About a year ago, I learned that Gunther & Debbie, a couple I had enjoyed the Harley trip to Sturgis with in 2012, were planning to ride coast to coast USA later this year. It had always been on my wish list and this was just the enabler that I needed to get myself signed up for another trip of a lifetime!
We stopped at Borrego Springs & Gila Bend CA, Tombstone AZ, El Paso, Alpine, San Antonio & Galveston TX, Henderson & New Orleans LA, Mobile AL then Tallahassee, Daytona Beach & Orlando FL. We rode 3,100 miles in just 17 days that included 3 out of the saddle in Tombstone, San Antonio and New Orleans for sightseeing. To give some idea of the size of Texas:
That is why we needed 4 stops to cross it, taking up 1,000 miles, but just a third of our trip!
I got to Los Angeles a couple of days early for a bit of tourism before we hopped into our saddles and set off across the more arid first half of the journey. Well, I say hopped, but my arthritic knees now make it more a measured mount!
On the road, we were 25 riders and pillions on 17 bikes, split into 2 riding groups, Red & Green, alternating our departure about half an hour apart each day. Included were two riders from Hadrian V-Twin Tours leading each group, and 2 supports vans, one with each! Apart from Tombstone, where would be in two motels a short distance apart, the two groups would stop over together and be able to socialise in the evenings. As before, I appreciated the benefit of a support van to carry our luggage, tools, water and other bits and pieces, removing the strain of getting everything I needed onto the bike. Jean had decided she had looked long and often enough at the back of my helmet such that she would pass on this exacerbating opportunity as my pillion!
A smooth flight via Dublin that included US Border Control clearance there was a good decision, saving delay on arrival like a domestic flight in Los Angeles to set up a couple of days of tourism.
The first challenge was to work out how to get to the Hollywood area. Apparently, Los Angeles Planners championed the use of the car over all else at one point, so it has a severe congestion, pollution and a rather poor public transport system as their legacy. 16 miles and over 1 hour by (expensive) taxi was the only viable option. I did this once to tour the Beverley Hills area including Sunset Strip, hearing lots of anecdotes about the great and the good who live here, waiving an unaffordable shopping option on Rodeo Drive, was very convinced by the waxworks of celebrities in Madam Tussauds, even right up close as I walked among them, was dismayed as to why Donald Trump deserves a star on the Walk of Fame, listened to Clapton and other Hard Rock music in the Cafe on Hollywood Boulevard over lunch and peered through the haze at the famous sign up on the hill. It made up a good day.
Fred & Ginger
Rodeo Drive - $$$$$$$!
However, put off by the cost and time of returning to Hollywood to see Universal and Warner Bros Studios as planned, I settled for Marina del Rey and Santa Monica and did some touring from there, walked out on its pier but failed to spot any Bay Watch lifeguards saving lives on its large white sand beach. Getting there was easier and I did pass Fox Studios, albeit without a visit inside.
Fisherman's Wharf, Marina del Rey
Santa Monica Beach
Bubba Gump
The pier is the end of Route 66 from Chicago
Shrimps galore to come
Starting in what seemed to be the middle of the Venice Beach Boardwalk, which is actually a concrete path through the sand, Gunther, Debbie and myself headed north. We therefore missed the muscle builders who must have been the othe way, but we ended up at Santa Monica Pier where we enjoyed a fantastic shrimp lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co, with tributes to Forrest Gump who finished his cross-US run there in the movie, before heading off again. Then it was finally the moment to pick up our Harleys and ready ourselves for the next day's departure to our first destination, Borrego Springs.
Having cleared the choking traffic of Los Angeles, we headed inland to the mountains on lovely sweeping bends and roads, stopping briefly for coffee at Hells Kitchen [sic] in the hills. Then it was onward for a lunch stop at the Stagecoach Inn in the middle of nowhere and next to Borrego Springs in the high desert Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, southern California. Noticeable temperature changes came with the climbs and descents, cool and then hot in the arid plains. Our accommodation was a golf resort with lush green fairways and greens, obviously tenderly manicured and watered in its arid surroundings, where the rumble of our 17 bikes must have seemed rather out of character, but we were warmly welcomed.
Red Group support van
Coffee stop in the mountains
Lake Elsinore
Kev, Lee, Paul, Bev, Angela, Jocelyn
at the Stagecoach Inn
Dan & Simon, our Tour Guides
Simon overlooking Borrego Springs
Our Milwaukee's Best at Sunset
Red & Green Groups
Sunrise at Borrego Springs
Borrego Springs Golf Course
Nearby Borrego Springs there are over 130 steel sculptures in the desert, apparently by Ricardo Breceda, which include rearing stallions, an elephant, a giant scorpion and more, quite incredible. Temperatures stayed up around 33degC as we passed to the west of Salton Sea, 71m below sea level and saline, visible although the road did not pass close to it. The desert landscape continued all day into the Algodones area, which includes the Imperial Sand Dunes, a vast area that serves as a playground to those with the right vehicle, and money.
Imperial Sand Dunes
Soon after leaving Gila Bend, the famous large Saguaro or Cowboy cacti lined the roadside and they are truly impressive, the nearest we got close to being over 30' tall. They are protected and some even micro-chipped as there has been a problem with theft of the smaller ones more easily removed. The hills and plains of Arizona provided interesting riding although there was sparse population to be found along the way.
Scavenging coyote at a petrol station
Liked beef jerky!
Lunch stop
We skirted Tucson, went through several more US Border Control posts, and made our way to Tombstone, the town that was too tough to die! Boothill Graveyard just outside hosts many famous names from the days of the Earp brothers, and it was interesting to see the wording (murdered, killed, shot) on the headboards of the graves, suggesting that not everyone was sold on the idea of the villains being taken care of, and that there had been vigilante action in the power battle between the Earps had and the cattle thieves. It is said the leader had many cattle, marked with his brand, and that he owned some of them!
The most infamous graves
Bill Clanton, Frank & Tom McClaury
'Murdered in the streets of Tombstone'
The Larian Motel, Tombstone
Walking around Tombstone was like being in a film set, but it wasn't of course. It's a bit of a time warp, but it believes in itself and its history, which is very Wild West and pioneering and aligns itself to the values of the time. Boardwalks, people with six shooters on their hips, gunfight re-enactments galore, a small dying town surviving on its past, quite rightly because it has lots, and much of it is colourful. A gang member found guilty and sentenced to life, city folk who were dissatisfied with the verdict because the others were hanged, broke him out of jail, lynched him, yet his death certificate showed he died of 'emphysema'!
But, there was more, Big Nose Kate, Doc Holliday's girlfriend, who saw the fight at the OK Corral but wasn't called as a witness. She didn't have a big nose, but was into everyone else's business! What a wonderful town to enjoy in a time warp! Its population exploded during it silver rush, but then nearly died off altogether when the mines were flooded, hence its fitting slogan of being too tough to die.
Just a casual cowboy on the boardwalk
Stage coach & covered wagon
Inside the theatre
The original Boothill hearse inside the theatre
Cowboys stopping traffic, giving directions
and posing for free photos when asked
Ed Sheiffelin
The guy who discovered the first silver
Big Nose Kate
The most famous of the photos
of those shot in tombstone in their coffins
Perhaps most notable of all the entertainment offered at the Bird Cage was the high stakes poker game, held in the basement. It started in 1881 and ran continuously 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 8 years, 5 months, and 3 days, making it the longest running poker game in history. Buy-in was $1,000 and over the course of the game an estimated $10 million changed hands, with 10 percent going directly to the Bird Cage. Many of the old west’s most notable characters appeared around the table at one time or another.
Big Nose Kate's Saloon
'Nuff said!
Tombstone Courthouse
Gallows at courthouse
Photo of the lynching
Longhorn Restaurant - great steaks!
Leaving Tombstone, we rode a short distance to Bisbee for breakfast, site of a large open-cast copper mine, a very very big hole in the ground! When the mine closed, the town died, but a business man bought the whole ghost town and much of it is now a museum of old cars and motorcycles among other things. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast there.
Riding from Bisbee soon took us to the vast uninhabited plains of New Mexico. First stop was Geronimo's Memorial. It is said that he invented guerrilla warfare, frequently disrupting the army, being captured and escaping and, I think, was the only and respected Indian Chief to survive into old age.
Red Group at Geronimo's Memorial
What few buildings there are became more Mexican in style, including some mud built homes. There was a lot of scrub and hardly any clusters of habitation and most just hamlets. We enjoyed lunch in Irma's Cantina, real Mexican, in the slightly bigger town of Columbus, about 3 miles from the border. There were many US Border Control vehicles in evidence as we passed close to the Mexican border, with technology very visible looking, listening and sensing for intruders. After a fine ride in the scrubby lands of New Mexico, we sneaked into the westernmost corner of Texas at El Paso, a city divided between the US and Mexico by the Rio Grande.
Before leaving El Paso, we called into the World's Largest Harley Davidson dealership. It truly was - 600 bikes in stock in enormous premises! I couldn't help but buy a T-shirt, just a token of what they had on offer.
Then it was across the plains of west Texas, rather less scrubby than New Mexico, to climb into the Davis Hills on some good riding roads. A rest stop was taken at MacDonald Observatory high in the hills, started by Mr MacDonald, an eccentric who denied his family any inheritance on his death, which they disputed for years but lost, so the Observatory was built from his estate. Then, it was a late lunch in the small town of Fort Davis in a delightful local multi-functional diner/post office/hotel etc, where it was full of locals, all very friendly and the food was good. Our next overnight stop was in the small town of Alpine on the edge of the Big Bend National Park and quite isolated in west Texas.
Fort Davis Drug Store & Hotel
Once again, blue skies and sunshine accompanied our departure from Alpine and we had a great stop at the Pecos River.
But, slowly the sky became overcast and rain threatened, so we donned wet gear for the first time. It was a false alarm, but it had become very humid and hot in that gear in the meantime, signalling a storm front nearby. It was a ride on Highway 90 all the way via a lunch stop in little town of Del Rio, very near the border once more, and we did have a US Border Control passport check shortly after leaving there, but all very friendly. They mentioned that the Green Group, who were first off that morning, had been through just before us and given the same check. We passed many harvested cotton fields with the huge bales awaiting removal. Arrival in San Antonio brought the sun back, but the rising humidity promised that more rain was due. Meantime, dinner on the famous Riverwalk was very pleasant indeed.
I hopped on the On/Off bus tour but found it a bit disappointing, mainly because the places of interest took rather second place to the building work going on around them, but it did give some insight into history here and there. The Alamo, just paces from our Crockett Hotel, is itself rather small, a previous Mission, but has huge importance to the history of Texas' breakaway from Mexico of course and the famous 1836 battle that took place there with the deaths of William Travis, Davy Crockett, James Bowie and many others, in the run up to Texas becoming a US State in 1848. I was intrigued by the number of Irish, English, Scottish, even one Welsh, names in the list of Heroes inside. Texas' revolution, its declaration as a Republic from Mexico, secession to join the Confederation, the discovery of oil that still makes it the largest producer of the States, all give it its character of the Lone Star State that I remember so well from living in Dallas.
The Crockett Hotel near The Alamo
Vietnam Memorial
Buckhorn Saloon
Houses bought for US$1
but with an undertaking to refurbish, very nice!
San Antonio Riverwalk
Battery powered scooters, hired by mobile phone
and tracked by GPS are everywhere
The Alamo
San Antonio's Riverwalk, a development of paths, shops and restaurants is now even better than last I saw it and a very pleasant place to spend time. Alongside in a connected shopping mall, I saw an IMax film about the Alamo as well as visiting a Battle of Texas Museum with many original artefacts that included a selection of the famous Bowie knives from the turbulent times, all it of very well presented.
What a difference a day made! We left San Antonio in pouring rain, a noticeable drop in temperature and fully kitted up. The rain did lessen some as the journey went on, but high winds began to play a part the closer we got to the coast. True, the deserts of Texas and before were left behind, replaced by greener pastures albeit with oil fields and gathering stations on occasions. The ditches and creeks were full of rainwater, often just below adjacent properties, and the water occasionally overflowed onto the road. We went over high bridges at Freeport and onto the spit of land that leads to Galveston some 40 miles further, passing houses built on stilts because of flood or storm surge risk. They didn't look particularly pretty, but we were too busy coping with the wind and surface water to stop and take pictures. The Gulf of Mexico looked rather dark and angry and seemed higher than the road at times on the other side of what looked like an inadequate earthen storm surge barrier. Emergency route evacuation signage indicated what happens when there is a threat. The last section would have been particularly scenic had it not been for the weather. It was more a day of achievement than enjoyment and everyone welcomed a warm room and hot shower at the end of it.
Galveston
Slightly brighter in the morning
Next morning, the rain had ceased, but the cold wind persisted as we left Galveston. A ferry took us across Galveston Bay, thronging with pelicans and throwing up a bit of spray, to the Bolivar Peninsular. Passing a variety of oil installations, nodding donkeys, water-filled bayous and creeks and over some quite high bridges, we entered Louisiana and took another ferry. The properties beside the road were a mixture of holidays homes on stilts and also rather run down places of mostly wooden structures, rather badly maintained, with lots of seemingly abandoned stuff around them.
In T-Boys cafe, where we stopped for lunch, there were many guys dressed in camo, perhaps hunters just returned from their outing, but some others were seen carrying pistols on their belts in the townships, all a bit sinister. 'Good ole boy' country? We began to pass increasing numbers of vast sugar cane fields that had not been harvested, and some that had and been cleared. Our stop at a motel on the Levee Road of a bayou in the tiny town of Henderson was right next door to a great Cajun restaurant that was clearly popular that Saturday night. People along the way had asked why were stopping at Henderson as 'there's nothing there'! 'Son of a gun' and all that stuff to give great memories of Louisiana!
Waiting for the ferry
On the ferry
Welcome, dry but cold
T-Boys Cafe
Pat's Edgewater Inn and Restaurant, Henderson
It was great ride from Henderson to New Orleans, taking us via levee roads alongside bayous, winding through richer and poorer towns, including the smart town of Franklin made famous in the Easy Rider movie, past massive sugar cane fields in the midst of harvest with the strong aroma coming from the large processing plants to which the cane was being taken. The road was muddy and slow at times because of this, but the experience was terrific as we looped south towards the Gulf and crossed the mighty Mississippi delta. The richer towns had grand looking houses in large plots of the manicured 'yards', but the poorer ones were the opposite, shabby and in need of care. We crossed the tributaries several times over high bridges, but the best was last as we crossed the main part of this great river on entry to New Orleans over a very high bridge.
Lunch stop at Spahr's Seafood Restaurant
Des Allemand, LA
Air boats passed by
The weather had started cold but dry, but it warmed some as we got closer to New Orleans and the rain stayed away. Because the forecast for our day out of the saddle was not so great, I took the opportunity from the shorter ride and earlier arrival to wander up to the famous Bourbon Street and down to the French Market on the banks of the River to get a few photographs while the sun shone.
Le Richelieu Hotel
in the heart of the French Quarter
Lovely verandahs
Voodoo features
The Handgrenade
Strongest drink in New Orleans
(I didn't try one)
Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop Bar
Believed to be the oldest structure
used in the USA for a bar
Dates from c1791
Evidence of New Orleans history
Bridge over the Mississippi
Riverboat Natchez
The forecast was right but wet, so we played it as the weather allowed. First was a very pleasant stop at a jazz venue on Bourbon Street with a live band at 10 am, for coffee and French doughnuts - beignets.
Early morning jazz
Beignets
Why?
The levee, not very high
and the houses behind at river level?
Steve & Jocelyn
Damp!
Damp!
The departure from New Orleans should have taken us over the 23 mile Lake Pontchartrain bridge/causeway, the 'bridge with no end', but it was closed to motorcycles because of high winds and was a big disappointment. Heavy rain accompanied this, so it was again a testing ride along the Gulf via Biloxi, with its many miles of white sands and not a soul to be seen on them! Lunch was taken at a curious place called The Shed, a shambles with character. Had it not been for the rain dripping through the roof and the cold, it could have been a better experience as it claims to be a World (read National) Champion BBQ contest winner - no non-US providers are invited I suspect!
Breakfast stop after leaving New Orleans - very good!
The Shed
Arrival in Mobile, after riding out of Louisiana, through Mississippi and into Sweet Home Alabama, was a welcome relief from the wet and the cold, around freezing with wind chill. Not a big pictures day!
Another day rather like yesterday! The rain was falling heavily and the wind was lively as we left Mobile, but we stuck to our coastal route via Pensacola and the Gulf. Once again, no people were on the miles of white sands, the temperature was just above freezing for the first part of the journey. It did get warmer as we passed into Florida, the Sunshine State, hah! The rain returned as we passed through the area to the west of Tallahassee that had been devastated by Hurricane Michael just a short time before. Many miles of trees had been snapped like twigs, rooves had been torn off houses, some of the metal sheeting from which was wrapped around the trees, and many were destroyed altogether. Many still had temporary plastic sheeting and piles of household items were seen at the roadside awaiting clearance. The power of these things was blatantly obvious. The rain intensified as we got close to Tallahassee and it was far from a pleasant experience riding in the failing light and spray, another achievement for everyone to get there safely, perhaps even one of survival.
Sunshine State, Hah!
Hurricane damage to a church in Blountstown,
during a rest stop to the west of Tallahassee
The temperature rose a bit and the rain abated as we journeyed to a pleasant lunch stop on the river at Astor, on the edge of the Ocala National Forest.
Lunch stop en route
at Astor on the River St Johns
Celebrations on arrival
at Daytona Beach
Off to the beach
Our Streamline Hotel is the birthplace of Nascar racing and it is filled with history, pictures and accounts of its start there.
The sun came out, the temperature rose and the The Sunshine State finally delivered. Gunther and I went with our guide Simon to the Daytona World Speedway, a tri-oval banked racetrack that is home to the Daytona 500 Nascar race among many others. It is a vast complex that has developed over the years and we had a great tour and were able to see and hear the roar of cars driving around the track as well as see the car that won the 2018 race in the condition it finished, covered in dirt, confetti and dents from contact with others during the race. It remains on show until 3 days before next year's race and the tracks holds some 250 days of racing of one sort or another during the year, including the renowned Daytona Bike Week.
Start/Finish Line extends to the outside
2018 Daytona 500 Winner
And, even a Harley to top it off!
Lastly, it was a relatively short ride to Orlando where we returned our hire bikes and celebrated our achievement again with some sadness that our adventure to ride across America was at an end.
Adulting?
Our bikes lined up ready for check-in
Our group had a farewell dinner together to cap off the bonds and friendships established by our riding experience together . The testing riding and bad weather will quickly be forgotten and the good times will prevail as they always do.
It seemed ages since we had left Los Angeles with Simon and Dan sharing the lead riding up front or driving the support van at the back, but it had been only 17 days that included three non-riding days. Perhaps that defines a good adventure when it seems to have taken much longer than it did.
Another one ticked off the Bucket List - Ride a Harley Coast to Coast USA - awesome!
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