09 Vacation Ride

I had been planning this trip for several months. I was going to ride all the way to Devil's Tower in Wyoming and work my way back home through the mountains of Colorado and Utah . This is one of those trips where if things could go wrong, they did. I started out on Friday the 23rd at 5am. I had checked the weather before leaving and saw that I would run in to some rain, but not as much as I really did. Shortly after leaving Phoenix it started raining and kept on raining until I got about 40 miles outside of Holbrook,AZ. Once I got to Holbrook,AZ it looked like the skies were going to clear. I stopped there and had some breakfast. This is where more trouble started. After breakfast I had a hard time getting my bike to start. After an hour of trying the bike went ahead and finally started up. I rode on to Milan,NM (lots more rain) and got some gas and my bike wouldn't start again. After 2 hours of trying, it was time to call a tow truck and have it towed into Albuquerque,NM late Saturday night only to find out the dealer was closed until Tuesday the 26th. My family lives in Albuquerque so I got to spend the next 4 days visiting with them. This was the best part of the whole trip. I had not been up to Albuquerque in over a year. Tuesday afternoon the dealer got my bike back up and running, YEAAAAA! Now that my plans were in the trash can it was time to do a little re planning. My older brother rides motorcycles also. So him and his wife and I planned on riding up to the Jemez Mountains. I had not ridden in these mountains for over 20 years. So we left out on Wednesday morning at 8am and got back to Albuquerque around 2pm. There is a lot to see up there, great mountains, plenty of curves and some awesome scenery.


Here we stopped at the Jemez Pueblo for a short break and take some pictures.



We stopped at the Soda Springs Dam to take some more pictures.


This is really a great ride made even better riding with my brother and his wife.
He has a 2001 Honda Gold Wing and I have a 2009 Kawasaki Vulcan 900 Classic. Thursday morning the 28th it was time to head home. Even thought the weather was not real good and my bike broke down, I did enjoy my time with my family. So despite all the bad things that happened, it was worth the time I could spend with my family.

This is a motorcycle ride in the state of Arizona. This motorcycle route has 6 scenery characteristics and other road conditions to help you plan your road trip. This motorcycle map was created by DdP_Phx in May. Click here to see other Motorcycle Roads by DdP_Phx