Day2 April 14th, 2003

We were up at 5AM and suited up and went out for breakfast. We usually ate a hearty breakfast as the meager lunch we would carry with us from the quickstore sure wasn't much---but tasted pretty good sometimes out on the trail.

We headed Southeast out of Prescott---intersected a small portion of the Senator Highway and headed straight west on Pine Mountain road which was a beautiful road in the pines. Look at all those mailboxes-----I guess the postman didn't want to run all over the mountains delivering everybody's mail.

We are still on Pine Mountain Road here and it's a little chilly--------which is where we started giggin' Don about how warm we were with our heated vests, heated gloves and heated grips. I would stop and tell Kenny loud enough for Don to hear-----"I'm turning my grips to low Kenny---my hands are getting hot" !!!!!

Old Don would give us both a little sneer-----all in good fun !!!! And then would put his gloves on his exhaust pipe and burn himself. This pretty well continued for the duration of the week !!!

Ole' Don says he's coming back with all that good stuff next year----and an electric start to boot----we'll see !!!!

Here we have my lonely Kawasaki KLR650 on a desert plateau heading for Bloody Basin. All of our bikes were holding up very well so far.
This is Bloody Basin road------most of which is red dirt and is absolutely impassable in wet weather. We hoped we didn't get caught in the rain out here.

I spotted this very steep hill from far away and just blew up it on my KLR650----all the while knowing it was something I shouldn't have done as it wasn't the way we were going and I'm not just out trail riding in my back yard.

Anyway-----you know---Monkey See--Monkey Do-----here comes Kenny and Don and I hear this big noise-- then nothing. I came back and here they were. I'm not going to repeat the bullshit story they told of how this happened------obviously they were trying to out do each other and ran in to each other and took each other out !!! What do you think ??

The hill is 3 times as steep as it looks in the picture

Can You Hear

Me Now ???????

I came around the corner, shut off my bike and slowly poked around my tankbag for my camera. When I raised it to take his picture-----seems he was camera shy. He snorted-----ducked his head and horns----and pawed at the ground. I knew he was going to charge me and I was prepared to abandon ship and run in the bushes when he just walked off leisurely to the right and disappeared. Kenny and Don then slid around the corner blasted thru the creek oblivious to the whole thing !!
The "Sequaro" cactus can be as old as 200 years and they kind of became our big friends out here-----as we loved looking at these huge plants. Amazing !!!!! The holes you see in them are made from several species of birds which invade the plant.

I'm really getting a little to close to this guy. The needles are huge and come to a very sharp point. The needles are as big as a 12 penny nail. The really are not to be messed with.

I did a little research on them and found they can reach 50' in height--with a 18 to 24 inch columnlike stem--with several large arms curving upward. They can increase their weight by a ton absorbing water, then shrink during the desert heat in the summer months.

We are coming down the desert mountain to the Verde River which we will attempt to cross. Right in the middle of this picture is a tiny white line going up and down in the picture. This is "Sheep Bridge" a suspension bridge built in the 1940's so sheep hearders could move their sheep across the Verde river.It is many miles from anything that resembles a paved road.

This ain't a postcard-----what a magnificent sight !!

Actually this is not the original structure----it was recreated many years after the old one fell into disrepair.

Mark Sampson on "Sheep Bridge". You can't drive your car across it but you can walk. And no-----I didn't ride my motorcycle across. -------Well----uh-----I would have---but the terrain on the other side was un-rideable for us. And even tho we wanted to ride down a trail I knew of on the other side--it was just to rough.

So------I decided we would ford the fast moving water. I stripped down to my skivies and started across and it wasn't that bad----but right at the other side the water got as deep as my arms are showing you in this picture and much faster running and would have bowled you over. So we turned back and did what I hate to do-----ride the same trail twice !!!!!

I won't name any names----but old Kenny lost an XR 250 is a creek once in Missouri. It sat on the bottom for 5 days before he got it out. He sold it to Don for almost nothing and a few hours later Don rode it over to Kenny's house and offered it back to Kenny. Kenny said "a deals a deal". Don rode it for a long time and never had a problem with it.

I think this was on Camp Creek road near 7 springs. Boy that bike is ugly-----looks like I got it from an Army Surplus store !!! Kind of like my old BMW----nobody would steal it and I just leave the keys in it. "Big Dogs" (I'm Big Dog) bikes ain't for everybody.
I just threw this town picture for the little woman so she could see the palm trees-----or whatever the heck they are. We just missed a rainstorm in this town---and we are heading for the infamous "Box Canyon" and "Coke Ovens" in the morning. I had a knot in my stomach as I was afraid we might get in over our heads going into the tough canyon riding. Or-----maybe it was the Mexican food boiling in my gut !!!!!!!!

On To Day 3

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