West Bound OH to AZ

Sunday, September 23, 2001
packed up and on the road

Triksie loaded	Dennis loaded	Ryder in  White House TN	Hondas in  White House TN	Room in  White House TN

...hell, I'm back in the Central time zone already! Just north of Nashville, in White House, TN off I65. This must be an Al Gore state: the lady at the desk was in a cage like those other weird places!

Got Ryder all packed up and didn't take off from Columbus till 430p and drove for almost 400 mi. Sure is different than on Triksie - that'd'a been 4 gas stops!

Figured I'd take a pic of the Hondas parked in the same lot, just for fun. If you have to ask, you wouldn't understand.

I have no clue why this is called White House except I did see a big white house all lit up as I was coming in on the freeway.

No cruise control on Ryder so I figured out how to stick the hand control under my leg to hold it down! That trick's gonna come in handy before this trip's over.

Albuquerque is next...

Tuesday, September 25, 2001
Albuquerque    

I-40 in OK  headed toward TX	cross in Groom TX	cross explanation

...pulled in here last night finally around 1130p or so, 700 mile day, lots of time in the truck. Spent Sunday night in OK, just west of the Arkansas border. Nice place, mom and pop motel, took good care of me. Planning to hang out here and recuperate after 3 long days in the truck, maybe take off again on Wednesday.

I haven't been so motivated to take pics and make stops for getting in and out of the truck is a real pain. There's really not much to see along the freeway anyhow! OK is the indian state, TX is flat and always climbing toward NM. OK has trees and farms, TX has farms and NM has scrub brush. Coming in from the east you are climbing most all the way through OK and TX and NM until you drop down into Albuquerque.

While I was looking at the map I wondered why TX stuck its' thing up into OK making the pan handle. While driving across it there was a definite change in geography - flat and no trees, same as the rest of TX. Anybody know the history of how that border was formed?

I40 appears to follow the same path as the old Rte 66 and there are quite a few towns with museums that I'd'a stopped at if I was on the motorcycle and I prob'ly wouldn't even be on the freeway to start with so be seeing more of what was really there. One detour I did take was to get a pic of the largest cross in the western hemisphere at Groom, TX. Made me wonder where the biggest one in the eastern hemisphere might be.

Ryder only has a radio so there's been plenty of time to check out the local broadcasting as I go along. The last two days were mostly country western or Christian radio programs. They were glad we're on God's side in the current conflict.

I'm thinking the south rim of the Grand Canyon and the Hoover Dam will be fun places to stop on the next stage of the trip, never been to either place...

Thursday, September 27, 2001
back over the Continental Divide

Max Jake Dennis Quincy Emi Phil Sparky Jan Doug CiCi	ALB pizza	ALB pan	Continental Divide  at AZ	fire from  Hopi reservation

...laid over in Albuquerque yesterday to give my body a rest (driving Ryder is NO FUN) and went out to pizza for dinner with my old friend Phil (knew each other since grade school; just back from Australia with two of his kids, wife, Cindy, still there waiting for the other to get finished with high school) and Cindy's sister's (Jan's) family and my old college fraternity friend, Joe Kang, who I hadn't seen for over 20 years. Too bad I didn't think to tell Joe it was a family affair (as opposed to drinking whiskey with some biker types) or he would'a brought his tribe too! Interesting economy in ALB, mostly government money for research and everything else flows from there. Phil told me that for every dollar that goes to the federal government from NM, $1.50 comes back in. Joe's finally got some things rolling with research grants and doing REAL engineering for a living. (As in, doing the equations then proving the results with experiments.)

Took off today around 3p after getting more supplies and picking up Sparky from the bus stop to say goodbye. Poor guy was crying when I left and I didn't know what to think for he hardly knows me (yet). Finally got off the freeway (I40) at Gallup, NM and took 666 up to 264 and made it to Tuba, AZ for the night. Stopped at the Continental Divide again (I swear the steering wheel didn't look like that in the view finder!) and gave a couple of Indians a few dollars (both smelled pretty pickled). Really glad to get off the freeway, don't know which is worse, driving Ryder or being on the freeway all the time. Went through lots of beautiful country (recommended motorcycle route!) and didn't realize it until I was there but ended up on a Hopi Indian reservation. There were lots of photo ops but that'll have to be the next time through on the motorcycle. One thing I did stop to take a pic of was smoke rising in the distance from what would appear to be a pretty big fire but listening to the news I haven't heard what it was about.

Tuba is less than 100 mi from the south rim of the Grand Canyon. Plan for tomorrow is to do that and then cross over the Hoover Dam and probably give it up in Las Vegas for the night (body is just not liking sitting in Ryder all day so no more 700 mi days) then up through Death Valley and back home on Friday...

p.s. couldn't resist including a couple of Bin Laden sightings along the way

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