TWT Pie Run, Conroe

BMW Club ride to Nacogdoches

On club rides, regardless of interesting or scenic discoveries on the route, we seldom stop to take photos. We are motorcycle fanatics, after all. Thus my photos usually feature lunch, the only opportunity to use my camera. 

Today was over 400 miles for me, in early summer heat. Now back home, replacing electrolytes with a sequence of bloody maries.

Bay's Chapel ride

Jerry Matson at Stubblefield Lake

Burger Fresh in Magnolia

Black Canyon and home

We continued on back through the Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Ouray, Million Dollar Highway, and Santa Fe

Black Canyon

Ouray

Tomasita's, Santa Fe

Rendezvous with Demetre

Speaking of the Devil ...

Cafe Diablo, Torrey Utah

And this is just the lunch menu

"Cazuela : a layered baked dish of black beans, cilantro pesto, cotija cheese, corn & olive tapenade, with warm bread"

Zion & Bryce

After leaving Grand Canyon we visited Zion & Bryce canyons. Words fail, and so do these photos. They are here only as a matter of public record.

Dos Amigos

I had to showcase this photo by itself. It was taken by one of our muleteers, and it came out so fortuitously well.

The Grand Canyon is ... well ... Grand

First view of the Grand Canyon

Egads! It's Badass Bettie and the Mule Rider Gang!

At Phantom Ranch

Postcard "delivered by mule"

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Into the Vortex

A few days in Sedona. Santa Fe is for museums, history, overpriced art, and divine green chiles. Probably a sweat lodge or two, but no vortexes. Sedona is New Age Central.

Bettie overlooking Sedona from our hotel. Look closely and you can see the aura emerging above her head. The hotel is located near one of the vortexes. — at Sedona Sunset Overlook.

Sedona crystal power

This is an authentic Kirlian photo of our joint auras (we opted for the cheaper couple's rate). Our faces are vaguely discernible just below the centerline.

The detaled report by our consulting Aura-ologist. How could she have known that I'm curious and Bettie is creative? I'm certainly impressed. And for only $60 you too can gain similarly deep insights from http://www.aurasbyjamie.com/. And she's on Facebook too!

"A lot has been happening in the last few days since we left Tucson, so I'm backing up to Sedona to catch up. Sedona is Ground Zero of the New Age (or should that be the Old Age, it is soooo twentieth century). But where else can you have your aura read, go off-roading in jeeps and ATVs, and pig out on cactus fries and flax-seed crust pizza?"

The 'Pink Jeep' tour took us to spectacular off-road scenery, as well as scaring the cactus fries out of us. But you'll have to wait for the video.

Friends at dinner

Last morning in Sedona rented ATVs. We've never been on one before. Self-guided circuit through death defying defiles, over bone shaking boulder fields, and up/down steep hills. And that was the beginner's trail. Was it fun? Yes. Verdict? We miss our bikes.

Tombstone

View from hotel, Tombstone.

Hotel signage. Apparently the rules are strictly enforced.

If only half the stuff they tell about this place is true, it is still unbelievable

A few years ago in Santa fe we saw a fascinating museum exhibit on the surprising parts played by Jewish pioneers and cowboys. Not much mention of them in tombstone but there is a modern monument here in Boot Hill.

Tombstone Public Transport

This particular office carried its own term limits, evident from the grave markers on Boot Hill 

A coroner's report on an outlaw dead by hanging.

A reconstruction of Tombstone's system for rehabilitating outlaws. The recitivism rate was near zero.

OK, we admit it. We went to the show. Corny, hokey, dubious authenticity, sure. So you want to make something of it? You know where to find us. — at O.K. Corral.

Interior of the Birdcage Theater. The name derives from the private boxes in the upper story, where the ladies entertained their gentleman clients.

The original Faro table of Doc Holiday. — at Birdcage Theater

Black Mariah, for that last one-way ride to Boot Hill

Cactus with an attitude

"Bettie & cousin Jan. taken at the historic Hacienda Hotel in Tucson. Hotel of the golden age Hollywood stars while shooting movies in Arizona."