Motorcycle Trip

Motorcycling

in the

American West

(2018)

Every summer, my son and I do a 7-day, 2,000-mile motorcycle ride through different parts of the Southwest. This year, we did a 10-day, 2,8000-mile ride through New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Wyoming.

There is nothing like riding a motorcycle on the open road in the American West --far from the Maddening Crowd!

We begin our trips in Mesilla, in southern New Mexico.

Mesilla Plaza

Southern New Mexico . . .

South-Central New Mexico . . .

Northwestern New Mexico . . .

(Storms are always a potential hazard for Motorcyclists in the summer)

Utah:

There are few more beautiful and spectacular places to ride a motorcycle in the U.S. than southern Utah, especially southeastern Utah.

Almost anywhere, it is possible to spend an hour or more taking photos of local land formations, so much so that if we were to stop for every interesting photo opportunity, we would not get very far!

Our recent trip took us through Capitol Reef National Park.

We then headed north through the Fish Lake National Forest . . .

. . . past two lakes along the Mirror Lake Scenic Byway . . .

. . . past Bear Lake . . .

. . . back through open country . . .

. . . to Jackson, Wyoming and Grand Teton National Park.

Then we went to Yellowstone National Park . . .

and visited two hot springs . . .

Unfortunately, everywhere you went was crowded, and traffic jams were horrendous . . .

This was one of the principal attractions causing the traffic jams . . .

Picture taken in the hot springs parking lot.

According to a recent study, traffic in many National Parks has gotten so bad that ozone levels in those parks approach that found in the 20 largest American cities. Yellowstone is one of the parks identified in the study.

So, we decided to leave Yellowstone and encountered yet another long line of traffic due to a 4-mile construction zone on our way to the exit!

Driving south the next day, we crossed the Wyoming-Colorado border . . .

. . . into to the mountains . . ..

. . . to Leadville, Colorado.

The next day we visited the Great Sand Dunes National Park.

We then rode through southern Colorado into northern New Mexico.

The final day of the trip began with a ride through the spectacular red-rock mesa country south of Cuba, New Mexico.

A motorcycle trip always involves great food along the way.

Fittingly, the trip ended, as every trip should, with a stop at the Owl Bar & Cafe in San Antonio, NM . . .

. . . famous for its Green Chile Cheeseburgers.

The Owl Cafe is also famous for feeding Robert Oppenheimer and the other scientists on the Manhattan Project while they were preparing to detonate of the first atomic bomb at the Trinity Site, just 40 miles from the cafe.