On the Road Again!

When I posted this picture on another social media platform, I had people commenting on the cap. Mostly asking if I had ridden it. The answer is no. I haven't ridden any of Route 66 on a motorcycle. Others simply trolling. The truth is. I have driven all of the Route 66 possible in Arizona. From the border with New Mexico to crossing the Colorado River to a section in California. We did it in a Dodge Charger SXT. Photographed near Lake Havasu. The original cap came from the Hackberry Stores. It "went missing" off my desk in 2020. I was lucky to be able to buy the exact same one, same colour, grey, on eBay. The trip was ten years ago. May and June 2016.

One just like the one I left by accident on my desk on March 12th 2020 when I set off home not expecting that I would never go back. Or at least not go back to that office. Covid arrived. Then the bosses decided to sell our building. By the time I went in back in October 2020 the room was cleared and the stuff from my desk had gone missing. Pretty shameful. Including the cap I bought in Arizona. So. A quick eBay search and £5.95 and free postage I can replace it! It saves flying to Phoenix and driving to Hackberry or Angel's. The new one will be "wine" coloured.

When we were driving the Arizona section of Route 66 I didn't really think about a t-shirt.  Okay, we didn't do it all from Chicago to the Pacific but some of it.  And we took loads of photos. Sadly, not on a bike but in a Dodge Charger.  So when I saw these at a clearance price on Fat Skeleton's website I had to get a couple, especially with an extra 15% discount. One for me and one for my (now) BMW megabike riding brother, Neill. At the time of writing I am probably going to keep the winged one. And give him the other one! He has done the whole thing twice, once on a bike and once in a car.

When we were driving the Arizona section of Route 66 I didn't really think about a t-shirt.  Okay, we didn't do it all from Chicago to the Pacific but some of it.  And we took loads of photos. Sadly, not on a bike but in a Dodge Charger.  So when I saw these at a clearance price on Fat Skeleton's website I had to get a couple, especially with an extra 15% discount. One for me and one for my (now) BMW megabike riding brother, Neill. At the time of writing I am probably going to keep the winged one. And give him the other one! He has done the whole thing twice, once on a bike and once in a car.

A lot of pictures taken on Route 66 this summer. I have saved them to Flickr where they can be seen by eveyone. Click here.

Although this was my first time on Historic Route 66 I felt I knew it already, and still it amazed  us both. Arizona has the longest section of the Mother Road of any of the states it passes through.  Towns bypassed and left in desperate times have been rejuvenated by the tourist attraction it has become. Williams the last town to be bypassed by I40 back in 1984 would have been dead had the railway not returned. Okay, for every one of the thriving towns like Williams and Seligman there are places where the shuttered and even burned out like Truxton are evident.  It could be the same here in UK. Many towns and villages that thrived on passing trade reduced to dormitorys for larger towns and cities because they were bypassed by the motorways that started to be built in the 1950's.  Many of these old routes have been there since the Romans built the original road almost two thousand years ago.   We fuelled up in Williams and then set off along Route 66, a trip on t...

Once we hit the apartment in Scottsdale for some R&R,  I have been looking at a few excursions or trips. I thought Tucson and Tombstone seemed like a good idea but the Rough Guide has put me off from bothering. Neither place gets a glowing write-up. I have booked a hotel on the "pay later free cancellation" idea from booking.com. So at least I have until June 3rd to scrub it. One day trip, that depending on the above we well do is to the Red Rock State Park near Sedona. It's about 100 miles from Scottsdale, and  easily do-able in a day. I expect the "day" is quite long at that time of the year. It could morph into an overnight stop to gives us time to do the "vortexes". Another trip I mapped for the TomTom is the Apache Trail to the east of Phoenix. The RG makes it sound an adventure of unpaved but graded roads. We'll see.  And then once the week in Scottsdale is over we head north east to check out the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert, stra...

Not mine! I guess I am in a minority. I don't have any ambitions to ride Route 66. There. It's out for all to see and discuss. I would like one day whilst I can still ride to have a go at some stretches, but not from Chicago to the Pacific. I am one year into a ten year US Visa so I guess I still have time. I would like to do the parks in the West to see the likes of Yellowstone and Yosemite and the cowboy films landscapes. Anyway. I'll make do with Florida on 2015 with R&R and a trip to Epcot and Cape Kennedy.... This is my brother's blog:  http://dmd66.blogspot.co.uk