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___ How ya doing? That's right ladies and gentlemen, we've developed New Jersey accents. We left the Portland area on August 21st and had a few fun filled weeks visiting Della's folks in sunny Las Vegas. While we were there we got to see David Copperfield perform. The show was great, but he made my wallet disappear as part of an act. Ha! Now I know why that Copperfield fellow always drives a fancy car! Well, he won't get far with the $3.19 he got from me! We also went on numerous hikes around the scenic Lake Mead area. I know, hiking around Lake Mead doesn't sound that exciting, but let me tell you, it get really fun and exciting when you get to hike in 110 degree heat! We hiked with Della's mom out on an old railroad bed. But not just any railroad bed. This is the path that all the cement and workers and rebar and other items took to get out to where Hoover Dam was constructed. It passes through five tunnels, blasted out of the rock. I also had the opportunity to go for a helicopter ride! Della's step dad, John, is a pilot and he and I helped out at a Shriner's event in town. It's a golf ball drop, where six thousand golf balls are loaded into a Bambi Bucket. Each ball is numbered. Participants purchase a ball and then whoever owns the ball that lands closest to a pin on a golf course, wins a prize. The rest of the money is donated. Anyway, we loaded up the bambi bucket, flew the helicopter over the golf course and dumped them on the pin. Unfortunately, the bambi bucket is designed specifically to dump water. It is also designed specifically to not drop any golf balls out of it. The balls managed to jam the mechanism, so by hook and by crook, the balls were loaded into trash cans and dumped over the pin a bucketful at a time. It reminded me a lot of the old Wiley Coyote cartoons where he'd load a bucket up full of hand grenades or something and then they wouldn't budge until he sat there jumping up and down on them for half an hour. Then of course, he falls too. Fortunately, no one fell and the event worked great. I was lucky and John arranged for me to fly back to the airport in the helicopter. It was great fun. A memory to last a lifetime. We also were able to spend a few days with Della's mom, touring and hiking in the Grand Canyon. Neither one of us had ever spent much time there, so it was a new experience. We got up early and watched the sunrise in the Canyon. In Della's words, watching the sun come up there was like watching time. You look away for five seconds and the colors and shapes have all changed when you look back. Added to this was the ambiance created by this drunk Korean guy who was hooting and hollering at the sunrise as it developed. He had a good sized bottle of wine in one hand and wasn't ashamed to let everyone know how impressed he was by the scenery. After the sunrise, we hiked down the canyon a couple miles. We were glad we started early because it was really getting warm by the time we started hiking back out. If you've never gone to the canyon, I highly recommend it. It is full of scenery that will amaze you. That and it's also filled with bold squirrels who will walk off with your tuna sandwich if you aren't careful. At the top of the canyon, we ran into a distraught young lady. She was being issued a fine by the park police for slugging a mule. Of all the things. They were serious though. They fined her $250! The moral here: Don't slug a mule at the Grand Canyon, do it in the privacy of your own home. We also had time to visit Della's dad in beautiful Ely, Nevada. We happened to visit during the Silver State Classic Car Race. We volunteered to be gatekeepers for the event. Our job was to basically guard the highway/ranch gates to make sure no one wandered onto the higway during the event. The highway patrol closes off a 90 mile stretch of road for the event and cars race by in different speed categories. Barlow drove his 1972 Opel in the 95 mph class, meaning his goal was to average 95 mph for the course. We saw many other cars go by including several Corvettes, Vipers, Ferraris, Porches. There were many participants in the 150 mph class and one in the unlimited class. The unlimited car went past us doing 195 mph. It's quite a feeling to see a car go by that fast. You literally blink and it's over the horizon. We had a great time. We were mildly disappointed that John Schneider, one of them Duke boys from the Dukes of Hazzard didn't show up. He typically is there with the General Lee. He instead was arriving a week later for the other open road race in Ely. Maybe next year, Hasselhoff will be there with K.I.T. Before too long it was time for us to get bike riding. We were going to start our journey in San Diego, but it didn't quite work out that we could get there. So instead, Della's folks dropped us off in Phoenix. We started riding on September 19th.
Off we go to Arizona to start the great bike ride.
Saying our farewells in Phoenix with Dellas mom and step dad. From Phoenix, we rode to Apache Junction. It was dam hot, but we made our start and got some miles under our belt. We enjoyed the over priced swimming pool at the neighborhood KOA and we had a nice dinner with Della's former co-worker Jeff and his wife Danny. The waitress at the Chinese restaurant where we ate asked Rob and I if we were aliens! I guess we were already looking a little bit strange. The next day, we rode up and over a lovely mountain range known as "Los Diablos." That means, the Devils to any non Spanish speakers out there. They were really steep. We spent two and a half hours in the lowest gear we had, crawling our way over the top of them. The downhill part was great. We rode on in to Globe, Arizona and spent the night at the exclusive Bel Aire Motel ($20/night). Fancy!
Some lovely cacti at sunset near the superstition mountains.
Della being dwarfed by a large cactus.
Some hoodlums loitering near Globe Arizona.
A barrel cactus in bloom.
The next day we rode out to the Apache Reservation. We stopped in to the local watering hole to find some water for our water bottles. Much to my dismay, a rather inebriated fellow offered Della a case of Old Milwaukee in exchange for me. I'm just glad Della is a Coors drinker. I'm not sure if the fellow was serious or what. Anyway, we headed out, saw the San Carlos Dam and enjoyed a night camped out under the stars. The next day we rode on in to Thatcher after going over the worst road on earth. I don't mean to sound negative about it, but it really wasn't so much of a road as a giant pothole that just wasn't finished consuming the entire earth. The road was swiss cheese. It was so bumpy, it shook the change out of my handlebar bag. We were happy to get to Thatcher and enjoy the pool at the RV park. The road out of Thatcher climbed over a large pass and down into the town of Guthrie. We camped out at the Forest Service Office in town. In the morning, I gave Della a case of the willeys when I found a scorpion on my sleeping bag. I didn't realize this but they rest with their stinger and tail lying flat and to the side. I thought the guy was dead. He sure perked up when I poked him with a rock. We rode out of Guthrie and up and over another large pass and on in to New Mexico. It's a great feeling to cross a border into another state. It feels like making headway. We ran in to swarms of locusts. Well, maybe not swarms...but there were several dozen of them. They weren't exactly swarming either so much as walking slowly across the road. We rode through Mule creek to the sound of crunching grasshoppers under our tires.
Passing out of Arizona and headed into New Mexico.
Welcome to New Mexico. We spent the night in Buckhorn where we enjoyed a bag of vegetables that a nice lady was selling out of her house. There were only a couple other folks in the RV park, so we got a watermelon and shared with them. In the evening, they serenaded us with some funky blues guitar as we fell asleep in our tent. We climbed again out of Buckhorn. Up and over the Continental Divide. It was another great feeling to cross that boundary. It's all downhill from there (in theory) all the way to Florida. Woo Woo!!! We arrived in Silver City and hung out for a couple days. Resting and touring the town. The town used to have a main street but a series of floods back in 1900 or so washed the street away, all the way down to bed rock 60 feet below. It's now called "the big ditch." Apparently, the first settlers cut down too much wood to use for mining and houses and fires. This increased erosion in the area and their main street disappeared. Silver City is also the place where Billy the Kid was first arrested. He stole some clothes out of a Chinese laundry. He was arrested, but escaped by climbing out of the chimney in the jail. He then fled to Arizona where he committed his first murder. My folks drove down from Albuquerque to meet us in Silver City. We drove out to the Gila Cliff Dwellings for the day and had a good visit.The cliff dwellings are worth seeing. They were inhabited for a couple decades back around 1200 AD.
Crossing the continental divide near Silver City.
An odd church.
The museum in Silver City New Mexico.
Mmmm. Radium Water.
Della enjoying a walk around Silver City.
Roberts mom and dad visiting the Gila Cliff dwellings with us.
The Gila Cliff dwellings.
A yucca.
Another yucca! We rode out of Silver City and climbed up and over Emory Pass. The highest point of our bike ride. 8228 feet. The view was quite something from the top. We didn't make it in one day. We camped out in the National Forest halfway up. It was great to sleep in the cool mountain air for a change. The next morning we cleared the pass and rode on down to Caballo Lake Reservoir.
The copper pit near Silver City.
Della working on her journal on the way over Emory Pass.
The top of Emory Pass. From there we rode to Radium Springs and camped. It's a bit of a pit, but there are beautiful Pecan orchards just past there as you enter Las Cruces, NM. They flood the Pecan orchards with water when it's time to harvest them. It was quite something to see the sunrise reflect back up off the ground and through the trees in the morning as we arrived in Las Cruces.
A collection of license plates at a small store in New Mexico.
Some chili peppers growing in New Mexico. From Las Cruces, we flew out to New Jersey to surprise my sister for her birthday. She was talking to my folks on the phone when we arrived and I think we managed to confuse them too. We had to keep it a secret so we didn't tell them what we were doing when they visited us. We can't take credit here for the idea, it was all the doings of Michele's husband, Eric. He thought it'd be fun to surprise her for her birthday. We've been enjoying our visit out here. We saw Phanton of the Opera in New York City one evening. We also toured Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. New Jersey really is a beautiful state. Most folks think of Newark when they think of New Jersey. Newark is very industrial. But the rest of the state is full of trees and lakes. Everywhere you go south of Newark feels like a small town. It's a wonderful place!
Michele looking surprised to see us on her door step.
My sister Michele turns 30. I mean, 29.
A grist mill in New Jersey.
Some hoodlums loitering in Times Square.
Michele and Eric at the Museum of Natural History.
Michele and Eric at Tavern on the Green.
How you doing. Thats pickup line number 28.
The skyline before and after 911.
At Tavern on the Green.
The Statue of Liberty.
The goof standing near the Statue of Liberty.
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