A Ride Around the Grand Canyon

The mythical JWayne, SKroge, bikes with trailer in background at Uncle Val's. Photo by Val

On Monday May 12, (I know, I know, I'm slow but I'm posting!) the Mythical JWayne and I put our bikes in his new, enclosed, two-place, bike trailer and headed for Mesquite, NV. It has been a dream of JWayne's to have such a trailer and drive close to the stretch you actually want to ride the bikes and then take off on them more fresh and relaxed having covered most of the nerve wracking freeway travel in a comfortable vehicle, not that there is anything wrong with riding the bikes all the way. Some may accuse us of not being "hard core" but to them let me say join the Marines then! It had been snowing in Utah valley a day before we took off but the weather was fine in NV save for the strong winds. Ever ride a bike in strong winds? Heaven when it's at your back, hell when you head into it or it blows across you. Sometimes a full lane change occurs without your having done anything! After a wonderful breakfast in the Virgin River Casino, where we stayed, we bashed out down I-15 in the direction of Las Vegas. We got off the freeway at Logandale and took the old US route 91 along the gorge around the lake to the Hoover Dam. It was a bright, glorious, traffic free ride.

Lake Mead in the upper right of the photo. I am riding the red bike.

At the dam spillway overlook

In the upper right of the photo you can see the columns for the new flyover bridge that Homeland Security is building to keep the traffic off the dam and us safe from all the marauding terrorists schlepping megatons of explosives with them to blow up the dam. Once again, Big Brother is taking care of us. I understand this is now true of all major dams in the U.S. Traffic may not longer travel on them. Heavy security, very similar to flying, to tour the dams now.

One of my favorite dams, done, very nicely, in the Art Deco style.

From the dam we headed east towards Kingman and Williams AZ. Once we had wound our way up out of the Colorado gorge it was a pretty straight, flat shot into Kingman. After a wonderful dinner lunch in Kingman we pushed on towards Williams where we planned to spend the night. This highway is the remnant of the famous, old US Route 66 (Now supplanted by I-10 for the most part). The are several salty old towns along this route, all of them heavily tauting their Route 66 heritage. Williams is a beautiful little railroad town located in the same mountains as Flagstaff. As we climbed closer we saw windrows of snow that had been pushed to the side of the highway! It had snowed there the night before! The same storm that had just left Utah. We got a funky old hotel in the old part of town and had a gourmet meal at a local restaurant. Williams still has a train that runs straight north to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It is a fairly well known attraction.

The next morning we headed due north on the same route as the old railway. It was a brisk and refreshing 31 degrees Fahrenheit as we struck out for the South Rim. Hm, lets see, 31 degrees minus 65 mph wind chill is... minus---, oh well you can imagine. It was a wee bit nippy. What a beautiful ride though, out across that high plateau to the Canyon.
At the Canyon for the umpteenth time one is still awestruck and breathless at the scope and grandeur of this hole! It is simply unfathomable and indescribable. We ran into many travelers from other lands. Here I am chatting up a couple from Germany. I heard them speaking German and asked them in German where they were from in Germany. They said "Muenchen" and then made my head big as they asked which part of Germany I was from? After seven more words were out of my mouth however, there was no illusion more that I was indeed an Ami.

From the Canyon we dropped down to the east to Cameron Junction and US 89. It may be getting older and more critical but it seems like these once great sources for some serious Native American Art (Cameron Trading Post) are virtually all going 100% to Chinese made items. They still have the Gallery where one can find some choice items, but the prices make them unobtainable. JWayne was interested in the Navajo lady they have there weaving a rug. From Cameron we rolled up 89 past the Tuba City, Hopi Mesas junction, along the Gap (no we did not get a ticket from the Rez police this time), and climbed up on the Bluff to Page. The hogans are all gone as are most of the old government provided cottages (euphemism for shacks). It is all trailers on the Rez now. Page too has changed greatly. It is hard to believe this was ever a small town of a few trailers and government prefabs in the '60s. It is a sprawling Vegas style city ala St. George. There we had lunch and fueled. We spent a moment at the dam but even though the gorge may be deeper, the architecture of the dam is not nearly so compelling as Hoover. The drive into Kanab has always been beautiful. Again however, thirty miles from Kanab we began to run into the sprawl of second homes and tacky resorts that plagues these beautiful little places. We humans will sell anything or anyone for a buck!

The ride from Mt. Carmel Junction to Zion was lovely. All government land and undeveloped.

Zion in the late afternoon-evening is lovely. The light is almost magic. Here we are parked in the obligatory Zion Stau just before the long tunnel. Big buses and motor homes need both sides of the tunnel to make it through.


This is near Steve Jr's favorite jumping off place for canyoneering in Zion. We made it on into St. George for that evening and stayed in one of my favorite motels on St. George Blvd. the Econo something. There is a great little restaurant just next door. It is right across the street from Nelson's Custard shop.

The next morning at O' dark thirty we headed for Santa Clara and the old US 91 route out of town. We passed the only redeeming things left in Washington county, the Kayenta development and the Shivewits Rez to "Utah Hill." This is the long pull out of Beaver Dam AZ up into Utah. I remember as a small lad in the '50s seeing car after car pulled off along this stretch with steaming radiators pouring water from their canvas water bags into the radiators. In the "olden times" we had these large, canvas bags we would fill with water and hang from the front bumper, which in those days always had the vertical guards. As the water wet the canvas of the bag the wind would evaporate the moisture which would cool the water inside like a swamp cooler. Pretty effective for low tech. One simply could not travel too far before refilling the bag or this evaporation would significantly deplete the volume in the bag. I remember more recent times, still before the freeway, when folks did not heed the "turn off your air conditioner" signs, also with steaming engines along the side of the highway. It was about an hour back to Mesquite and breakfast with uncle Val at the Virgin River. At his home we packed the bikes back in the trailer and in five hours we were home again. An almost perfect ride, time, distance, weather and scenery wise.