California or Bust

(April 24 - May 5, 2004)





Daily Log

Date April 24 (Sat) April 25 (Sun) April 26 (Mon) April 27 (Tues) April 28 (Wed) April 29 (Thrs) April 30 (Fri) May 1 (Sat) May 2 (Sun) May 3 (Mon) May 4 (Tues) May 5 (Wed) 12 Days Total

Miles 675.4 720.3 500.1 342.4 442.4 397.2 316.3 481.4 726.7 643.2 0.0 373.0 Total: 5,618.4

Destination Monroe, LA Carlsbad, NM Truth of Consequences, NM Farmington, NM Cameron, AZ Las Vegas, NV Needles, CA Gallup, NM Shawnee, OK Nashville, TN Nashville, TN Easley, SC 16 States Traveled

It was still raining when I entered Texas on the second day of the trip.


The Harley parked next to one of the first oil pumps that I saw on this trip.


You can barely make out the windmills in the distance on the top of the mountain ridge.


The entrance to the Carlsbad Caverns.


The nice, twisty road to the Caverns.


Formations in the Carlsbad Caverns.


Formations in the Carlsbad Caverns.


The road leading to the Guadalupe Mountains.


Mt Guadalupe


The desert behind Mt Guadalupe


The welcome sign as I was going into Mexico


Some of the views and experienced as I went through the desolate countryside as I left the Gilah Cliff Dwellings


An abandoned cabin on the side of the road on my way to Farmington, NM




The entrance to the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings


The old housing network on the top of the mountain ridge on the way to the Mesa Verde


The Mesa Verde Cliff Dwellings from a distance


Here I am actually standing within the cliff dwellings


The picture of me going into Colorado and the road sign showing that this was also old Highway 666


This is where I nearly dropped the bike in the deep gravel that was on the side of the road


Just a nice picture of the layers and reds


An idea of the difference in elevations......and the first hints I got of the sand storm I'd be riding into


This is the picture that I have hanging in my Bike Room


The sand was so bad at times, that when riding down the road, I was lucky to be able to see 30 yards in front of me


A picture of other people at the South Rim


A nice shot of the Grand Canyon showing the depth. It was nearly 5000 feed down to the river below


I got a nice couple to take this picture of me at the railing


At the entrance sign to Seligman, AZ


Landscape before reaching the Hoover Dam


Parked at the Hoover Dam sign


A nice picture of the Hoover Dam


A picture of Lake Meade


The Welcome sign to California off of I-15


Some of the cars I saw at the car show/get-together in Seligman


The sign in the building at the Meteor Crater


Here I am with the meteor crater in the background


This photo shows the crater's rim from a couple miles from the site


Cruisin' over to the Petrified Forest


One of the examples of a petrified tree on the side of the road


A section of the Painted Desert


My bike striking a pose with the Painted Desert behind it


The park has many examples of early petroglyphs


More examples of petroglyphs


The remains of one of the ancient settlements


A photo of some of the landscapes in the Petrified Forest


A valley with the petrified logs showing them sticking out from the sides of the hills and how they roll to the bottom


A nice example of a petrified log on a museum walking path


A highly polished petrified log that shows the brilliant colors


Taking a break at the Oklahoma welcome sign


Vicki at the Belle Meade Plantation (note the bullet holes from the Civil War)


Some of the old, horse-drawn buggies


Back home with some dirt smuggled back from the West


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