Friday – Page, Arizona

Well, time to ride, I have had enough walking for a while and my calf muscles are sore as well. Packed up and ready to roll by 8.30.

First stop was a place where I could get my bike in the shot for a change, instead of my ugly mug.

Just down the road “ I Tawd I Taw A Puddy Tat” Well, not really, I did not see one and I like cats as well, even feeding them, but not with parts of me 🙂

I had decided that I would go and have a look at the road to the north rim, I know it was closed, but the guys the other night had said it was a great road to ride. Coming out of the canyon area and into some nice corners, I also saw this suspension bridge on the way down and also lots of Indian stalls on the side of the road.

These are where they live, just houses stuck out in the middle of the desert.

I got to the junction of Page and had to go there for fuel. I had miscalculated and picked a town on the map at that junction called Bitter Springs, but it turns out they had no servo at all, so I could have gone on to Jacobs Lake, and hope there was fuel up that way, but I decided not to. Anyway, it turned out for the best as after getting fuel I went to the library and finally managed to print out and fax the workshop repair form to Erick at Elka Suspension, another saga nearly fixed 🙂 While having some lunch I watched a couple of wranglers loading up a stack of utes with hay from a semi trailer.

After that I went back down to Bitter Springs at the junction and headed up 89A which goes to Jacobs Lake, there was some nice corners and a view of the Vermillion Cliffs in the distance, which is where I was headed.

Up the road a ways and the cliffs are a great sight, with small villages nestled in amongst them, that is the green bits.

I took this one because the road went up real close to this cliff point where a whole stack of large boulders, some small house sized had come down, I would not like to be here when one does come down!

After that the road veered away and started to head uphill again, I had previously gone down from the 7000ft to 4000ft so it was quite warm down here. But, now I was heading uphill again, I could feel the change in temp and nearly stopped to add another layer, but kept on going through the trees until I reached Jacobs Lake. I passed three small towns and all of them had a servo and fuel, go figure, I could have saved the back track I did earlier, oh well it worked out in the end!

As you can see the road to the north rim is closed and so was the campground, which is probably not a bad thing as I was nearly at the 8000ft mark now and it was near zero C overnight on the south rim, so I can imagine how cold it would be here over night 🙂

Onwards and enjoying the ride all the way to the Utah border where I started to look for accommodation, it was middle afternoon and a Friday, so I figured I could have a shower, do some net stuff and have a few beers 🙂

But, while travelling through Kanab, I realised I was now in Utah again, the Mormon state with strict alcohol laws and no pubs, so let’s get the heck out of here on a Friday night 🙂

Heading east towards Page again and I had a choice, stay there which is a very touristy town because of the lake and all the water sports, or head to the next town of Kayenta, but that was another 300km, so I chose Page as a place to stay and this is a better sight at this time anyway.

So, I finally went past the lake near Page and grabbed a motel where I started to charge a few items of need.

As it happened, no planning involved, I noticed a pub across the road, so that was good and after a few emails etc I wondered across for a beer, and as I crossed the road, a custom car procession came down the road, old ones and some muscle cars as well.

I even took a small movie of the rest.

I went into this small bar where I had a beer, but as it was small and they had a tour bus coming soon and they had county music, yuck, so I decided to try a different one, the bar girl said there are 4 around this area , pub crawl 🙂

The next one (Ken’s) seemed OK at the start but the bar ‘bloke’, not bargirl kept stuffing things up so I left and went to another. As I left Ken’s I heard a surprising sound, a didgeridoo being played and it turned out to be a young American bloke who is drifting around the country and liked to play his home made didge as he walked. He did a pretty good job of it, but apparently does not like playing when standing still, go figure. I took a small movie of him, remind me NOT to rotate the camera in movie mode 🙂

We chatted while walking up to this other bar where I ended up having a few beers here. Now, for the Aussie beer drinkers, this is how they clean the glasses over here, no fancy glass washers because they do not get the crap off the glasses properly, like lipstick and fresh orange juice etc. These would be a good idea back home I reckon, a bit more labour involved, but a whole lot cleaner.

As you can see I rediscovered movie mode today 🙂 I ended up having a few beers, and played some pool with a group from Pittsburgh who had flown in and hired some Harleys for a week, I am actually really sorry I forgot their names, I knew I should have written them down, contact me dudes and I will fix it.

I had a great time, it is really strange actually, I have not seen any other Vstroms riding around but of course heaps of Harleys and Goldwings who are always ready for a drink or two. Never mind, I am sure I will see some eventually 🙂

Day – 342 miles and 550 km
Trip – 6,839 miles and 11,006 km

Cheers
TravellingStrom
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