We are greeted in the morning by yet another part falling off of Ceci’s Vulcan. Just a plastic cover that I pop back on. Seems like we have at least one problem daily with her bike. She chalks it up to the bike being unhappy with its new lot in life. It spent most of its life sitting quietly in a garage. A daily ride is apparently a tough change for it to endure.
The new cargo nets do a good job of tidying things up on my bike. The luggage seems more secure now. It still takes a good while to get everything packed and ready to go though. I’m thinking some quick detaching hard luggage would be a good thing to have.
We grab some breakfast and check e-mail on the computer in the hotel lobby. We also meet a guy and his daughter that have been traveling across country. The girl is barely more than a toddler but has already ridden her little bike across the Golden Gate and Brooklyn bridges. Maybe a future adventure tourer? In any case it is good to see youngsters not rotting their brains in front of the latest electronic gizmos.
The park road into Mesa Verde has some good turns and decent pavement. There was some traffic to deal with, as well as a very dark tunnel my headlight did almost nothing to illuminate. The ruins themselves are pretty impressive, definitely worth visiting. We take a nice self guided tour , but avoid the guided tours. Some of the ruins are visible from the roads but otherwise nearly inaccessible. Ceci takes a lot of pictures here and we spend a good bit of time checking out the easier to get to places. It is hot and we are going through water, but we’re managing alright.
Because we spend so much time at Mesa Verde, we arrive late to Natural Bridges National Monument. The office is closed so no stamp. We do get a brochure with a map so we can find our way around. We sprint from overlook to overlook, looking at large rock arches in picturesque canyons. Neat; much different from the east Texas geography my wife is used to.
We head south on 261 as the sun begins to set. We need a place to camp, but there isn’t much of anything out here. We keep a wary eye out for the free range cattle that graze along the road. The old cows aren’t usually a problem, but the calves can be excitable and unpredictable. I ignore a sign that says the pavement ends miles ahead. It’s too late to turn back and find something anyway. Besides, my map shows a solid line indicating a scenic PAVED road. The pavement we’re on is pretty good on gently rolling ground. We actually stop so I can show her the map and ease her fears. Nothing to worry about. Until the pavement ends. It stops where the large mesa we were riding on ends. We are on the top of the mesa, looking down a cliff to the floor 2,000 feet below us. It looks like a mile. Cut into the cliff is a switchback gravel path maybe wide enough for a small car to travel on. There is no rail, no shoulder, no road really; just sheer drop. The sun is gone but we have some twilight left. There is nothing for hours behind us, and no way around this. Crap. We head down. Fortunately, there is no oncoming traffic. Neither bike is suited for this; I’d be much better off on the TS with its knobby tires. We go no more than 10 m.p.h. all the way down. My little ass is stuck fast to the seat by the suction from my tightly puckered sphincter. It is the most terrifying part of the trip.
We safely make it to the bottom and are grateful to be back on paved terra firma. It is dark, but civilization is just a bit ahead. We stop to fill up on gas and meet a couple of ladies riding Honda cruisers. You meet the nicest people on a Honda. It turns out they are also from Texas. They offer to lead us down the road to the campground they are staying at in Monument Valley. I welcome the company, especially since the headlight on the Bandit has always sucked. I outrun the high beam at about 40 m.p.h. A rabbit nearly took me out on top of the Mesa. There are lots of wildlife besides the free range cattle to worry about. Not to mention the occasional drunk Indian on the reservation that won’t let the stereotype die. I figure there’s some safety in numbers here. We sandwich ourselves between our new friends and head to camp.
I see the horses first. They are on the shoulder of our lane, right on the stripe. I warn Ceci over the chatterbox to watch out for them. She never sees them, but makes it past without incident. Phyllis is not so lucky. The herd steps out right in front of her. She swerves hard and avoids the impact, but not by much. The effort carries her off the road where she and the bike part company. I’m trying to figure out how many headlights are shining in my fuzzy mirror when Ceci tells me over the chatterbox that something happened to Phyllis. Fortunately, she is not seriously injured, just some scrapes and bruises. The bike doesn’t appear totaled, but it will need a good bit of work before it can be safely ridden again. They had trailered their bikes up so at least she isn’t stranded, and it takes just a little while for her traveling partner to hook up the trailer to pick up the bike. Most of the traffic flies by us without even slowing down, but a few guys stop and help us get the bike back up where we can load it.
We make it to camp without further incident. I test Ceci to see if she can spot anything along the side of the road. She can’t. We will not be doing any more riding at night. We skip dinner completely, pitch the tent, and despite the warm temperature are soon sound asleep. Well, at least Ceci is. Her snoring is so loud the monuments in the valley are quaking. I don’t think we’ll have any wildlife visiting us tonight.
I forget to write down the mileage, so I can only guess how many miles we covered. Somewhere around 200 miles or so. Not a lot of ground covered, but we spent a ton of time sightseeing.
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