Before the storm

Due to all the excitement of the storm, I forgot a side excursion we made before reaching Tucson.


Between Phoenix and Tucson we saw a sign for Casa Grande Ruins. Good enough reason to leave the interstate and look! 

Viewer discretion advised

After I posted about the hatchet versus thumb incident, some readers have requested pictures (morbid people!). I don't have pictures of when it actually happened but I do have some pictures of when I removed the piece of thumb that did not reattach.


If you are squeamish, PLEASE DO NOT go past this point. You have been warned!

Changes and scares

Because of the delay in the Grand Canyon (thanks to my bonehead mistake), we decided it is too late in the season to head further north. We already ran into snow and are really not looking forward to it again. Not with me on a bike I'm not familiar with.


Instead of heading to Yellowstone, we decided to head directly south. We need to break in the engine on the new bike gently during the first 1,000 miles and the drive from Flagstaff to Tucson fit the bill.

Back on the grid!

Ok, so we have been off the grid for a couple of days. You'll get details on a later post. For now, let's just say the withdrawal symptoms were horrific.

My Arches souvenir

When last I posted, we were scampering around the Arches National Park. Make that trudging under the blazing sun. The only one fit enough to scamper was YoManBob. We huffed and puffed to our minivan and drove straight back to our home-for-now-home at the Grand Canyon.

We are not very patient...

Instead of waiting - and wasting time - at the Grand Canyon for a week, we decided to head to our next two National Parks: Mesa Verde near Cortez, Colorado, and Arches in Moab, UT.


On our way to Mesa Verde, we went through Four Corners - the only place in the United States were the boundaries of four states meet: Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. The area is owned mainly by the Navajo

Decisions, decisions

After spending the day discussing options with the semi-local bike shop in Flagstaff (a 2 hour drive each way), we came to a hard decision. We are leaving the little "Roadrunner" at the shop here for safekeeping until we get a chance to come back and trailer it to Louisiana, where we hope to get it repaired. Hope springs eternal.... We also made other, parallel

While we waited...

After numerous phone calls, both to my regular bike shop in LA and the local Yamaha dealer, we came to the conclusion that repairs at this point would, in effect, cancel the rest of our trip. After much consideration, we've decided to make other arrangements. I will leave it up to you to figure out what we did. Suffice it to say that the trip is still on, although an abbreviated version.

Originally, we were planning on spending just 3 nights in the Grand Canyon. After the Roadrunner died, I registered us for a week, hoping