Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Sixteenth Day on the Road

This update will be relatively short. I decided to deviate from my original plan by riding into Phoenix to visit my brother and have my bike serviced. I was only able to take a few pictures today because of the weather.

Today was another rough day of riding. In fact, it was the toughest thus far. What made it difficult was the weather. Yesterday, the wind was a factor. Today, the wind was much stronger. In addition to the wind, there was also a lot of hail.







As I left the hotel in Holbrook, I found the hotel that inspired "The Cozy Cone" hotel in the cartoon "Cars". The hotel is the Wigwam Motel. It looked like there were people still staying at that hotel.













My next stop was on Jackrabbit Road. This is where the "Here It Is" sign is. There was also a gift shop there with some cool painting but since it was about 8:00 am, the store was closed.










Winslow was the next, and pretty much the last, stop of the day. There were several signs and referring to the song by The Eagle "take it easy". I was thinking about it...that would drive me nuts if I had to listen to nothing but the eagles day in and day out.



That was pretty much it for Route 66. The rest of the day was spent just getting to Queen Creek. The toughest stretch of road I have had to travel was along I40 between Winslow and Flagstaff. This 50 mile segment started out with a strong cross wind that just grew stronger as I continued on. The winds were 30+ MPH for the entire time. Half way through, there was a severe dust storm that limited visibility to about 1/4 mile. In addition to the dust storm, I was getting hit with fast moving tumble weeds. The winds were so bad that I had no choice to slow down to about 50MPH. During the rest of the trip when I encountered wind, I have not had to slow down until today. About 10 miles before reaching Flagstaff, the rain started to fall and the temperature dropped. I ended up having to stop to put my jacket liner in before continuing on.

The winds were coming out of the south so as soon as I got onto I17, the winds went from being crosswinds to being headwinds. After about 5 minutes on I17 the cold temperatures started turning the rain into hail. Add a headwind to falling hail and you have ice projectiles bouncing off your windscreen, helmet and any uncovered skin... Not pleasant. It took a while but as I came out of the mountains, the temperature began to increase and the hail gave way to light rain. I waded through the traffic in the Phoenix area until I reached Queen Creek.

That was pretty much it for the day. Now I have to figure out how I am going to proceed. I was watching the news earlier and they were saying that there is snow currently falling in Flagstaff. I am thinking that I may have to bypass a small section of the route if I want to continue on. I will look again after my bike is worked on and decide what path to take at that time. Until the , I'll be seein' you from the road.

Total miles traveled today: 296


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Queen Creek,United States

No comments:

Post a Comment