Wilsons Sandbox

I think that was me Andy. Me and my friend Billy met you at a gas station at the junction of HWY 64 and Hwy 84 in New Mexico. We were on the road to Moab. Criswell

On Jan 26, 2012, at 11:04 AM, Andrus wrote: > Was reading on Jeff's tour and got to thinking about the time in '04 when I met 2 guys from this list at a little country gas station in ( I think ) Colorado or New Mexico. They were headed for the Get to gether at Moab on their KLR's and I was coming back from Washington State on my R1150GS and had stopped to say Hello at Fred's. What memories. > And, I still have my '00 KLR650 I bought in '99 when they came out. > Andy in Jennings,La. '00 KLR650 '07 Bandit 1250S > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

----- Forwarded Message ----- Listers, Chino Valley to Springerville, AZ Travel time: 11 hrs 9 mins Distance: 297 miles This is a two day segment. It started on day Eleven. I wake up touching the bottom of the tent. My air mattress is flat again. Bummer but I still slept pretty well. Steve is up and we take a look at the rising sun and start striking camp. I have a breakfast bar as I don't know when or if we'll find someplace to eat. We talk about the coyote from last night and how close it was. Then Steve talks about the truck that showed up for a minute or less. We ride out to the road and turn right. This is an alright road but the views are nothing special and we just kind of ride along. I miss a turn by 100 feet and we have to turn around. Steve just hates it when this happens. A lady is walking her dog and smiles as we slowly ride by. A few more miles and we get to a paved road. In fact it's a pretty major paved road. I go back when Steve doesn't follow. His load needs adjustment. While he tightens straps I look at the GPS and see what's coming up with a possibility for breakfast. We soon come to Kohl's Ranch and I turn in. This is where Zane Gray, the western writer used to live. We go into the restaurant and get breakfast. It's nothing special at all. In fact Steve is pretty disappointed with his oatmeal. Don't get him going on that plate of breakfast. : ) We head out and continue on the pavement until we get to Forest Lakes. Here we find fuel and I fill my water bladder. We're getting ready to start south and it might be some rough country. We really don't know what we're getting into. I check the GPS and we have to turn back about 300 yards to start our route across the road. I lead and the road is exactly where the GPS thinks it should be. We need to parallel the paved road for a few hundred yards before we bear south. The road due south is closed. We start down what looks kind of like an ATV track and go maybe 300-400 yards and a tree is across the path. A couple has just crossed the road and started walking through the woods down the path. It's not looking real good. We decide to turn around and try a better road just a bit east of here according to the GPS. The new road we're trying is where the GPS says it should be and it's in good shape and fairly fast. We ride along for probably 15-18 miles before we come to the section bearing south. So far we haven't seen any interesting views, it's just riding in the trees. The GPS says to turn right and there's a road to the right. It hasn't been used much in a few years but it's there. We pass a huge piece of logging equipment that's broken and rusted. The grass between the tracks is tall and sometimes it's hard to see exactly where the road goes 100 yards ahead. We come to a fork and Steve and I both study our GPSs and finally agree the fork to the right is ours. I lead on and we soon come to a descent and some switchbacks. I'm thinking this isn't so bad and it is what we were hoping to find on this trip. The road gets a bit rougher and we are now following a ravine or valley depending on what your definition of them are. It's not over maybe 100 yards wide at the base and you can see where the water flows after a rain. The sides are high and unrideable. Steep and tall and rough. We ride on and around a bend there it is. It's not a bear, or a deer or a huge elk or a buffalo. No, it's a very rocky wash that we need to cross. We stop next to it and walk the trail to make sure it's something we can do. The rocks are probably softball to beach ball size and there are lots and lots of them. We pick a line and ride through one at a time. The road gets good for a few hundred yards and then we come to another rocky wash. We pick our line again and I think we each make it. Then on the next wash in what should be a hard right turn I drop my bike to the right. I think if I had hard saddlebags instead of Ortlieb Dry Saddlebags I might have broken my leg when it got stuck between the bag and a large rock. All I got was a sore leg for a few days. Steve gives me a hand getting it vertical and I'm able to ride the rest of the way. I go back to take a picture and watch Steve drop his bike maybe 10 feet past where I dropped mine. No picture and I help Steve get his bike vertical. We kind of look at each other with questioning looks. What have we got ourselves into now? We head on down the ravine and soon come to another rocky section. This has a nasty lip at the far end going about 4 feet up a bank. I ride it first and the "If in doubt, throttle out" saying works well for me. Steve rides it like he's been riding dirt bikes for his entire life. One or two more rocky sections and I drop my bike again. I jam a finger on my right hand and even now almost three weeks later it's still a bit sore. Then I think Steve drops his bike. We're both tired and hot and kind of wishing the rocky sections would ease up a bit. We take a break in some shade and talk about what we're doing. And then I look up at the tops of the hills here and realize how screwed the settlers were if the Apache's were hunting them. This is some tough country. And we're on the Apache Indian Reservation according to the AAA map we have with the planned route highlighted on. We continue and the road gets pretty good. We're probably riding at 20 mph now and all of the sudden I stop. Steve stops behind me and I put my hands in the air with a "what now" gesture. The road is missing. I mean 7 foot wide and 4-5 feet deep missing. The water runoff from the hill on the right has washed a huge trench in the road. We decide the downhill side isn't passable as we'd have to ride at least 1/4 mile of very rough and tuff rocks in the wash/river. I find a cow path on the up hill side and we decide since that takes us through a trench only about 2 feet deep we can probably make it. I go first and Steve waits at the trench to give me a hand if I need it. I do. Riding through the brush and trees isn't the issue. It's the trench full of rocks and then the 90 degree left hand turn while exiting the rocks and trench that gets me. It's a slow speed spill and my leg is caught under the bike. Luckily the earth is soft and I have good foot and lower leg protection from my Oxtar Infinity boots. Yes, they are very good boots. We get my bike up and I ride the rest of the way out to the road. Then it's Steve's turn. I wait at the trench and help him pick his bike up from the bottom of it. Again nothing is broken and we're just pretty tired. Steve asks me to ride it the rest of the way out and I go and get my helmet and jacket. I'm not taking a chance on getting hurt cause I didn't wear a helmet. We finally get to the road and park the bikes and take a breather. This is really turning into work. I think it would be easier if we kept riding the bikes instead of dropping them. Our lower gearing is really paying off for us today. We get our wind back and resume riding. We have a few more rock crossings and then we get to rocks and water. Wow! How much more fun can this get? We cross maybe 80 yards of rocks and water and the road now seems to be going in the direction we'd like. I take us to the right and after maybe 1/4 mile decide we're now on the wrong road. We turn around and take another road I think will join the route. It does and the riding is pretty easy compared to the last bit. We continue for a bit and come to a significant water crossing. I get off the bike and scout the crossing. We have to move from left to right and ride a short bit of the stream in the process. I go first and my front tire hits a decent size rock that's under a foot of water. I start to veer off my intended line. I twist the throttle and bounce off a few other good size rocks and then miss the road on the other side. I get over the soft stuff and finally stop where there will be room for Steve to stop after he gets out of the water. He rides the line like a pro. Off we go again. We end up doing so many water crossings in the rocks we quit scouting lines and just ride through them. A flat bed truck is approaching us and we pull to the side of the road so there's room for it to pass us. It's a couple of licensed bear hunters. The driver asks if we're tribal members. We tell him no. He let's us know the area is closed to everyone. I explain that the way we came in there was no sign or notice. He nods and says if a Tribal Ranger catches us we'll probably get scolded and then sent on our way. He suggests we're going the correct way to get to pavement. His truck really stinks from the numerous Rubbermaid type containers on the back with rotten meat in them. He's really getting back in the sticks for those bears. They go on their way and Steve and I continue towards what we hope will be pavement. We continue to hit water crossings and rock fields for the next 10 miles probably. A few deer run in front of us at one and it's probably 400 yards long if it's an inch. We also get into some deep sand on a few occasions. Our lower gearing is great. Wonderful. Superb. Extraordinary. Maybe it's even a miracle. The lower gearing is great! We are both tired and hot and ready for some pavement. Eventually we get to a better bit of road. This is almost like maintained gravel or dirt except where the water has washed trenches 10 feet deep and 10 feet wide they've only fixed half the road. The other side has some rocks in the lane to act as a warning. It seems to work well. We finally get to Carizio which is on AZ 60. We take a break at the C store at the junction of 73. The lemonade taste is refreshing. We talk with a few of the folks who are getting fishing permits and they say the fishing on the reservation is very good. Steve and I decide to take pavement to Show Low and then over to Springerville and get a hotel for the night. The planned route was going on 73 for a ways and then over towards Alpine on more dirt. We don't know if we can take more dirt like the dirt we just did. We'll catch the route near Alpine in the morning. So north we ride. The pavement is in good shape and fast. Fast being relative after spending over 4 hours to do about 40 or 45 miles. At Show Low we head east on 260. Hind sight says we could have had a nice ride on 73 to 260. This is the second or third time I've been on 260 and it's a road less traveled. It gets to some elevation like over 8,000 feet if I recall correctly. The traffic is a bit heavier than I care for but it's still less than if we were on 60. In Springerville we stop at the same motel we used last year. This time we are some of the first folks there and we get a ground floor room. We unload the bikes and talk with a couple that comes in with their Jeep. It's set up for 4 wheeling and the guy is willing to talk and has some knowledge. He's had the Jeep vertical with the spare tire touching the ground. And then from that position crawled up a four foot ledge. I'm impressed with the vehicle. I get my air mattress out as I want to find the leak. Using a face cloth soaked in water with hand soap rubbed on it we start checking the bottom for leaks. No leaks on the bottom. Then we flip it over and I start at the foot and begin working my way up. Before I get to the head end Steve finds a 1/4" tear in the fabric. It's in a seam type area and looks tough to patch. I take some GOOP and spread it lightly over the hole after trying to push a little inside the tear. After maybe an hour I smear more GOOP on top of the first layer. It looks like it will hold air. We go to the restaurant next door and have a nice meal. Both of us forget to tell the cashier we've got rooms next door and forgo our 10% discount. Curses. : ) We watch some program similar to junk yard wars on TV and before it gets over we're both asleep. It's been a long but fun day. End of Day Twelve. Jeff Saline ABC # 4412 South Dakota Airmarshal Airheads Beemer Club www.airheads.org The Beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota 75 R90/6, 03 KLR650, 79 R100RT . . ____________________________________________________________ Get Free Email with Video Mail & Video Chat! http://www.juno.com/freeemail?refcd=JUTAGOUT1FREM0210 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]