Jonesin for a Ride!

Well another run completed, and new roads were discovered even after all the times I have been there.

This one was a first as all the posts (except this one) was done via the iPhone.  That is why the descriptions were so short.

The trip was made by Big Steve and myself.  We almost didn’t go on this trip as the weather was kind of sketchy for Southern California.  Steve and I watched the weather leading up to our departure date.  A low was moving in bringing cold weather in the desert area and  rain/snow.  I let Steve make the call on if we were going or not as we didn’t have reservations so we had that luxury.

Steve was ready for a ride and he called it on Wednesday night that we were a go for Thursday morning.  The news was predicting rain on Thursday and the rest of the weekend was sunny and warming weather.

The ride out was a non event.  It was even sunny when we left home.  The rest of the trip was cold, but no rain – just lots of clouds.  We left late morning taking the freeway till about Ludlow, where we opted for old route 66 via Amboy.  Much nicer with no trucks and very few vehicles.  Matter of fact, there were not too many bikes in Amboy either.  We arrived in Laughlin by 3:30 and checked with Harrah’s and they had rooms available – we deceided to make it out home base for the next three nights.

We walked around that night checking out the vendors and the local bands.  We came across a Bob Seger Tribute band advertisment but faled to find them on stage anywhere.  After several Jack and Cokes and beer, we called it night after having a steak dinner at Outback in the Aquarious Casino.

Friday morning we went looking for some dirt roads by Oatman AZ and found lots of them after talking to a cop who was watching for speeders on route 66.  The dirt roads lead us to Kingman where it was time to have lunch before heading out to Grand Canyon West. 

Grand Canyon West is home to the Hualapai Tribe and the Skywalk.  There is about a 14 mile dirt road to get to the area where the Tribe charges adminssion for entrance to the reservation and additional charges if you want to walk on the Skywalk. We did all this work to get here so we shelled out the $75 apeice and did the tour.  This was WELL WORTH IT.  With all the trips have have done to the Canyon, this offered some of the best views I thought and the Skywalk was a trip!  Check the links out.

The Skywalk was buit by Eagle Point and your able to see the Eagle formation on the rock.  No camera or personal belongings are allowed on the Skywalk because they don’t want you loosing, dropping or dumping stuff over the edge.  The walkway is made of glass and your able to see right below you – so they don’t want you dropping and breaking the glass!

Can you see the Eagle's head and it's wing span?

Can you spot the Eagles head and the wing span between the mountains?

JimmyV in front of the Skywalker

After spending about an hour there we boarded the bus to the next point which was Guano Point which offered spectacular views and remnants of a historic tram that stretched 8,800 feet across the canyon to guano mine discovered in the 1930’s.

Steve enjoying the view from Guano Point

Remnants of the Tram at Guano Point

You can see further remnants of the tram down the canyon

After that we headed back to Laughlin pulling in at 8:30, where we hung out and finally saw Sam Morrison Band and his band do some Bob Seger and some Lynyrd Skynyrd.  Check out the link.

Saturday we wanted to see the new bridge by the Hoover dam before they finish it, so we headed up there (which is about a 90 mile ride).  In the parking lot at Harrah’s Steve activated his SPOT and continue packing and setting up his radio.  We then took of for the dam.  On the way up there Steve noticed that he forgot to put his SPOT away and had left it on his bag when we took off on the bikes.  When we got to the dam, he had received some “OK” text messages on his cell phone.  9:35 – which is the one he did, 10 aam and the last one at 11:35 am.  Steve called the hotel to see if anyone turned it into lost and found – but no one did.  Since we were out, Steve wanted to just continue with our ride, so we continued from the Hoover dam and visited several boat launchings along the Colorado River and Lake Mead. 

When it was time to head back, we took a back road to Kingman from South Cove- awesome road!  In Kingman, since I was also recieving the “OK” message via my email, using the iPhone I clicked on the email link and it launched it’s GPS and we road to the last SPOT transmission in hopes of finding it on the street or a fence post or something.  We ended up in a neighborhood just of route 66 by the Kingman Airport.  No luck…..

So we ended back in Laughlin by 7:00 p.m. and hung out and watch the bansd we enjoyed the night before – this time they played more southern rock music of Marshall Tucker Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd and a couple of Bob Seger tunes.

Sunday we got up around 6ish, got rolling by 7ish, stopped in 29 Palms for breakfast, and was home by 2 p.m.

Not as many people as past trips due to the economy, but still plenty crowded.  At least now your not waiting an hour to cross the bridge to AZ or waiting forever to get a drink – actually, much nicer!

I’ll do one more post of this ride with our GPS tracks and Google Earth.

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