Completed My Seven Day Southwest Tour

I'm back, and it was a really fantastic trip. The SilverWing performed absolutely perfectly. What a great bike.

Here are a couple of links in case you'd like to see some photos/videos (I'm no photographer, so please forgive any lapses in quality); or read some narrative; or see a google route map. I hope you enjoy.

And Thanks Jon for recommending Monument Valley. It was surely a highlight of the trip.

http://www.travelpod.com/members/matthewd

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=103985422115943131957.00047471e33d7707eafd3&z=6

Matthew,

Very nice, I like the narrative style of story telling. It is after all a story, albeit true and with flashes of personal opinion. The personal insights were nice and (to me) made it interesting.

I like that you found out you may have overpacked and plan to address that on your next trip. I think it must be an odd function of our affluent US culture that generally we tend to think more is necessary. That whole "be prepared" mentality that keeps us from fully experiencing spontaneous positive and (perceived or imagined) negative events.

Anyway I read all of the entries and enjoyed them. Congratulations on an enjoyable trip and best wishes for many more.

Matthew,

Thanks for the thanks. One of my wife's favorites (of my paintings) is of Mexican Hat (I put it on a t-shirt for her).

I haven't been there for a long time. I hope that the natives are still as friendly as they were in the early 70's.

Thanks Dale and Jon for taking the time to read thru my report. I'm really glad you enjoyed it. I hope the pictures made it more "alive", and I hope some others will enjoy it too.

Jon, maybe you have a website where your paintings are available for viewing?

Ride safe...........

Nice pics and write-up Matthew. I enjoyed reading it. Sounds like you had a great adventure. Pretty hard to beat a nice two-wheel camping trip in nice weather through spectacular scenery!

Yeh Mike, the weather spirits were smiling on me. Aside from getting a little cold at times, and real windy at others, riding and sleeping outdoors was just fine. We wouldn't want it to be completely without challenges, would we?

Matthew,

I thought that I had my web site on the "www" button at then bottom of all of my posts.

In any case

http://www.joncallihan.com

should get it. It pretty static, I've not been very productive of late.

Another Duh! moment for me Jon; yes, there it is, but I didn't even see it.
You have quite a body of work there. I enjoyed seeing more of it. Maybe you can vary your avatar on this sight to reflect more of your paintings?

Thanks.

Coming up. It will reflect my true self when it came to going fast off road.

Looks like something I can relate to. I could not relate to your friend Verle's talk about doing 90 off road. I pushed my S'wing up to 90-95 once on a long, straight, empty highway, just to see. Took all of about 10 seconds. I can't say I have any desire to do it again, or regularly. Each to their own.

Matthew,
This painting has an interesting history. Verle and I were in a cafe in Moab before riding to the Needles area of Canyonlands on the ? trail. We were talking with an old prospector about the trail and he told us that when we get to the BIG rock with a little rock on top, turn left.

We got to the above rocks, but the trail was obviously straight ahead, so that's where we went. About ten miles further on the trail we were on ended at the edge of a cliff about a thousand feet down. Since neither of us wanted to go down that far at once, we back tracked to the BIG rock, looked further and sure enough, about 200 yards down the sand draw, the trail climbed up and sent us off to the Needles. The extra twenty or so miles caused my big single to run out of gas at the pump when we pulled into the gas station at the Needles air port.

What would you call that? Good karma?

Dumb luck! Would be more appropriate,

Since I wrote the above, I reworked my web site. I re-arranged several of the pieces and added a page of things I've given to various charities over the last decade or so.