| In the interest of fast-loading pages, these pictures are all thumbnails. You can click on any picture you like and - Voila! - you will be rewarded with a giant version of the exact same picture. Isn't technology grand? |
| Our trip started at 6:30am on Saturday morning, about a half hour later than planned because Mike had a dead battery. Luckily, our first two days were almost entirely desert. That meant we were going to get cooked either way, and a half hour here or there really didn't make no nevermind. We had on our lightest summer gear and Camelbaks full of ice, with our goal being to get 1,500 miles across the desert to San Antonio, Texas by the next night. Piece of cake! |
| Our first IBE (I've Been Everywhere) stop was Vicksburg, Arizona. We could only use each place name once and we get more points for places more than two states from home, so we didn't stop anyplace in California and only picked up the easiest spots on our way through Arizona. We had to photograph our bikes at the locations, same as last year, except this year they also added the humbling detail of having to hold up these goofy flags to prove the picture was taken after the contest start date. Luckily, we have no pride. Just outside Phoenix was our first GPS point; it turned out to be the Chinese Cultural Center. Not a bad start! |
| The Cultural Center was where Mike made the first of many tactical errors. In this case, he said "Honey, I'm going to sneak down into that stairway and clean all the road crud out of my nose." He didn't specifically ask me to warn him if anyone was coming up behind him to use the stairway, so I didn't. Instead, when he was startled by the approaching couple and turned around to see if his cover was blown, I seized the opportunity and snapped this oh-so-flattering picture. Hey, it's not like I didn't have to suffer for my art; I quite nearly wet my pants laughing while Mike threw the rest of his tepid Camelbak water on me in retribution. That incident pretty much set the tone for the rest of the trip... |
| Our next GPS point was a good one - The Airplane Graveyard outside Tucson. Unfortunately, it seems the coordinates we were provided with were actually inside a restricted area, as the graveyard is located on a military base. No trouble; Mike can put on his sexy Zoolander face outside the fence just as easily as he can inside. |
| Not being of the Iron Butt persuasion, Mike was really starting to feel it after about 750 miles. We finally called it a day in Lordsburg, New Mexico, where we found a smoking hot deal on a hotel off the beaten path. We figured since we were going so hard for the first couple days, and it was so hot, we needed a good nights sleep and therefor a hotel room was clearly justified. |
| ...And within a few hours we found out why the hotel room was so cheap! We were directly across the street from the rail yard, so we spent a nice evening listening to the blaring train whistles. Luckily, after 15 hours and 788 miles in the saddle, we were pretty well beat and the noise didn't affect our sleep that much. (Don't let the picture fool you; Mike looks like that every morning.) |
| Our first stop on day two was Bakersfield, Texas. Yes, we live near Bakersfield, California, but it's worth three points in Texas and only one in California. Plus it gave us an excuse to get off the freeway, and ANYTHING that livens up the drive on I-10 across Texas is welcomed. |
| Our next set of coordinates delivered us to the historic Hunt Japonica Cemetery near Ingram, Texas. We had ridden into a nasty east-moving storm, so we welcomed the opportunity to putt around on small country roads and give the storm a little time to move on. In fact, this may not have been our intended destination; the GPS said our coordinates were a little farther up the road, but just beyond the cemetery the road was closed due to flooding. |
| Our plan to dodge the storm did work to some extent, but alas, we caught up with the rain again pretty quick. At this point we were only about an hour out of San Antonio, and luckily we never caught back up to the really heavy rain. We had just enough rain to cool us down and clean the road and our face shields, but not enough to seriously diminish our vision or traction. There was even a beautiful double rainbow, and at one point we passed a really pretty waterfall cascading off a rugged rock cliff. Of course, we were on the interstate in the rain so we didn't pull over for pictures. (Have you ever driven on the interstate in Texas? Psycho truckers galore!) But I have provided you with an artist's rendition of what it might have looked like if we had pulled over for pictures and the sky's green Gel Pen ran out of ink. Enjoy! |
| We arrived in San Antonio as scheduled around 8pm on Sunday. Mike pulled through two 750+ mile days with flying colors (and only a little crying). As a reward for our hard work, we spent several days playing in the San Antonio area. The weather was perfect, too - cloudy enough to keep the temperature down, but not so cloudy that it was unbearably humid. What a great way to kick off our vacation! |
 | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  | |  |
.