Tracey's Birthday Ride, Chapter 10

This is it...this is the final chapter...so what was the last miscalculation I made on this trip you ask? Not a big one, nothing like my previous ones, just that I only thought I had to worry about the heat in the desert. Once we get to Barstow, we got it made, right? WRONG AGAIN RICK. Had I been paying attention, I'd have known that the South Bay was in a heat warning, but I was so focused on getting Ruby back on the road, I never bothered checking other areas. Oops. Once again, weather-wimp Tracey is put to the test on a ride. The good news is it wasn't as bad as coming into Lauglin (111 degrees), but 106 is still a bitch on a bike (no, I'm not calling Tracey names - I love her). I won't keep anyone in suspense on this though - other than it getting us both a little cranky (it's been a very trying week), the weather was just one more thing to talk about on this trip.

Now for something interesting on our return trip. We pull out of Laughlin bright and early - 8:00am - for the ride back to Gundo. We'd gone about 10 miles and come up on a fellow motorcycle rider with a sidecar. As we pass, we see it's an old Harley (60s or so) with a a flatbed sidecar used for hauling. It's the guy's work truck, so to speak. Now THAT'S funny. He takes a turn and we go straight. About 20 minutes later we're coming up behind another motorcycle with a sidecar. "How'd he get in front of us?" I ask. "He must know a shortcut I don't." As we get closer, I realize it's not the same one - IT'S A LOT OLDER!!! "Geezo Pete," I say to Tracey, "That's the oldest bike I've ever seen on the road." I'm guessing it's 1930s or so AND with the original sidecar! Are you kidding me? I'm convinced now people out here are just absolutely nuts. He's only running about 40, so we easily go around him on the 2-lane Hwy 95. No sooner had I passed him than I saw another old motorcycle, and another and another and another. In fact, the highway was literally "crawling" with them. hahaha Some kind of old bike club run or something. When all was said and done, we'd passed 20 of them right before we came to the Route 66 turnoff. At the intersection was a van and a film crew pointing for the old bikes to turn onto the National Trails Highway (another name for Route 66 - Mother Road is another name). Tracey and I agree that was pretty cool beans and we continue our ride south to I-40.

We ride to Ludlow for a late breakfast at the Route 66 Cafe. As we're eating, the talk around us is about the old bike that'd pulled into the gas station across the street. As we finish breakfast, we learn that one couple in the restaurant is with the event. They're the mechanics for the 2010 Motorcycle Cannonball Endurance Run!!! The rules are simple, you can ride any motorcycle as long as it was manufactured BEFORE 1916. Yep, you read that right. EVERY motorcycle we passed on that road was 1916 or older! The Endurance Run started in Kitty Hawk, NC and will end at the Pier in Santa Monica. Can you imagine riding that old of a motorcycle clear across the country? The mechanics we're talking with say they basically rebuild the bikes every night to make the trip. As we're leaving, one of the bikes pulls into Route 66 Cafe and I get a picture of it - after all, I've never seen an Excelsior motorcycle before, let alone a 1913. The cool part? THIS is the motorcycle that wins the race the next day!!!! How funny is that? If you're interested, you can go to their website...here's the link: http://www.motorcyclecannonball.com.

So, we finish the ride uneventfully and finally pull Ruby back into her own driveway. I'm pretty sure I heard her sigh when she saw our garage door. :-)

Hey, maybe next time we ride through Victorville, we'll stop at a restaurant I saw as we passed through. It must be a fusion-type restaurant because the name I read was "Seoul Garden Korean Restaurant." I bet they do some mean ribs and wok-fried collard greens. HAHAHAHAHA