RUN FOR THE WALL Jean and Larry: May 11,2018

We had yet another great day of riding. No rain but a little bit of wind (that is an understatement)

Started out the day, we have another member to join our group, Rick.

Since the temps were looking to be in the upper 90s, all agreed to leave at 6 AM. UGH!!!

It was a beautiful sunrise!!!

Still a little dark to get good pics but thought I would share a few.

Here comes the sun!!! Still a little over cast

Yesterday and today are part of the first 2 days of the Run. Ken and Jenny are very good friends with Jackie McKinney, the mayor of Gallup. So since this is on our way, we road 1.5 hours and had breakfast with him in Gallup, NM.

We left the hotel with the temperature at 62. Ok, we did this the day before and as we rode it got warmer. Well not today. We did not take into consideration that we will going to 7200 feet in elevation. Temps went down to 53. Brrrrr. It came back up to low 60s by the time we go to Gallup as we went down in elevation.

Jackie visits Earl's restaurant just about every day for breakfast. So when he heard the bikes , he came out before we were all in the parking lot. Here he is greeting Jenny

Jackie and several of his friends are regulars. They have their own table and own seats. They at one point had a sign made that said "Old Geezers". Today there were 4 there: Charlie, Cookie, Frank and Kerry. Larry and I had a great time talking with them. Sadie is waitress in the picture and waits on them every day she is in.

Jackie had to leave early to do his mayor duties. As he left, he gave all a hug and said he will see us next week. Charlie said " We have know him for 30 years and he never gave us a hug". Then Cookies said "Probably because we never voted for him." hahaha

After breakfast, we all added a layer. Heading thru Flagstaff it goes back up in elevation. You can see Rick is a little layered.

For those that followed my blogs before, you will know that I love to show pics of this beautiful country. They do not even come close but up you will appreciate the beauty we have here.

Loved the welcome sign for Arizona.

At one of the stops , Rick and Catfish park right next to each other. Same color bikes and the smattering of the bugs was about the same.

As we continue, the wind most of the day was very strong. Here is how we looked at times.

This is Dave on a straight road and bike leaning just to stay on it. We all had some sore necks by the end of the day. At one point I held on to my helmet shield so my head would not bounce around. When we got to the next gas stop, I looked at Brian and he said the wind took his sun glass right off.

One thing that is pretty cool is seeing a train, the whole train at one time. As many years as we make this run, it is still pretty cool to see a 80,90,100 car train all at once. Here are a few pics. Sorry kind of hard to see. You can open to a full screen to see them better (click once on the pic).

As we head into Williams, then terrain is a little different and we get a little relief from the wind. There are pine trees everywhere. And the smell is so refreshing. (not like the cattle truck)

Leave there and back to flat land, and more wind!!! Heading into Kingman. These little cuts in the hills provided some relief for a few seconds from the wind. I looked forward to them and so did my neck.

Visibility was not the greatest today so hopefully and the way back we can get a few better pics.
Here are 2 pics of the dust kicked up.

During this day, we had people drop from the group as they were going to do a little site seeing before heading into Ontario, CA. Some to Grand Canyon, Hoover Dam, or Teepees in Holbrook. Safe travels to everyone, see you in Ontario. Thanks for the pics they took of Larry and me as we were leaving.