Friday, November 18, 2011

666STOC - Kingman, Az - Nov 11-13

I left work at 6:30am on Thursday and headed to San Jose to meet up with my friend Kim at 7:00am for the ride to Kingman. We decided to avoid the mind-numbing I5 experience as much as possible and headed down Hwy 101 then cut over on Hwy 46 to 99 to 58 and so forth.

We stopped for a lunch break at Perkos in Wasco. They were running a chili burger special that was not very good... I focused on the side salad so it was probably the healthiest meal I had the whole trip!


After lunch we hit the road again and finally arrived in Kingman at 08:15 Az time, ~612 miles, a long, long day for me after working all night!

Some of tents and toys in George's back yard




Friday morning we were treated to breakfast prepared by George, scrambled eggs and bacon, orange juice, and coffee. And Mac prepared his famous camp fire biscuits for us as well. 

With the morning feast completed most of the others split up into small groups and went off riding. Since I was still tired from Thursday's ride I was not planning on doing much riding myself. My main goal was to find a supercuts and take care of my helmet hair problems... Sorry, no pictures, let's just say I pretty much got a buzz cut...

I felt so good leaving the supercuts that I decided to head out to Oatman and check out the burros, they really do roam the streets and you'll get swarmed if you give them carrots!







I left Oatman and headed out to Bullhead City where I found a little Mexican restaurant and stopped for lunch. Then I headed back to George's place to relax and do some visiting before dinner.

Saturday morning after another killer breakfast prepared for us by (the other) Kim, (my friend) Kim took me out on a nice little ~300 mile ride along the route he had taken the previous day while moving the Az tag. 

We stopped for lunch at the Bagdad Cafe in Bagdad. Apparently Kim gets caught in pictures about as good as I usually do but it's the only one I took of the building so here it is :)


We stopped to see the "Stone Cold Duck"... Someone has a good sense of humor!


Across the road was the watch for animals sign complete with animals...


We stopped in Wickenburg to see the Jail Tree. Back in the 1800s there was no jail so they chained prisoners to the tree. I'm guessing it was a good deterrent to crime at least in the summertime.



A photo opp along the way back


Saturday night was dinner at Rednecks BBQ in old town Kingman. The ribs were melt-in-your-mouth delicious. Then it was back to the Catthouse for a great evening by the camp fire.


Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of rain. Yay! Nothing like breaking camp in the rain. I lingered in my nice warm sleeping bad until 6am when I started packing up everything inside the tent. After that it's a quick easy job with my Catoma tent. I had the bike all packed up and ready to go by 7am.

I ventured into the Catthouse and found Mac making biscuits in the oven - for the first time. And they were good too, no matter what he says to try to get out of it in the future.


In spite of being packed up early we got a late start on our journey home. I met Kim at his hotel at 10am and we hit the road. Fortunately the rain had subsided and as we made our way west it became warm and sunny.

To break up some of the boring ride on the slab we jumped on old route 66 between I40 and Amboy looking for possible tags to use for the new socal tag. Kim spotted this old building with a nice mural. In the end I used a different tag though...


We stopped for lunch at Peggy Sue's Diner just outside of Barstow in Yermo, CA next to I15 and then filled up with gas at a station across the street. Unfortunately, both bikes started missing and hesitating shortly thereafter. No more cheap gas for me! Grrr...

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By 6:30pm or so we hit Buttonwillow and decided to stop for the night. In the morning we filled with some good gas and were fed and on the road by 8:00am.

We stopped at a little tourist trap at Hwy 46 & Hwy 33 that bills itself as James Deans Last Stop where I took this picture for the new SoCal tag.


Then we cut over to Hwy 101 south to go grab the existing SoCal tag on Hwy 58 just outside of Santa Margarita.


After stopping briefly at a Starbucks to upload the tag pictures, we got back on the road to home. We waved goodbye at Hwy 101 & Hwy 880. I arrived safe and sound at my house at just about 1:00pm. 

Trip total: ~1710 miles

3 comments:

  1. It was a pleasure to see you at George's Stefani! Wonder where George will host the event next year?

    ReplyDelete
  2. There was talk of Mesa or Yuma... I guess we'll see!

    ReplyDelete