Monday, October 7, 2019
Eric and Jen had to work, but I was at liberty to sleep in, and did.
When I arose I let Buddie out of his kennel, then began a totally one-sided conversation with him as I found, warmed up, and ate a breakfast that had been left for me complete with hash browns and a bottle of chipotle sauce -- do my cousins know me or what.
I took Buddie for a walk around the block, which he was a bit nervous about. Hopefully next time he'll remember we had a good time and I brought him home safely. As Eric and Jen had told me, but I'd had a hard time believing, it turned out to be true that he was the only dog, and especially only male dog, I've ever walked who didn't want to leave his calling card on every post, tree trunk, and clump of vegetation he passed. He held everything in until we were back home.
After loading up and rolling Therese from the garage, I successfully coaxed Buddie back into his kennel, locked up the house, and began the final leg of my tour.
It was another perfect day... so far.
I had no inclination to ride one last leg of historic Rte. 66, which I've done many times and is the main drag through town, with all the traffic that implies. I proceeded directly to the I-40 westbound ramp, jogged over to the I-17 interchange, headed south.
I didn't stay on that freeway long. A couple miles from the interchange I exited, negotiated a pair of traffic circles, and was on US-89A headed south for Sedona. A short, pleasant ride through the Coconino National Forest brought me to the rim of Oak Creek Canyon, and I had the hairpins to myself until running up behind a black Toyota SUV just as we crossed the bridge across Oak Creek.
Eric and Jen had to work, but I was at liberty to sleep in, and did.
When I arose I let Buddie out of his kennel, then began a totally one-sided conversation with him as I found, warmed up, and ate a breakfast that had been left for me complete with hash browns and a bottle of chipotle sauce -- do my cousins know me or what.
I took Buddie for a walk around the block, which he was a bit nervous about. Hopefully next time he'll remember we had a good time and I brought him home safely. As Eric and Jen had told me, but I'd had a hard time believing, it turned out to be true that he was the only dog, and especially only male dog, I've ever walked who didn't want to leave his calling card on every post, tree trunk, and clump of vegetation he passed. He held everything in until we were back home.
After loading up and rolling Therese from the garage, I successfully coaxed Buddie back into his kennel, locked up the house, and began the final leg of my tour.
It was another perfect day... so far.
I had no inclination to ride one last leg of historic Rte. 66, which I've done many times and is the main drag through town, with all the traffic that implies. I proceeded directly to the I-40 westbound ramp, jogged over to the I-17 interchange, headed south.
I didn't stay on that freeway long. A couple miles from the interchange I exited, negotiated a pair of traffic circles, and was on US-89A headed south for Sedona. A short, pleasant ride through the Coconino National Forest brought me to the rim of Oak Creek Canyon, and I had the hairpins to myself until running up behind a black Toyota SUV just as we crossed the bridge across Oak Creek.
It would be a long time before I got out from behind that Toyota, which quickly became the penultimate in a long line of vehicles proceeding ever more slowly down the canyon. We eventually came to a complete halt.
I recalled that Eric, who is a professional driver and well-informed about such things, had warned me that I might encounter some road work at about this point.
But I don't think he'd mentioned I should expect to spend the better part of an hour sitting at a dead stop. Nor had he elaborated on the reason I should expect delay; I had no idea what the hold up was or how long it would last. I could and should have checked when I was up on the rim, but down here at the bottom of the canyon I had no cell service. I had no way of knowing where I was in the queue, but I did know I was no longer at the end of it; traffic was stopped behind me for as far back as I could see.
At least I could listen to music while I waited, and it was a pleasant enough day.
I considered the option of turning around and heading back the way I'd come. I'd certainly have the hairpins all to myself; no northbound traffic had come through the whole time I'd been sitting there.
In retrospect, that would have been the best decision.
But I sat there and waited until cars started passing us from the oncoming lane.
And I kept waiting as they kept coming.
And coming.
And coming... an enormous train, easily a hundred or more vehicles had been backed up somewhere ahead of us and had finally been released.
The oncoming traffic grew intermittent but took quite a while to fade out completely. Then there was another long period of total inactivity before we started moving. A few miles up I passed through the choke point, where crews were doing some kind of tree trimming.
The black Toyota slowed down as we came into Sedona, which I now know is someplace I needn't visit again.
When I lived in Phoenix during the '80s, my PHASTR friends and I rode up to Sedona often. Not so much for what was in town, other than a particular Mexican restaurant we all enjoyed. No, it was all about the ride, hanging out in the creek, and camping up on the rim at what we then considered The World's Most Beautiful Campsite.
But, as my friend Ken Clay used to say (I don't know if it was his original quip or not), "Call a place paradise... kiss it goodbye."
Sedona has become virtually unrecognizable, a sprawling paved-over morass of high-priced tourist traps and gridlocked traffic. Here it was Monday morning well into shoulder season, and the place was still a sweltering swamp of Griswolds and obliviot pedestrians.
I'm done with it. Oak Creek Canyon is a nice road if you have it to yourself, but that's clearly never going to happen again.
I finally escaped Sedona, running at speed along what was once a rural backroad but is now a four-lane highway all the way into Cottonwood/Clarkdale. That was another grind until I broke free on to the empty string of roundabouts west of town, the last with an exit heading up the mountain to the old mining town then ghost town then artist colony then tourist trap of Jerome.
The drive up to Jerome was yet another parade, which got really infuriating as it turned out the obliviot at the front was an Uber who shouldn't have accepted a fare for a road he was afraid to drive on. When he finally got to the place his phone told him to go, some gallery at the far end of Main Street, it took a very long time to discharge the passengers, a grumpy couple of oldsters who didn't seem to feel any particular urgency to extend the courtesy of getting the hell out of the road so the damned Uber could try to turn around, but just ended up blocking the other lane instead.
At least the two cars that remained ahead of me jumped when the way opened. Unfortunately I was stuck behind the second one and had to follow him up the road until in lieu of a passing opportunity I came to a scenic viewpoint where I could stop, take in the view, and wait until the end of a long gap in traffic before continuing on.
That tactic gave me a few decent curves to myself but it really wasn't all that long before I rolled up behind some guy in a Subaru with a kayak and a Thule carrier on the luggage rack who thought he was going fast, but wasn't. It was more of the same all the way over Mingus Mountain and down the other side; not much traffic, but just enough and in all the wrong places so as to keep me from having as good a time as I felt I should have.
The road into Prescott has changed since the 80's, now it's an "improved" and ultimately limited access highway that I should have aborted for the old road through Granite Dells. Instead I shuttled along with all the other sheep.
I spotted a Thai restaurant while passing through downtown Prescott, but after all the delays I elected to keep running. Mom and Sue were expecting me to arrive at least in time for mom's birthday dinner, which didn't have a precise time other than reasonably early.
The ride to Yarnell wasn't great. Too much traffic, a lot of cops.
At the scenic viewpoint atop Yarnell Hill I discovered my GoPro had collected a particularly disgusting and occlusive bug splat. I had no idea at that time how long it had been there, and gave myself a demerit for not having checked it more regularly. Later I found the splat had rendered useless, in terms of potential moto-video stock, the entire ride from before and through the Granite Dells.
The ride down Yarnell Hill was nearly wide open, and I got decent footage of the broad flat valley below rising up to meet me as I swooped down the last set of truly decent curves I'd be riding for... who knows how many months? I'd be on a plane back to Michigan the next morning, where to my current standards the best I can get is a short-lived riding fix that too often isn't really worth the frustrating traffic, poor pavement condition, and continuous deer hazard.
I recalled that Eric, who is a professional driver and well-informed about such things, had warned me that I might encounter some road work at about this point.
But I don't think he'd mentioned I should expect to spend the better part of an hour sitting at a dead stop. Nor had he elaborated on the reason I should expect delay; I had no idea what the hold up was or how long it would last. I could and should have checked when I was up on the rim, but down here at the bottom of the canyon I had no cell service. I had no way of knowing where I was in the queue, but I did know I was no longer at the end of it; traffic was stopped behind me for as far back as I could see.
At least I could listen to music while I waited, and it was a pleasant enough day.
I considered the option of turning around and heading back the way I'd come. I'd certainly have the hairpins all to myself; no northbound traffic had come through the whole time I'd been sitting there.
In retrospect, that would have been the best decision.
But I sat there and waited until cars started passing us from the oncoming lane.
And I kept waiting as they kept coming.
And coming.
And coming... an enormous train, easily a hundred or more vehicles had been backed up somewhere ahead of us and had finally been released.
The oncoming traffic grew intermittent but took quite a while to fade out completely. Then there was another long period of total inactivity before we started moving. A few miles up I passed through the choke point, where crews were doing some kind of tree trimming.
The black Toyota slowed down as we came into Sedona, which I now know is someplace I needn't visit again.
When I lived in Phoenix during the '80s, my PHASTR friends and I rode up to Sedona often. Not so much for what was in town, other than a particular Mexican restaurant we all enjoyed. No, it was all about the ride, hanging out in the creek, and camping up on the rim at what we then considered The World's Most Beautiful Campsite.
But, as my friend Ken Clay used to say (I don't know if it was his original quip or not), "Call a place paradise... kiss it goodbye."
Sedona has become virtually unrecognizable, a sprawling paved-over morass of high-priced tourist traps and gridlocked traffic. Here it was Monday morning well into shoulder season, and the place was still a sweltering swamp of Griswolds and obliviot pedestrians.
I'm done with it. Oak Creek Canyon is a nice road if you have it to yourself, but that's clearly never going to happen again.
I finally escaped Sedona, running at speed along what was once a rural backroad but is now a four-lane highway all the way into Cottonwood/Clarkdale. That was another grind until I broke free on to the empty string of roundabouts west of town, the last with an exit heading up the mountain to the old mining town then ghost town then artist colony then tourist trap of Jerome.
The drive up to Jerome was yet another parade, which got really infuriating as it turned out the obliviot at the front was an Uber who shouldn't have accepted a fare for a road he was afraid to drive on. When he finally got to the place his phone told him to go, some gallery at the far end of Main Street, it took a very long time to discharge the passengers, a grumpy couple of oldsters who didn't seem to feel any particular urgency to extend the courtesy of getting the hell out of the road so the damned Uber could try to turn around, but just ended up blocking the other lane instead.
At least the two cars that remained ahead of me jumped when the way opened. Unfortunately I was stuck behind the second one and had to follow him up the road until in lieu of a passing opportunity I came to a scenic viewpoint where I could stop, take in the view, and wait until the end of a long gap in traffic before continuing on.
That tactic gave me a few decent curves to myself but it really wasn't all that long before I rolled up behind some guy in a Subaru with a kayak and a Thule carrier on the luggage rack who thought he was going fast, but wasn't. It was more of the same all the way over Mingus Mountain and down the other side; not much traffic, but just enough and in all the wrong places so as to keep me from having as good a time as I felt I should have.
The road into Prescott has changed since the 80's, now it's an "improved" and ultimately limited access highway that I should have aborted for the old road through Granite Dells. Instead I shuttled along with all the other sheep.
I spotted a Thai restaurant while passing through downtown Prescott, but after all the delays I elected to keep running. Mom and Sue were expecting me to arrive at least in time for mom's birthday dinner, which didn't have a precise time other than reasonably early.
The ride to Yarnell wasn't great. Too much traffic, a lot of cops.
At the scenic viewpoint atop Yarnell Hill I discovered my GoPro had collected a particularly disgusting and occlusive bug splat. I had no idea at that time how long it had been there, and gave myself a demerit for not having checked it more regularly. Later I found the splat had rendered useless, in terms of potential moto-video stock, the entire ride from before and through the Granite Dells.
The ride down Yarnell Hill was nearly wide open, and I got decent footage of the broad flat valley below rising up to meet me as I swooped down the last set of truly decent curves I'd be riding for... who knows how many months? I'd be on a plane back to Michigan the next morning, where to my current standards the best I can get is a short-lived riding fix that too often isn't really worth the frustrating traffic, poor pavement condition, and continuous deer hazard.
Once on the flatlands it was just a long and uninteresting ride through an afternoon that peaked, just as I returned to mom's neighborhood, at 99 degrees F.
Just like old times.
At least my riding gear now had lots of vents to unzip.
I rolled into mom's and my tour, still without a definite name, was essentially over.
But I choose to consider the end of it as mom's birthday dinner at the local Mexican restaurant, where we've eaten together many times but had been recently been renovated as a much fancier place.
As usual I forgot to take a picture.
Just like old times.
At least my riding gear now had lots of vents to unzip.
I rolled into mom's and my tour, still without a definite name, was essentially over.
But I choose to consider the end of it as mom's birthday dinner at the local Mexican restaurant, where we've eaten together many times but had been recently been renovated as a much fancier place.
As usual I forgot to take a picture.
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