy birthday to me. The 370 miles from work to Mesquite is equivalent to the distance I usually drive to go to visit my grandparents up by Sacramento. It's a distance I know all too well and I can feel a six hour stopwatch in my body counting down with every mile. I knew it would be no big deal to get across California and the southern tip of Nevada to start my trip off right.
Getting right the hell out of Dodge is one of the most appealing parts of a sport touring ride for me: a road full of possibility in front of you, the strange looks from the Los Angelinos as the Triumph Sprint ST Pack Mule Express goes rolling up Wilshire Blvd laden with all its various accessories, knowing that at some point you'll have to deal with the unexpected. I embrace all of that by getting as far from home as I possibly can that first day. Prepared for Launch
So it was that I headed out under beautiful clear blue afternoon skies on Tuesday, the 22nd of November on I-10 straight out of the heart of Santa Monica bound for the Nevada / Arizona border.
There's not much to be said about that outbound leg. It is one chunk of slab after another: I10 to I210 to I15 in the first 20 miles, then stay on that freeway until you can toss a rock into Arizona but still gamble.
Mesquite is a little town next to Arizona. As is the case with most freeways that cross a border with Nevada, there's a casino just inside the state line. That typically means cheap, plentiful rooms and cheap, plentiful food.
I checked into the Best Western in Mequite and walked over to the Rio Virgin Grill. I got a chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy, mixed veggies, a dinner salad and two (count 'em two) Sam Adams Lagers for… now get ready for this… $7.00! If that isn't enough to warm the cockles of your heart, then you need to get a cockle heater.
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 03 February 2009 )
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