"You must be nuts to want to do that"

You know, sometimes I have mixed feelings riding down here in the desert.  Much of the time, even though I am on "public roadways" I may see no one all day.  Take yesterday for example.  I found an interesting loop road SW of the city searching for interesting roads via google earth.  I am partial to mountains, lakes, dams, canyons and anything containing water.  There is a petroglyph site and small lake/reservoir known as Painted Rock.  

To get there you have to be on pavement most of the way, but once in the hood, it's about 60-70 miles of varying (easy to very rough) gravel roads.  I saw some bush campers but only passed 4 bikes coming in the other direction (1 woman) all younger riders on big dualies.  They had trucked out and were only a mile into their ride.  Even google maps are unreliable so not sure GPS would help here, but maybe I will try it next year.  I'd need a power source and of course the tiny battery in the bike is near dead all the time.  Hence the kick starter... 






I learned long ago that simpler is better.  I specifically targeted an air cooled, kick start bike when I was shopping down here several years ago.  How many of those do you think have been built over the last twenty years... not many. 

 



My choices were the old style KLR 250, but it was liquid cooled and pretty rare.  Then there were early DR 350's and of course the XT I bought.  All scarce as hen's teeth.
 
Riding with someone else poses it's own problems, but of course the big thing if you have company is the "murphy" rule.  Which btw, works both ways.  The 'what if' factor always lurks in the back of my mind.  



 Yesterday's ride was pretty warm, hi 80's low 90's, but as long as you can find some shade and drink lots of water, bearable once moving.  

I eventually, close to civilization (?) came across a lone p/u coming from a side road, and he helped me out by at least pointing out to me that the gas station in Hyder would be closed by the time I got there.  


That meant a detour of some 20 miles to get to a station at Sentinel that may not be open!.  By that time it was too late to try the route I'd bypassed an hour earlier to get me to the glyph site/lake.  I came at it from the other end, but it was getting dusk by then (around 5pm) and so... I did what dual purpose bikes dread... took the interstate home.  

So near and yet so dark!

While chatting it up with the two geezers at the Sentinel gas station, by the proprietors own words, it's...

 in the "middle of nowhere", they want to know why I am asking about back roads.  He says... "you'd need a dirt bike back there and then you'd be nuts to ride it!"

Fair enough... I've been called worse.

Now as you guys know... these dual purpose bikes are not Wings and let me say it was a long drone much of it in the dark with cars flying by at well over the posted 75mph.  My speed was a more sedate 55mph.  The good news, tada... the bike worked fine, engine pulled well, and my fuel mileage was still between 75 and 81 mpg.

By the time I got home at 7 pm, my ass was like a piece of tenderized steak, my eyeballs were strained and my hands were buzzing like a soup can full of bumble bees.