October 29-31, 2016 Flagstaff Arizona

After returning from Alaska, Wayne and I spent time with family and friends. Now it is time to head south in search of better weather. We left Washington and stopped in Bend Oregon to visit our friends Dave and Loretta. The first ride was going to be a dual sport ride through the mountains around Sisters.  However the snow had come, so we headed back down in elevation.  Dave took a left and we ended up on some wonderful single track.  Yes I on my heavy DRZ and Wayne on the Big Pig BMW F800GS scooted around on some great smooth single track.

Wayne opted to ride his KTM for the rest of the trail rides.  Dave kept him busy, we spent about a week in Bend and had a wonderful time.

 But as the snow in the mountains proved, it was time for us to head south.  As we were headed to eastern Arizona, we decided to take I-15 south thru Utah. It was great to see all the changes, and some places have changed a lot in the 4 years since we left the state.  But I love fall in Utah!

 We crossed the mountains on US 20 and then headed down US 89 thru Kanab. The red rocks were spectacular, and so typical of southern Utah.

We followed US 89 east as it skirted between Lake Powell and the Grand Canyon.  We continued south to the ORV riding area of Cinder Hills.  We like to camp at ORV areas as they almost always have wide open camping, where moving the 65' long outfit we have isn't usually a problem. Plus it's free!

The sun woke me up that next morning so I thought it was really late.  Sunrise had been about 7:30 while we were in Bend.  Now it's about 6:30 so it was light out at 6:55 when I woke up! We will be street riding for the most part, until we get somewhere that we want to stay at for more than a couple of days.  Getting the dirt bikes out is a longer process than just the street bikes.  I'll have to remember to take a picture of what the 'stuffed' trailer looks like, fully loaded!

Day 1:  We went on a loop that stayed to the east, rolling along on 2 lane back roads, and tribal roads once we got on the reservation. There we headed north, then back to the west, through Tuba City and back to US 89 to camp.
225 miles

 Day 2: We are camped 1.5 miles from the pavement, so this day we headed out the back way.  The sign said that the road did not connect with the National Monument road, but it used to, so I wanted to see if we could get out that way.  Sure enough the Forest Service has gated off the road, no taking the motorhome out this way.  But for once I was happy to see that the quads and side-by-sides had disregarded the gates and created a way for us to get through.  On the other side is a paved road, that connects the Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument and the Wupatki NM. We started by going left and going to the Lookout where we could see Sunset Volcano.

 Sunset last erupted sometime between 1040 and 1100 AD, and is the most recent in a six-million year history of volcanic activity in this area. By 1180 the area was home to thousands of puebloan people farming on the Wupatki landscape. By 1250, when the volcano had quieted, pueblos stood empty.  The people had moved on.

 This is Wukoki.  It is visible for miles and from a distance resembles an old castle.  It was occupied from approximately 1120-1210

 Wayne learning the history of the area

 The view is awesome, you could see your enemies coming from any direction.  Very safe.

 The people must have been very short, this is a door next to Wayne.  Of course researchers think the main doors were in the roof, maybe this was a doggy-door!  ;-)

 Mother nature has delivered more building supplies.  Just break up the slabs, and instant building material!

 This is the main house at Wupatki. There are several smaller ones around it.

 This is one of two visible circles built in the area.

The paved road continued out of the park and we turned north on US 89 to Cameron. We turned west on SR 64 and headed to the Grand Canyon.  This is the second time we have been in the park in the last couple of years, so this time it is more as a pass through, than a destination. We did stop at one of the Navajo Nation Park's overlooks.  This one is above the Little Colorado Gorge.

 The park includes the confluence with the Colorado River.  Although not nearly as wide as the Grand Canyon, the deep, precipitous cliffs of the Gorge are colorful and spectacular.

 We continued on, into the Grand Canyon National Park.  Here we stopped to look at the view.  Last time we were here, we spent the day hiking along the edge closer to the Visitors Center so this view was new.

 Mother Natures glory

 My dad calls the Grand Canyon "The Big Ditch".  Yep, it's pretty big!!  We followed SR 64 out of the park and headed south.  When we got to US 180  we took it through Fort Valley and past Arizona Snow Bowl Ski Area.  Yes, they get enough snow to ski here, who knew!!  Then it was back to camp.

198 miles

 Day 3:  We wound our way through the east side of Flagstaff, through the neighborhoods and past golf courses.  We finally got to Lake Mary Rd which goes south past the dry Lower Lake Mary and the muddy Upper Lake Mary as well as Mormon Lake on it's way to SR 87. As we went past Happy Jack we spotted many possible camping areas.  The only problem is the elevation, at over 7000', snow will soon be coming.  Maybe in the spring...

 Before we got to our turn off on SR 260 we had to wait for a pilot car to get past some shoulder work. Once by we headed off to Camp Verde for lunch at the Verde Brewery.  Wayne tasted 3 beers before picking the stout. (both brown ales were sour) Lunch wasn't anything to write home about so once done we headed to Jerome.  We have been to this cute little mining/artist town a couple of times now.  Wayne wanted to get some stickers from one of the local musicians and you know us, any excuse to ride the twisties,,,

Then it was back on US 89-A through Sedona.  We have never been this way, it goes north through Oak Canyon and is very beautiful.  Too bad the guy in front of us for the first 3rd was spending so much time looking that he couldn't maintain 40 MPH.  I was SOOOOO happy when he pulled over and let the whole line of us by.  Being in front of the group I let Wayne lead up the tight twisty road... until we caught the next group of slow vehicles.

 So we pulled over at this look out and let them all get ahead of us.  This is the north end of Oak Creek Canyon.

I think the real reason for the lookout is to give the tourists a chance to buy the local hand made goods.

From here we continued north to Flagstaff.  We could have gone around, but I decided to take us through the Northern Arizona University Campus.  What a pretty campus.  From there we worked our way east and caught back up with US 89 and took it north to camp.
203 miles

What a great stop on our adventure. We have a couple of other camping locations to look at if we decide to came back this way again, and I hope we do!