Grand Canyon to Gallup, New Mexico

When I last posted I was going to sleep on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. If I were there now I wouldn't be because they've evacuated the North Rim due to forest fires. Although, my trip was not without the firey run-ins. I knew I had a long day of driving when I left the park Friday morning, so I got an early start to the day only to be met with the scene above. When leaving the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, you travel about 50 miles and there is a gas station and a restaurant/motel and you can either go north to Utah (the road I came in on) or go east and eventually get to the road that goes north-south up/down the middle of Arizona. The road going east is the one I wanted to take and about 5 miles down the road I took the picture above. They said they were holding cars for an "indefinite time" and that the road could be open in a couple hours or many hours. I decided it would be a good time to try out the restaurant 5 miles back on the road and had some breakfast (it was so-so). When I went back down the road it had been shut down for the day, leaving me with few options. Apparently, the fire itself was not that big, and it had no where to go so they weren't "fighting" it, but "monitoring" it, but the problem was that it was burning right next to the road, so they couldn't let any cars through. Not wanting to sit in the woods for a day, I felt I had few options but to go the long way around, adding about 100 or 150 miles to my trip for the day.

One of the first things I encountered on the road back to Utah was a police car in the exact same place that it had been the day before when I rode in. The police car was sitting on the shoulder of the highway, just like it might be if you were fixin' to give drivers speeding tickets. After careful examination, I confirmed that there was not a living police officer in the car but a mannequin with a police baseball hat on. I took a picture but you can't see the fake cop very well. I would have gotten a better shot but I kind of felt like I was blowing their cover by stopping to take the picture.



Then it was back through Utah and the silver lining of the forest fire detour was that I drove passed Lake Powell and since it was 1pm and probably something like 90 or 100 degrees I decided to stop and take a dip. You can see the cove in which I swam here.

From there I went south but didn't go far enough south to catch the interstate, I instead took the 2 lane highway the rest of the way for the day across Arizona and into New Mexico. In fact, since I got off the freeway going from Las Vegas to Zion National Park, I have only been on real interstate freeways for about 20 miles - 10 in New Mexico and 10 here in Texas. Something I've learned, and I suspect this is more true in the west, freeways don't save me much time. I can go about as fast on back highways as on freeways (70-75 mph), the fact that I'm on a freeway doesn't make me any more comfortable going 80 than if I'm on a back road - the fact is that isn't a very comfortable speed for a 600 CC Honda Shadow. And if I'm on the back roads I pretty much have them to myself where as if I'm on the freeway I'm usually getting passed quite often and battling HUGE trucks for the right lane. Not to mention I see a lot fewer McDonald's and billboards on the secondary roads.

So I took a back highway across Arizona into New Mexico and loved it. The only other issue is that I have to stop for gas every 100 miles or so, I can usually make it 150 if I need to, but I don't like to push it. So I have to make sure the towns are close enough and make sure that, based on my lifetime of reading AAA maps, I am reasonably certain there will be a gas station there for me. On this Arizona leg, I too the extraordinary step of asking at the previous gas station if I would be able to get gas if I went down that highway.

So I pulled into Gallup, New Mexico and called Greg, whose ranch I would be staying at the next night. I confirmed when and where to go the next day and considered pushing on for another 100 miles or so. I even drove down the road about 10 miles but during that 10 miles it got dark and kind of cold and I thought better of it, turned around and got a room at the Hampton Inn Gallup.