Monday

Rode in and out of heavy rain today for 300 or so miles. Spending the night in a motel in Murphy, NC. I've seen more than my yearly quota of green grass and trees. Steve and I went to a BBQ place for a hearty meal. It will probably rain again tomorrow yeh. 

Sunday

Sprinkles today on the ride. We stopped at the Jack Daniels distilary. They were pretty booked for the tours and we didn't want to wait for the next available tour so we walked around the free museum and then headed down the road ending the day at a KOA near Trenton, Georgia. 

FerryStoc

We spent the weekend near Buchanan, TN at the motorcycle camp out nick named FerryStoc (there are car ferries to take you across open water). It rained off and on all weekend but we got in a nice ride on Saturday and then played cards under a canopy while it rained. Lots of riders from all over to meet for the first time plus the ones we hadn't seen for years.

Tomorrow Steve, Kevin, Greg and I will start out on our week long adventure.

Back in the saddle

It's May 17, 2017 and our road trips for the season are starting. Steve, Kevin, Greg and I are meeting at an ST Owners event at Paris Landing Camp ground in the land between the lakes area of Tennessee this weekend. Over the next week we will travel East to the Blue Ridge Parkway and then swing back West finishing up on the 27th. I'll try to post some pictures along the way.

In June we will be riding in Colorado, Utah, Nevada and California. July will take us to Salt Lake City and the annual International BMW MOA rally. We are all anxious to put some miles under us.

Monday

We all gathered for breakfast at a Denny's in Grand Junction. Afterward we took I-70 West getting off onto Hwy. 128 in Utah that took us along the Colorado River and into Moab. Clay and I split off from the group and rode home down through Monument Valley again. The rest did more excursions around Moab and then worked their way back to Grand Junction ready for more riding tomorrow.

I put 1,557 miles on my bike during the past 4 days and had a great time meeting and chatting with everyone. Darby and Alice were great hosts and Darby's skills with his smoker cooking ribs and brisket was excellent. 

Clay and I waiting for the rest to catch up after we did a spirited ride along the Colorado River.

Monument Valley looking South

Sunday's ride

We met at Darby's in the morning and rode to Delta for breakfast. Afterward we went to the Blue Mesa Reservoir and went North on Hwy. 92 which took us to an overlook of the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. We then continued on to Paonia and took Hwy 133 East over McClure Pass and on to Glenwood Springs where we had lunch. We caught I-70 and headed West getting off onto Hwy 65 that took us over the Grand Mesa and back to Delta. We then gathered back at Darby's for some visiting and finally we all headed back to our respective motels.

Ready to eat

Left over cinnamon rolls

A lake in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison 

The crew

                       Kim, Darby, Bill, Roland, Clay, Jim, Chris, Steven, Gaylen

The bikes

Coke ovens on Hwy 133 near Carbondale

Lunch in Glenwood Springs

Saturday BBQ day

We rode up from Cortez via the Gateway Canyon which is always fun to ride through.

There ended up being 11 K1600 riders that showed up for the BBQ. We had smoked brisket and ribs mmmmm.

Gateway Canyon

Some of the guys

The rest of the group minus one late comer

The smoker

Darby slicing ribs

Chowing down

All done mmmmm

1/2 the bikes

The rest

First day

Gooddog aka Clay showed up right on time at 6:00 am and after a little visit we took off for the mountains. We stopped in Flagstaff for breakfast then continued on to Kayenta where we turned North. Clay had never been by Monument Valley or over the Moki Dugway so we figured today would be a good day to do that. After stopping at the visitor center in Monument Valley we headed for Mexican Hat for lunch. Then a photo stop at the Mexican Hat rock formation.

 From there we rode over the Moki Dugway road where I had a slight mishap. While pulled over to look at the view I went to shift into first and one of the linkage screws holding my short shift linkage together fell out and my lever was dangling. Wow that would have been a disaster traveling down the interstate at 80mph. Fortunately I found the screw and with a little time to remove plastic I was able to reassemble everything good as new.

We continued through Blanding and Monticello and on to Cortez where we are holed up in a motel for the night.

Gooddog AKA Clay

Me Arizona Jim

Monument Valley

Clay

Jim

Mexican Hat right out of a Road Runner cartoon, meep meep

Headed for Moki Dugway, where does the road go?

Working on the shift linkage

Clay looking at the valley below

Darby's BBQ weekend

Well I'm off on another putt. This time just a long weekend ride to the Grand Junction, CO area to attend a BBQ put on by one of the K1600 forum members. I'll be riding with a K1600 rider from Arizona as far as Cortez today and then finish up tomorrow. It will be a good time meeting other forum members that I haven't met before.