Day 4 (the route to sublime point)

This would start out as the easiest day and later turn into the most difficult.

We woke up at our campground in Page, AZ and said goodbye to the mormons lol (they were so nice). Got on the bikes and knew that we would not be near anything for a while so our 1 cup size containers with oatmeal in them, would not hold us over. Thank God we decided to go get something at Burger King, because although it is not the healthiest thing in the world, we would definitely need the calories later on.

So we grab breakfast and get on the rode. Its a pretty boring ride (long and straight) but as with all the desert rodes we encountered, the speed limit of 65 was locally translated into 85-90 mph. So we just blazed along until we got within a couple miles of where we would head south towards the grand canyon. We approached a very large mesa and I turned on my helmet cam (which I later realize, was not on). The roads going up the mesa were super fun (include the rode number). They were twisty and with every turn  you got a better veiw.
Finally we get on top of the enormous mesa and head towards the park. BTW, the grand canyon national park is super huge and I am not talking about the actual grand canyon; the PARK is huge. I think it took us 30 mins to get to the actual visitors center. We saw several deer, cows, and maybe even some beefalo... they were too far away for us to tell. (beefalo are a hybrid species that ranchers created and it got out of hand, now the park is trying to find a way to control their rapidly expanding population. Basically its a cow/buffalo, and it looks like a cow sized buffalo)

We finally get to the visitors center and are a little cranky. The views there are ehh... and we were edgy. We decide to cancel our campground reservation and ask the ranger if there is a more spectacular view that perhaps not everyone gets to see. He quickly tells us about Sublime Point, and lets us know that they normally only recommend it for true 4 wheel drive trucks with high clearance.

So I am super excited and Jordann is excited about the view. We head back up the road a bit to begin the trek down the trail that leads to Sublime Point.

The trail starts out super easy and maybe a little sandy in some parts but overall its not bad. The entire thing might not have been as bad if the area hadn't received severe rain in the weeks before we came. What that caused was for the sand to be just dry enough to be like riding a motorcycle in a sand box and the rain to have washed away all the sediment, leaving rocks everywhere the size of croquet balls. Needless to say, this was not the environmet that you wanted to bring your wife into to introduce her to riding offroad on a 500 lb motorcycle. Jordann had a couple of days under her belt of riding offroad but nothing enough to prepare her for what was up ahead.

I think in total, she might have dropped the bike 10 times. Both turn signals were busted and she got a couple scratches on the fairings (which would end up costing us some serious $$$). Most of the time were from nerves and her just getting used to letting that big of a machine move around under her.

After 3 hours of arduous offroading we made 18 miles progress. We had 1 boil-in-a-bag, 1 nalgeen of water for cooking, and half a nalgeen for drinking. We were not planning on camping there, but we were also not expecting it to take 3 hours to get there.



Some of the cliffs you see are 300-500 ft high, and those tiny little green spots are full grown trees. When you start doing the math, you are blown away by the scale of things.

We talk about the storm and decide to camp.

As we arrive to the edge of the pennisula, we are just blown away by the scale of the Grand Canyon. We quickly get off our bikes and hurry over to the edge to get it all in. We wouldn't truly understand the scale until the 4th or 5th time looking at it. Not only is this probably the best view but its also one of the least obstructed. We had 270 degree of grand canyon to look at at all times.

day 3 part II

After Navajo National monument we hit the road and headed toward Antelope Canyon near Page, AZ. I was really excited to see that the guide wasn't going to take us to the canyon in some pansy GMC suburban but instead in an Austrian pangeizer (spelling?). Portal axles and a torquey little 4 cyl!

Our guide was great, he kept insisting on that everyone take the same pictures in the same place because they were "hot photos".

Well we got done with the antelope canyon, and headed for our campground in Page, AZ. We were told to go into Page and try a burger joint called Dam Burgers. It was fantastic!
Later we set up camp and this would be the first shower we have taken since leaving Philadelphia. As we settled in, a truck full of mormons decided to set up camp right next to us and park their boat right in front of our site. They ended up being nice but had 3 kids so needless to say, it was an early morning for us.

Day 3 part I

Day 3
Jordann had already planned out a perfect campground that overlooked monument valley. This was our view (pic left) from our tent.

We get up in the morning and are relieved

As we headed out to Navajo National Monument, we were excited to have the helmet cam to capture monument valley in its fullness as we left. (add short vid of mon val)

As we approached the entrance to Navajo National Monument, we noticed an offroad path to the visitors center. The path in its entirety was 9 miles. Not even after 1/2 mile we realized that this was not a grated or gravel road. Instead it was atv trails with 1ft deep sugar sand. Poor Jordann had very little offroad experience at this time and this was way too hard of terrain to throw her into. She did okay though!

"I didn't know if I could ever get the hang of it because I kept falling down because of the deep sand. I remember all the videos that we had watched about riding offroad and I just couldn't make the bike act like I wanted it to. When I hit the brakes it would slide out from under me." ~ Jordann

Finally we get tired of the super difficult sand on our heavy bikes with barely off road tires. So I zoom WAY into the GPS and find a path leading back to the road. As we started heading that way we noticed a large clearing and we had to ride about 150ft up a solid rock area. This was definitely different terrain (think terribly pitted and potholed cement). On the other side we were met by a couple desert hadden dogs that chased us for about 200 yds. At this point we realized that we were on Native American land and were technically "in someone's yard", even though there were miles of desert around us with nothing but sage bush and tumble weeds. At this point as, I was waiting for Jordann to catch up, I started hearing emus or lamas (couldn't tell).We did see some trailers, which was how most of the native americans we met lived. We quickly made our way out of their property and were very delighted to see pavement.

Once we arrived at the visitors center, we were able to watch this navajo woman weave a rug in a traditional loom. She would lay the wool through the threads and then knock it down with a dowel, and she did this for EVERY thread...needless to say it was labor intensive.

We knew we had a short hike to the lookout point to see the native ruins (cliff dwellings) so we decided to eat. Broke out the pocket rocket (aka camp stove) and heated up some chili with peanuts in it! Which was surprisingly great!

After our quick chow and clean up, we headed down the trail to the lookout point. We saw a variety of different desert plants and learned about mud huts that the navajo would take steam baths in. (super small)

At the lookout we met a super sweet French family with a little girl named Gabrielle. She was really shy at first but then she warmed up to us weird americans. We were amazed at the cliff dwellings, as expected, but I really enjoyed meeting people of other cultures that came so far just to see something that few people from this country take the time to go see. (this was a very common theme throughout the whole trip)

 After a great adventure getting to Navajo National Monument, we decided to stick to pavement for at least the next couple hours.

go to Day 3 Part II .....

day 2 part II

So after we learned a bunch about Mesa Verde from the park ranger (who btw was friggin adorably nerdy and had a bunch of freckles!) and traveled back down the mountain/mesa on our way across the desert to Monument Valley.

We made our way to Cortez and the tiny little airport was empty! (we were there because american airlines lost our bag with our helmets in them, they graciously rush shipped the bag to the tincy lil airport on our 2nd day) I walked around and found the maintenance guy for the airport, who called the 1 person who ran all departures. She was in her trailer down the road, and said she would be there in like 10 mins. Thank God he was able to reach her, those helmets afforded us our helmet cam and blutooth communicators.

So after some boring straight desert roads, we started to come upon some mesas and plateaus. Eventually we made it to Valley of the Gods and there was a dirt road that I was curious about. I proposed to Jordann that we try to see what it was like. Jordann had limited offroad experience so we were a little nervous about it since it was entirely sand/gravel but we decided to go ahead and tackle it. I am super glad we did because we were able to get right up next to all the amazing "monuments". 

Day 2

So we headed out and made it past Blue Mesa Lake right away, which was beautiful. After that we followed route 50 to 550 and it was definitely the most beautiful and fun riding I have ever done. Best motorcycle roads, out of the whole trip. 

We rode for a couple hours and then right before it got dark we decided to hunker down. We were in a small town called Silverton. It was pretty quaint and definitely catered to tourists. The hotels were too expensive and we "couldn't" camp on BLM land without a permit, so we found a hostel. The bed was only $20 and we were encouraged to use our sleeping bags (creepy). We shared the room with a 'nam vet, a energetic german tourist, and a grumpy hitchhiker. It was a weird night.

The next morning we woke up and checked out the nearby Avalanche cafe, especially since they had some good micro brews (didnt drink any of them, it was 7am and I had to ride)

Right off the bat we ran into Pinkerton hot springs. We were so surprised to feel how warm the water was and all the crazy weird colors that the high sulfur water had caused on the rock. What a weird thing nature is. Eventually we kept on moving south and made it to Durango. Their was this huge bike race and we just missed the big wave of traffic but definitely saw that the town was getting ready for something. We took advantage of this place off the side of the road making breakfast specials for the riders and their families. Good breakfast. 

From that resteraunt we hit the road and made way to Mesa Verde. The rode up to Mesa Verde was great, but I didnt have the helmet cam yet.We weaved up the mountain and to the visitors center, where we realized (aka jordann informed me) that her gas light had been on since we started up the mountain road. We had to plead with a ranger and a construction worker for a total of 2 gallons of gas. Both were very nice and we got to practice our spanish with the construction worker! With a little more assurance that we were not going to be stranded on top of a mesa. We took some great pictures of spruce tree house (an ancient native american commonly called Anasazi, who at one point (for about 100 yrs) lived in cutout villages in the side of mesas/mtns).

next post is day 2 part II

Day 1

So saturday finally came and we were super excited. We leave Philly fine and get to Dallas, and of course our flight gets canceled due to weather. We wait around the airport for over an hour for the shuttle to take us to a cheap hotel and finally we decide its never coming and get ripped off royally by a taxi cab. ($27 for 3 miles)

Yada yada yada....we make it to denver and our friend Kourtni picks us up and we head down to pick up the rental motorcycles. So on goes our 4 hour voyage down to Gunnison, Co. Here is where we come across our first mountain range.

We decided to grab some BBQ, ribs and brisket ...and it was a good decision.

We finally got there, suited up, and headed out. We had a lot of miles to cover because our plans were to make it to Mesa Verde by sundown. We chose to rent Suzuki Vstroms, because of their 19in front wheel, long legs on the highway and decent dual sport ability.

So we get on the road with hopes of getting as close as we can.

Startup time

So we had this idea for a vacation, now we needed to make it happen. We gleaned ALOT from the video production ideas of the guys from the Big Trip videos.

We put everything onto paper and realized that our trip was huge. It was going to be truly Epic! Every destination is a place that people go and spend days at. We were going to be tasting a little bit of everything while still leaving some room for exploration.

Since the trip would be on limited time (7 days) we needed to make every hour count, which is why we decided to go by way of motorcycle. That way, commuting from one place to another was just as much of an attraction as the destinations. We first thought about driving our Versys and KLR out there but that would take 2.5 days each way and eat up most of our time. So we found red eye tickets basically from sunday to sunday and decided to rent motorcycles from Kevin at Colorado Mountain Moto.

There was no way we could afford to stay in hotels and we would actually prefer not to, so we put all our camping gear together and made a list of what we needed. Quickly we realized with the cost of the odds and ends gear, rented motorcycles, air fare, food and park pass, this trip was going to be expensive. We didn't want to come back from the vacation and be terribly in debt, so we found the cheapest option for everything we can. Still we needed help but we are lucky to have many friends and we started a kickstarter type crowd funding site. We gave it a short run of 15 days and a small goal of $500, we reached that quickly and we amazed by our friends!