Don't know if you are wintering in Tejas again this winter, but we will be staying at the three palms in Presidio on Saturday night, entering Mexico on Sunday. We will stay in Chihuahua City on Sunday night, and will watch the Stupidbowl there I'm sure. Then for me it's on to Creel and Batopilas for a few days waiting for my father's group to catch up. If you are up for going with again this year, we'd love to see you.
In case you get this too late, my father and his group are staying with Voni and Paul just outside Terlingua this year. He is staying for the motorcycle show and leaving on Sunday. I believe he's staying at their house on Monday night. Post on here if you want to ride in with him. He's heading straight to Batopilas from there to meet me and my group.
-------------- Forwarded Message: --------------
From: Charlie
To: Lissa
Subject: Re: Keys
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 01:20:50 +0000
Bills bike quit half way to Batopilas, Rectifier failure.
We think we will be able to go ahead with the fix, but we won´t get there until
tomorrow.
We are trying to contact John now to tell him.
There is a line waiting to use this computer (free) so more later.
While I don't know who any of these people are, these are the exact same roads and places we go. On smaller, easier to handle bikes. These guys are real men!
All looks go for my departure on Friday. If TS doesn't mind, I'll post another running ride report here for those interested. If I can find my digital camera, there may be photos from the road. Internet access may be a bit dicey this time, as we are going to more remote areas, for longer times. But I'll do my best.
We had a nice drive down to Kansas City where we stayed at Richard´´s house. Richard is <marty mataya´s brother. on sat five us us got into Richard{s expidition and had a great drive down. he{s got a dvd player in it, and we watched and listened to the blues brothers movie.
Got into presidio about midnight saturday night, and sat around the pool. it was bout 60 degrees poolside. in the morning we crossed the border and made it to Chihuahua. the plan is to go to <nonoava for mon night, then to creel, then to batopilas to wait for my dad{s group that is coming down later. <i don{t have a phone card yet so <i{m hoping dad reads this. (dad, it looks like most are good with you staying two nights in Bato, then starting the loop to the sinferosa canyon)
<pretty quiet here in the city since it{s sunday night. not many stores open. it was bout 70 degrees today and a great ride over from texas. half pavement and half dirt to nonoava tomorrow.
<not sure if anyone took pictures watching the stupidbowl or not. We watched it at the hotel with the mural. <mexicans are big giants fans, so the game ended well for them.
The next morning we got out of chihuahua early (for us) and headed to Nonoava by the same route as last year. Some of you may remember photos from last years ride report of the missing bridge. Well, they have it rebuilt. As we crossed the new bridge there was a large grader working the area to one side, and it rolled over. by the time I rode over there the driver was climbing out. he was okay, and had been working alone. the rest of the crew was a ways up the road so i gave him a ride up to give his boss the bad news. i´m guessing my day ended better than his.
in the next town craig lost the battery on his DR, so we stopped and supervized while he pulled it apart. <he found a broken wire that was repaired and all was working well again.
we struck off into the dirt following the old road near the construction zone and soon enough came to a big pile or rocks blocking the road. seems the new road will supercede the old one. back around and throught he construction zone and then back to the old road again. there are survey markers all along this fairly rough section of dirt road, and soon it will be no more..
a few more adventures of people losing saddle bags and doing roadside repairs and load shifting still got us into nonoava pretty early. We checked into the motel. They told us about another group of motorcycles that stayed there in december, and <i told them that was my father´s grou`p. the motel was nice, and they fed us like kings. the owners didn´t speak any english, so they called up the local judge who lived close and invited him over. he ended up staying and eating with us, and staying late to help us dump out the approximatly two cases of beer we bought, one drink at a time.
<it was very windy all day, but warm. the wind died down after dark so we sat outside for some time till the last of the beer was gone.
We got up and had breakfast at the motel, and as usual it was fabulous. Andrew had bought last nights supper for the group, and Richard bought breakfast for everyone. <i like traveling with rich lawyers! then we took off for creel, the hard way through norogachic. the road was Much better than last year and we covered that section in three hours at an easy pace. snacks in norogachic and then on to creel in another three hours. it was getting colder, and there was snow in the shadows. it wasn´t cold riding, but <i´`m sure it will be cold in the morning.
Got into creel and checked into hotel los valles, and the owner manuel remembered my name. not sure if that´s a good thing or not. bought a phone card and am hoping to use it tonight to call my family. it doesn´t have english instructions so i´m going to have mrs manuel explain it to me. her english is very good.
in the morning we are leaving for batopilas where it will be warm. we will stay there for three days, then do a loop through the sinferosa canyone to morelos, baborigame, and guachochic. i´m hoping one of those places has internet or phone, otherwise it will be next tuesday before i get back to civilization to post again, or to call home.
Hey All - There is connectivity in Bato - two years ago it was non-existant, last year it was slow. This year? who knows - maybe they'll have phase 3 elec and a T1 line. ;^)
Make sure to tell all the newbies to have their cameras ready for tomorrow's spectacular vistas! And John, please try to get a video of the ride down. I was disappointed to not get a copy of last year's...
<lissa- my computer with those vidoes died this spring and i thought they were lost. when i dug out my ¨"mexico" digital camera, they were still on the disk. the first time i tried to get them off it didn´t work, but there is hope.
kevin- creel does something funny to el burro rojos. andrew has a bike just like yours, and this morning he had a starter button problem. i believe it is fixed now.
we met some US college students in the bar last night who had just come up from bato yesterday. two nights ago there was a gun battle two blocks off the main square in bato. the federales were fighting with someone in a house there. they had pictures of .223 shells all over the street, and even showed us one they took. they also had pictures of a private residence with bullet holes all over it. i´ll try to get some pics myself. apparently there were two US families in RVs that the cops were using as cover, and they were not too happy about it. on the way out of the canyon the students were stopped by a caravan of federales going down. i thought it i had it bad when backup is a half hour away, but down here backup comes the next day! Hopefully.
anyway, we aren´´t too concerned as we expect the whole town will be thick with federales by the time we get there.
Good thing Bill is traveling with an electrical engineer!
Charlie, didn't you tell him how many spare electrical parts to bring?
Since we discovered last year that you can't ship used electrical parts across the boarder, Charlie must have a whole new bag just for spare DR350 electrical parts!
Typing this from Bato on a very slow internet connection. Thank you to teamstrange web gurus for making a page that loads quickly under these conditions.
We had a great ride in from Creel. There is still snow in the hills there, but the road was melted off. They are doing construction on the top part of the road down into bato. at the turnoff we met a couple with their adult son from wisconsin who are driving a mercedes car down to bato. he told us he has six inches of clearance, and the oil pan is magnesium and he was very concerned about making it. to calm his nerves he took a <HUGE swig off a bottle of yukon jack in the trunk. he left before we did as we were waiting for richard and brian at the turnoff.
once we got on down the trail we passed them pretty quick as they weren{t making much progress. after a few miles i decided i didn{t think the mercedes would make it, but if it did, the whiskey sure wouldn{t. we talked to them the next day and they said they got in after dark. it took them 8 hours to our three. i had breakfast with them this morning, interesting folks. they had lived in bato for 6 weeks 20 years ago when there was only four pickups and one car in town. the car was the police chief´s, a gremlin, and wasn´t running. he fixed it for him and got it running, only to learn the chief couldn{t drive a stick.
saw the evidence of the shootout, and the town is lousy with federales. the first night we were here people were pretty much staying inside, but last night it was back to normal with everyone walking around. we are getting lots of scuttlebutt on what happened, which i won{t print here cause its all rumor. for sure an isolated incident and apparently the police got their man. talked to the folks in the campers that were in the middle of it. Tom is the guy on ADV rider who is staying here for month or so with is wife and baby. they said the shooting started at about 1am, and ended at 5am. their camper was between the police and the house they were shooting at. they were in the camper on the floor with the baby the whole time. at the other end of the the scene his parents were in their camper, and the police were using it as concealment and shooting from there. they both thought for sure the other ones were hurt or dead. bullet holes everywhere. apparently nobody got shot other than all the street lights and houses.
last night dad didn{t show up, and we didn{t hear anything. the internet closed at 6pm, so i didn{t get lissa{s message. Arturo called one of the phones in town and had someone come and find me because he was worried he hadn{t heard from him. he is planning on catching up with us in bato tonight. it is nice having him with since he is from chihuahua, and it{s also nice to have a medical doctor along if things go wrong.
This morning everyone but Richard left to go with Marty to El Fuerte. We will catch up with them on the sinferosa loop in a few days. i suspect they will be back tonight, as they have to cross the Rio Urique. talked to the guy that has taken over for justin at rosen{s rides, and they came on a new road that crosses the urique 5 times. they said it was very high, and they had to walk the bikes across with the water above their waists. all the bikes got flooded with water in the oil and they had to drain them all. one ktm was still not running right. once marty and the group gets to the river, if it{s too high they will have to come back here. hopefully all will go well and they can enjoy el fuerte. when we leave with dad´s group we will go another way to Morales, where there is supposed to be a bridge. none of us have ever been to that town, so it will be an adventure.
now that i know dad is okay, richard and i will probably go on a day ride. or sit around and drink beer. or take a nap. i{ll decide later.
oh, and the hotel mary has hot water this year! 10 bucks a night. and all the cheeze puffs we can eat for 8.50. more on that when i can post pictures.
Hey John and all - glad to hear things are going well. I've had computer issues RIGHT from the time of your earlier email until JUST now. I HATE not having connectivity! Did Brian go with Marty too? Please let me know if your dad et al arrived, and or if Marty and the gang came back. I'll be sitting by my trusty computer waiting to hear more.
yup, everyone but richard went to el fuerte. dad and company just showed up in bato, and we are waiting for arturo to arrive. nobody from the river crossing came back so we assume they made it.
we will stay here tomorrow night and then leave, meeting up with the other group in two nights at baborigame if all things go as planned.
it was bill jones´bike that broke. he has a car battery strapped to the rear seat for power, and we will charge it as needed.
if you want to post the link for this thread over at the mn bmw club board, i bet they would be interested in bill´s progress.
we got into creel last night, and are preparing to leave for chihuahua right now. we will spend two days in chihuahua and i plan to spend more time typing then. had a really good time in some areas we hadn´t been before, and a few adventures.
When I left off dad, bill jones, and dean had showed up in Bato. the message from arturo was that he would meet us there that night. for those of you on adv rider you know him as Tury. he is Dr. Arturo Macias, a semi-retired surgeon from chihuahua city. we got word later in the day that he had only made it to the mission hospital at samichique, and had made arrangements to spend the night there.
Town was still full of federales, and the latest scuttlebutt is the mexican secret police were the ones that initiated the action. apparently this is a very powerful group and they have unlimited power. other than that bato was normal. spent a fair amount of time at the riverside bar, and the swinging bridge. Lynn, the lady that sells the jewelry, hadn{t been open. on the way back from supper that night i found her on the square. she opened up for me at about 10 pm so <i could get some items for the ladies in my life. while we were there the police came in and checked on her, and i ordered more beer from them, which was delivered cold to the hotel mary, where dad and company were sitting in the courtyard. Lynn joined us to finish off the beer. the big bag of cheezy poofs is dying a slow death.
The next day we got up and had another fabulous breakfast. haven{t had a bad meal down here yet. Arturo showed up about noon, and we all took a day ride to the urique river. there is a new road from Bato into the urique canyon that goes to the gold mine that is between tubares and piedras verdes. it is an hour and a half from bato to the first river crossing. good road, and spectacular views of the urique, bato, and rodeo areas. the river crossing looked doable, but there are four more just like it before the mine. once you get to the mine, you have to ask permission to pass through, and they send a truck to escort you. this was just a day ride for us so we didn{t cross. headed back up the mountain and found arturo and dad had made freinds with some local ranchers. they showed off their house, radio, and solar power setup. this ranch had been in the Gil family for decades. Arturo made a good contact, as they have a son in chihuahua city. he can now call on the phone, and have the message forwarded via radio to check on river condtions at the urique crossing!
We got back into town and enjoyed a final night in Bato. in the morning i got up and left the rest of the bag of cheezy poofs in the hotel doorway of the folks from oklahoma in the mercedes. Curly had left early to make an attempt at driving out. Barbara and Dennis will have to take the bus, in an effort to cut down on the weight in the car.
Richard, Arturo, dad, Bill, Dean and I took off for Morelos. Everyone else had left for El furete two days earlier.
To get to morelos we would be taking some roads we knew existed, but had never been on. we went down canyon through satevo, up to jesus maria, and farther up to polanco. had another great burrito at the stand in polanco. this location is part of the buena vista loop out of bato and back. from here we struck off south into the lower end of the sinferosa canyon. at the bottom there was a bridge, and the water was very clear. we could see fish swimming in the water, and a family was enjoying their sunday afternoon with a big fish net catching them. we went up and over a range to view the valley morelos is in. the road was pretty good as roads here go. we also found there is a road from the bridge to tubares, which is good if the urique river is too high it can be avoided by taking this somewhat longer route with the bridge.
we pulled into morelos and bought gas. as we did Dad got pretty sick. lucky for us the guy that sold us gas out of a 5 gallon bucket lived across the street from the local clinic. there aren{t hospitals this far out in the canyons, but the government builds small clinics and staffs them with a nurse. Martin was the nurse at this clinic, and he and arturo had met before. we got dad over there where there were good clean vacilities, and a cool hospital type room for him to lay down in. Arturo and martin were very concerned and wanted to start an IV because they thought he was dehydrated and his blood pressure was very low. after I explained that low blood pressure is normal for our family, and dad said he had drank two liters of water so far that day, fears were allayed and he rested some more. it appears something he ate was not agreeing with him.
while dad was resting richard headed down to get us some rooms at the motel Martin gave us directions too. he came back with a report of a not very nice place with a bunch of cowboy types with big fancy trucks with rims hanging around drinking beer and playing loud music. Martin said there was another place, and RIchard checked that out. it was a two story building with another building in the backyard where the communal bathrooms were. For dad I secured a single room on the first floor which was the closest one to the banyo they had.
The rooms were 15 bucks for two beds. we got all checked in, taking up all the rooms. martin was going to give dad a ride from the clinic in his truck, so arturo and i rode double up there to bring dad´s bike back.
As we were returning with the bikes i saw two other bikes on main street. it was craig and al mathwig. they had ridden all the way from el fuerte. the other group had intended to stay in the tablon area for the night, and we would all meet up in baborigame the next day. When they got into tablon and ate, the were told to leave town, and then followed by some guys in big fancy trucks to the edge of the jurisdiction. there are reports of this happening to other riders in that area, but dad had stayed there without problem in december. of course they had arturo with, who can make freinds with anybody.
the other group continued toward baborigame, but when they got the morelos turnoff decided it was too far and would take their chances with morelos. keep in mind none of the other group had traveled on any of these roads, and none of us knew if there really were any facilities in morelos. this is a big deal when you are traveling in this area, as camping out without gear is not fun.
i told craig and al of the hotel situation. it turns out that both hotels are owned by the same family, and are across the street from each other. the one with the cowboys had rooms with one bed, and each had it{s own bathroom. that one didn{t have hot water. the one we were in with the communal bathroom had a water heater, but it apparently wasn{t working.
the lady in charge went up to the cowboy hotel and chased all the guys out of there and had the rooms cleaned. we found out later that hotel was rented by the hour for the fellas with money that come down from the hills. their day of partying was over anyway so they left. <i got chuck to switch his room up there for dad{s so he could have a private bathroom. we got him some extra blankets and he rested comfortably.
while we were figuring out who was who in the zoo about the motels, a couple of drunk cowboys kept trying to talk to me about the curvy ladies that were available. once i figured out what they were talking about i told them i had an ¨esposa¨ and they had no problem changing the subject. marriage apparently is an acceptable reason to avoid the ¨ladies¨. with all this talk about the women, we don{t think we ever saw any of them, but others in the group were approached in the same way, so we assume they existed.
Martin at the clinic had a restaurant in the front room of his house, so the whole group met there for supper and swapping stories. we broke out the tequila and killed a case of tecate. }
all in all morelos had a strange vibe to it, but strange in a good way. i would return without reservation, but not without making it clear we were freinds with Martin. that seemed to make a difference.
in the morning dad was feeling better, but not 100 percent yet. it was bill{s turn not to feel too good, but he was better than dad was. dad, bill, dean and arturo decided to stay another day in morelos, since they are on the three week plan and had the time. the rest of the group had a great breakfast at martin´s, and headed out for baborigame.
To those of you still playing along, sorry for the lack of posts. I got a nasty cold on the drive home, and have been laying around medicated since I got back.
I forgot to share a funny story from Bato. While we were all enjoying a nice brew at the riverside bar in Bato, one of the locals came up and asked Richard how much he weighs. Now, Richard is a big guy, and in the US this isn't something you would do. That's one of the things I like about Mexico is things are what they are. If you are skinny you are skinny, if you are fat you are fat. It's not an insult, just a description of how you appear.
So this guy asks how much Richard weighs. Andrew, another of our lawyer participant, takes this opportunity to find out the reason for the question. Turns out the table full of locals has a wager going about whether one of them can carry Richard up the steps from the lower bar area to the upper. With some delicate negotiations, Andrew changes it to a $20.00 bet between us and them that the guy can't carry Richard across the lower courtyard. Richard gets up on the wall to start the piggy back ride, and the local comes over and gets ready. He's got his belt wrapped around his gut like a weightlifter's belt, and is mentally preparing himself. He back up to Richard, picks him up and makes it about two steps before putting Richard down. Richard then grabs this guy, hoists him up on his shoulders as if he's carrying a bag of laundry, and walks across the courtyard to complete the mission. Richard may seem gordo to the locals, but he's an ex-marine who can handle himself in any situation he needs to. At this point it's all good natured laughs, and the $20.00 bet was not paid by them.
Another evening when we had lunch at a local lady's living room, we discovered that her husband was the one that Richard carried. We all had a good laugh while the man told his family the story in spanish.
Earlier I referenced Cheezy Poofs. The first night we had all been sitting at the same bar, and had planned a late supper at the same living room. We hadn't had lunch, so people were having beer and clamato and were getting a little hungry. I headed up to the corner tienda to grab some more kermato and thought I'd buy snacks for the table. Over in the corner I spotted a HUGE bag of what appeared to be Cheezy Poofs. This bag was up to my waist big. I asked how much it was, and was told 85 pesos, which is roughly eight dollars and fifty cents. I decided that even if the poofs tasted like the orange packing styrofoam they looked like, it was 85 pesos worth of funny. I bought it and hoisted it on my shoulder like a sack of feed and headed back to the bar. The result was as desired, and the dang old things tasted pretty good! Others have photos of this. I also shared with the locals, and the french couple at another table. They didn't want any, and pointed out "We are French!" while explaining their disdain for the poofs. Some of us spend another evening in Bato with this french couple and they were quite nice. Their english was poor, and we knew no french, but there was enough common understanding in spanish and some english that it worked out.
At the end of four days in bato there was still some poofs left, so i put them in the hotel doorway of the large folks from Oklahoma. They promised to spread the orange joy on their bus ride out of bato canyon.
We left Dad and others to enjoy another day in Morelos, and began the climb out of the valley to the south of Morelos. The roads were pretty good, and the weather was perfect. When we got to the left turn for Baborigame, Richard was waiting for me. He told me Chuck had gone the wrong way, but everyone else had made the correct turn. I took off after Chuck who had figured it out in a turn or two and I soon met him coming the other way. He had been in the group that had come this way and down to Morelos the day before. We turned around and headed the way the group had gone. This section of road is very high, with an occasional logging truck. We had a GPS track for this road from Dad in December. About noon we stopped at a crossroad that had a tiendita and bought a few snacks. Bryon (got the spelling right finally) was hungry as usual and the lady made him a hamberguesa. We asked for platanos (bananas) but they had none. We were sitting around outside enjoying the food and drinks when the guy from the store comes up with platanos! He must have dipped into his personal supply, and absolutely refused payment for them. We talked with him a bit (nobody in this small group speaks much spanish, but he knew a bit of english). We took off and a few hours later pulled into San Juan Nepomuceno, a small village, to find Craig Olson and Andrew sitting there. It seems that Al Mathwig's stock shifter had the weld give way. Big suprise. Those stock shifters are junk. They had asked and were told there was a mine about 5 clicks up the road that might have a welder. They peeled the shifter off Al's bike, and he borrowed Craig's bike to go to the mine, with Craig Johnson following on the big KTM. We sat around for awhile and then decided that half of our group should go to Baborigame and secure rooms, and the other half would stay with the broken shifter bunch in case the welder wasn't found and they had to get creative. About five miles up the road I found the mine and Craig Johnson sitting there. He said Al had gone off with one of the miners to find the welder. Al has a GREAT story about this, and he'll tell it better I'm sure. The short story is they did indeed have a welder, but nobody knew how to run it. Except Al (a retired pipefitter) that is. As soon as Al said he knew how, they went into action and found him all the supplies and equipment he needed. The shifter was soon welded and he was on his way.
We found our way to Baborigame (this location can be seen in google earth if you enter "baborigame, mx") and drove right to the motel waypoint on the GPS. What a pleasure this place was. It was a modern motel with a restaurant attached. We were the only customers in the restaurant. Bryon found a beer store, and the lady of the house was soon making michelada for us. There was a fireplace we got going, and we soon had a tasty dinner. I think the rooms were 25 dollars each, and had hot water. She even did some laundry for Chuck and I for eight dollars. The rooms had TV that got one channel. Life was good!
We got up to frost on the bikes, and frozen solid laundry on the line. Had a nice breakfast, and it eventually warmed up. This section of road is what we had all been looking forward to. It takes us down into the Sinferosa Canyon and back up again. We have been told the Sinferosa is the most spectacular of all the canyons in the system. On the road we saw almost no other traffic. There is another, slightly better, road out of Baborigame that they ship out the logs on, so this one isn't that well traveled. I was at the back of the group, with Chuck behind me. After awhile I realized there weren't any motorcycle tracks anymore, and I assumed the group had made a wrong turn. I had a GPS track so I knew I was on course. Soon the canyon came into view. Here is a picture of the road going down into the canyon and back up.
It was spectacular. Andrew, Craig Johnson and I spend most of the climb up doing some canyon racing. Very thrillings stuff.
When I got to the bridge(!) at the bottom there was a little taco stand where I waited. Soon enough the group started filtering in. Turns out they did make a wrong turn and that is how Chuck and I got in front of them. After everyone was accounted for we took off for the climb up. Once at the top it's pretty flat and a nice ride on a good gravel road into Guachochi. We met up at the Pemex station there and decided we had enough time to get to Creel in the daylight. It's all pavement and some pretty curvy road. We left and soon were locked in racerboy battle for the lead. As it's been said, "This isn't a race, unless one of you sons-of-bitches tries to pass me." The day's riding with freinds had to be one of the best in my motorcycling memories. We all got into Creel and got rooms at Hotel Los Valles, except for Craig O, Al, and Mark. They decided to try out Marguerita's hotel. They said it was nice, and no hot water in the morning.
Some of the road from Guachochic (googleable) to Creel.
I just figured out I can post other peole's photos from google earth here, so i'll go back and capture a few others. I only took a few photos this trip, and won't have any to post until the big photo exchange happens. Bryon is in charge of that, and others are sending their disks to him for processing and he will send out complete sets to everyone.
In the morning the groups split up for the trip to Chihuahua City depending on their road preference. Richard, Bryan, Chuck and I took the dirt to Carichic, then another dirt road over to San Fransisco de Borja. Bryon led this section because he was the only one with the track in his GPS. It was a neat road that I hadn't been on before.
I forgot to mention that on the way into Creel, Richard had stopped to check his air filter. His bike wasn't responding as well as he would have liked for our impromptu racing session so he wanted to check it. In doing so he moved his saddlebag back and forgot to return remove it from the muffler when he took off. After he took the bags off in and put them in the room in Creel he realized it was on fire. He lost some clothing and had a big hole in the bag. We all felt lucky he realized it was still burning before we left for supper!
We pulled into Chihuahua and went to the Maria Delores only to find they didn't have any rooms. We ended up at the Posada Tierra Blanca with a triple room for four of us for 76 bucks. We stayed an extra day in Chihuahua and some went to museums and others just wandered around. i got my obligatory boot shine, and bought something nice for Mr. Person.
All in all it was a great trip, as usual. Marty made it to the coast on his scooter, and we managed to get a MNLDrider sticker on the scoot too.
ON the return trip to MN, we hit some bad weather in Texas. got the tow vehicle sliding on two bridges, and had to dodge an accident with a four wheel drive SUV on it's side in our lane before getting a room and waiting it out. The next day we got to Kansas city where we planned to spend the night at richard's house, but checking the weather realized we had about two hours to get out of there before the freezing rain started and another blizzard ensued. So we took off and got to my house at about 2am. Good thing we did, as it was really bad weather in Iowa, and here for that matter, the next couple of days.
We had planned on spending more time at Richards so Bryon could get the pictures all on one disk, but time didn't allow for that.
Dad, Dean, and Bill stayed for more riding. Here is an email from him with their progress:
Another progress report.
We did the route from Creel to Maguarichi to Uruachi, then from Uruachi to Bahuichivo and are now in El Fuerte.
On the way to Uruachi Dean got to spend a night in the bush in his sleeping bag after his bike became recalcitrant just because he did a full immersion baptism on it. It became more cooperative after a little TLC the next morning. It only took two oil changes the get the oil clean. Dean will tell his story in the report.
The trip to Bahuichivo was a bit challenging at the start. It too us almost nine hours to do 84 miles. One hour of that was crossing the Oteros River the slow way. After the crossing there were NO tire tracks other than ours for a VERY long time. Here is one piece of the road. As usual there are no pics of the really knarly parts.
We are now in El Fuerte and plan to be in Texas on Sunday.
Full report later.
Now for some photos from Google earth:
A view of a canyon just over the border from Texas on the free road to Chihuahua City:
Keep in mind while reading his report that a story doesn't always have to be true to be a good story.
His pic of Richard with his cigar reminded me of a story.
Richard had twisted his ankle earlier in the trip and had been wrapping it and taking meds, and doing a pretty good job of staying off of it. One of his methods for this was riding his KLR instead of walking when he could. When we got to Chihuahua I made mention to him that it seemed to be acceptable practice to jump the curb and park on the sidewalk where needed in town. He took off, and some of us headed up to the main square. While Craig and Katie were getting their boots shined, we "talked" to the guy that did our boot shining last year. I say "talked" because he doesn't speak any english at all. He remembered us as riding bikes (which was easy because some of us still had motoboots on) and told us our "Gordo amigo" on his "moto" rode right through the middle of the square and past the cathedral. Richard was able to confirm this for us later. With freshly shined boots might I add.
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