I just love that very special feeling! I get stuck in a place for a night or two, then I finally load up and throw a leg over our girl, and… varoom! Off we go… It usually doesn’t even take until we clear the motel parking lot before I’m already feeling it!!! Truth be told, the loading up is actually like foreplay for us!
She is so wonderful to handle, maneuver, bank, turn, scoot around large rigs, and otherwise simply be in motion… We’ve been together so long now, that it’s like smiling or blinking in that virtually no conscious effort is required… ‘our parts’ just automatically know what to do, and things smoothly happen…
Each new day is different from the last, but there is at least some consistency: Each new day, for example, instantly produces that indescribable, incredible, euphoric feeling of joy; and, some degree of disbelief that this is all really happening…
WOW! I am so happy to be out here, doing what we do, truly living a dream! I often shake my head and smile, as I marvel at all the unexpected, seemingly unbelievable events in their curious, improbable sequence that have happened to bring us to this point…
The adjustment to this style of travel and life hasn’t been as effortless as bonding with our girl has, however… Nope, there have been many lessons to learn, concepts to alter, some even to jettison, and new ones to discover, embrace, and adopt. To do what we do would probably drive ‘type A’ personalities to the brink! I know it didn’t come all that easily for yours truly either, but it has made a tremendous difference…
Please indulge me a small distraction here… Thunderbolt deserves special thanks, and I do want to offer my good tidings to him… As I made my way to the outside motel room door the other morning, I paused and thought about what he had said in a previous post…
I stopped long enough to extract a metal key from my pocket, and… holding it firmly, I touched it to the door knob… WOW! A visible spark! Since we’d returned to colder weather, those annoying, pesky, unanticipated, foul language producing, little shocks had also returned… Not this time!!! Thanks, Terry! That little procedure is now standard practice!!!
OK, back to my other point… We’d departed the motel in Benson, AZ, thinking we’d just scoot on down through Tombstone, then wind-up over in Sierra Vista… Nope, instead of making the turn west in Bisbee, we rode southeast to Douglas instead! I’d come up with an entirely new thought by then on how we’d do some loop-de-loos; naturally, with a keen weather-eye out at all times…
A brief spat of cold weather precip was called for soon in the high country, so we had to stay clear of that stuff. There were some roads I’d seen on my atlas, though, that either hadn’t been ridden by us, or hadn’t been ridden in several years…
By making a couple of ‘tweaks’ here and there, I came up with a new 'plan', ‘on the fly’, that would keep us at lower altitudes for a couple of days, take us on some ‘scenic routes’, and position us to ‘move up’ when the temps had risen a bit and that nasty moisture had moved on eastward.
I was actually thinking of stopping for the night again in Deming, NM, but when we arrived in Lordsburg needing fuel… well, you know… we altered our plan again… Not right away, though.
Nope, first I went in a restaurant across the street for some people fuel and had a very enjoyable meal, served by a very nice, efficient lady with a friendly smile and pleasant manner... spotting a real pro ain't hard at all! It wasn’t until I’d finished that refreshing pause and left the restaurant walking towards ALI, that possibilities started to emerge…
Yep, directly across the street and next door to that convenience/gas store was a motel that appeared suitable… Now, anytime I find a set-up like this, the wheels automatically start to turn… A convenience store and restaurant all within easy walking distance… and a McDs a block and a half down the road…
No lounge nearby that I knew of, but… Contrary to common thought, I don’t frequent those places nearly as much as I once did… So, no biggie there, and not really even a consideration these days.
We rode over and got a room… That motel didn’t have a guest laundry, doggonit, and I was in dire need of that! The check-in lady told me when I inquired, that they did provide a ‘laundry service’, however… Well, clean clothing was the objective, so… not actually having to perform the chore myself was considered a bonus, not a detriment! Things just seemed to be working out fine! And, nothing at all like what I’d been thinking when this day had begun, but…
Well, time to depart again following an easy stay, that would have been better had I been able to access the WIFI. The temps seemed really pleasant and mild… in the sunlight, in the lee of the motel structure anyway… and, the sky was nearly completely void of clouds. I had mostly back roads for the first part of the day in mind, and our prospects appeared near perfect as we headed out of town…
Yep, I had another goober-grin plastered all over my face as we went through the gears and got up to speed… Nothing hard, fortuitously, as I spotted a ‘stealth LEO’ looking for business while we were accelerating… I imagined a scowl of disappointment on his face… as he reflexively grabbed another donut. Heck, we hadn’t even missed any of the turns required to find our way out of town! Oh, that special feeling was really kicking in!!!
DDT
Bisbee, AZ, a tiny hamlet on either side of a gorge...
Open pit copper mine south-side of Bisbee...
Purple Heart Memorial at the mine overlook... (ain't our girl purdy?!!!)
While it's all beautiful to me, much of the scenery won't win any photo contests...
