Maine Riders

This looks familiar:

http://maine.craigslist.org/mcy/2790600661.html

Ya I seem to remember that bike passing me once or twice.

I don't.

What a friggen deal!

Yes it is! I've passed it on to a few friends at work.

Hey T my son wants to know if you want an 87 v8 s10 in trade

I think someone is telling me to get the ice auger out and forget the f'n sleds this year. :huh

damn.... don't any of you guys miss a day on craigs list?

Not exactly snowmageddon.


.THURSDAY AND THURSDAY NIGHT...SNOW LIKELY. LIGHT SNOW ACCUMULATION POSSIBLE. HIGHS IN THE LOWER 30S. LOWS IN THE LOWER 20S. CHANCE OF SNOW 70 PERCENT. .FRIDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A 50 PERCENT CHANCE OF SNOW. HIGHS IN THE LOWER 30S.


</pre>

Got to have something to do while waiting for my code to compile.

Amazing Dean: those are really beautiful places!

You should find out if the S10 will do wheelie's.

Hey, I don't recall you passing me either.

Keep your eyes peeled for a DRZ man. We'll take those to Baja.

Turns out I'm gonna be in Window Rock AZ in June (about halfway between Albuquerque and Flagstaff just north of 40)...any of this beautiful riding in that neck of the woods??

someone down the road from me has a nice iceboat on the racks of his truck....bet that would fill in for a need for speed...

based on comments ..

ADV dinner at Uno's/Bangor next Monday, 1/16 6pm

I bet that would be fun. I have watched them on Sebago and they can move out.

in the early days of GNBMWR there was a rider from Camden who was right into ice boats and wrote some books about the subject...maybe I''ll get around to buildling one some day, buy a sunfish sailboat of someone's yard and use the sail rigging....

Sounds great! Don't forget to bring your sun glasses and your sand skills.

Thanks, I'll get in touch with you in a week or so when I get back so we can do some riding.

I'm down at the Mexican border - don't know as much about that area, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't some great riding up there. Start doing your homework. I spent dozens of hours researching the riding around here before I came out and it was time well spent.

Monday was another riding day. Something a little different than the previous rides. The AZ landscape is very diverse.
I met up with a local ADV inmate who's very familiar with the area South of the Huachuca Mountains along the Mexican border and we rode some great areas. Very different than the canyons and mountain passes I rode the other day, but just as interesting.

We started out on Montezuma Canyon Rd which soon turned to dirt and climbed quickly thru a series of winding switchbacks to Montezuma Pass at an elevation of about 6500 ft.


The other side of Montezuma Pass overlooks the US/Mex border - can't really make it out from here, but It's out there. Most of what you see in this pic is actually Mexico.

I didn't get a pic of it (I'm sure they got one of us), but there was a big Border Patrol truck parked at the top of the pass with a very large camera setup in the back. I was told there's an unbelievable amount of smuggling (human and drugs) taking place in this area daily. Half the people I talked to out here think it's too dangerous to even go into this area and the other half didn't seem too worried about it. The guy I was with was very knowledgeable about the area and seemed confident we were safe where we were riding. I probably wouldn't have gone down so close to the border in such a remote area without him.

Once we descended the other side of the pass into the valley we turned South onto border patrol roads and were soon riding "International Rd", which technically is not a road - it runs along the border for miles and was created for use by the Border Patrol. Along with fences and cameras, they have motion sensors to detect movement in the area. They also drag the road regularly to erase all tracks so they can detect any new footprints. Interesting stuff. Here's a few shots of the border fence.





The crossed steel barrier section of the fence is actually made of cut up railroad rails - pretty rugged. Behind that is a barbed wire fence.

We traveled along the border for quite a few miles and eventually came to Lochiel, a ghost town right on the border.



Across the fence from Lochiel was what appeared to be Mexican ranch land.


Just up the road was a monument to the first European to set foot West of the Rockies in 1539.


A little further down the road was Harshaw, another ghost town with little remaining.




We never knew what we'd see around the next curve. A lot of the area is open range.


The next stop was Patagonia an interesting little town with a population of about 900. When we first rode into town I noticed a tiny little building with a sign that said "Marshall's Office." I thought it was just another historic site, but it was actually the Marshall's office. Sorry, no pic of that, but this place had good eats.


We had a good lunch then hit the road again around 2:00 pm. We headed up 82 toward Sonoita and back to Sierra Vista where we started. A ways past Sonoita Brian stopped at a powerline road and said he and his riding buddies had been trying to find a way into it from the other end in Huachuca City and asked if I was up for a little exploring - sure, what the heck. So we headed up the powerlnes.


After numerous cowboy gate crossings and some fun riding for a while, it looked like we might actually make it thru to an outlet. Then we came to this . . .

. . . note the padlocks.

We knew we were near the end (at least within a few miles) and noticed another little side track so we decided to take a chance on that one. We followed it for what seemed like a couple miles and we could see it was headed right out to the main road - we could see the cars going by - looks like we're going to make it out of here without backtracking.
Well, we made it to about 30' from the road when we hit another locked gate. All we could do was sit there and watch the cars go by.

Oh well, we had a fun time exploring anyway. Backtracked out to 82 and headed for home. Made it back just as the sun went down behind the mountains, again.