(12) Ely to Grand Junction
In my prior entry I forgot the description of our approach into Ely. A series of thunder storms were on the horizon beginning about 60 miles outside of Ely. We made the decision to pull of the road at a rest stop and put on our rain gear. There was a couple stopped there also and I spoke to one of them and asked about the rain. We were told that the rain would start in about 5 miles and would be going all the way to Eureka, NV which is about 30 miles from where we were. So we finished gearing up and off we went.
It just seemed that we were chasing the storm. We could see the dark clouds and rain ahead of us but we never seemed to catch it. Eventually the road veered away and the rain stayed off to our left and we never did hit it. There were several other storms around but we always seemed to thread the needle between them and never did get wet. However, we had barely gotten in the tent before the storm hit Ely and we had our first night of rain in the tent. It wasn’t a long intense rain storm but we did see lightening flashes from inside the tent and could hear thunder. The rain came and went for about an hour or so before we finally fell asleep. The tent held up perfectly as everything we had was still perfectly dry in the morning.
After Ely it was off to Great Basin National Park. There are pictures of our ride into the park in the gallery. The main road in the park winds up to the 10,000 foot level of Mt. Wheeler. It’s a nice windy road with great views of the valley below. A return to the park is on our to do list to see if we can get a hotel in the little town of Baker just outside of the park. We can then leave all out gear in the room and ride up to the end of the road and do the hike to the summit of Mt Wheeler. We shall see if we make it back. Great Basin is one of the least visited parks in the US mainly due to it being so isolated. The trip continued pretty uneventfully to our next night of camping in Torrey, UT.
We had pizza at the Rim Rock Patio pizza place. I have to say that not only was the pizza good the views of the rock formations around made the view beautiful as we ate. After going back to the campground I made a discouraging discovery. Our rear tires are wearing much faster than I had hoped. I had hoped to get at least 4,000 miles out of the tires before the needed to be replaced. In Torrey we were at about 2,500 miles on them. They still had adequate tread to do the off road riding class, but I decided to keep an eye on the wear.
Today’s leg was from Torrey, UT to Grand Junction, CO. Both of us had things we needed to buy that we knew REI would have. After a quick Google search I found out that Grand Junction has an REI so we headed there first. Neil needs some stuff sacks to keep his clothes segregated. I need a Leatherman or something similar. I especially need a knife.
I also needed more straps to secure my dry bag to the bike. I placed the straps I had been using too close to the motorcycle exhaust and melted the strap twice. I was out of enough strap length to tie it on again, so had to get new straps. I now have a better location for them planned from now on, LOL.
While at REI I looked at the tires again and was really annoyed to see how much they had worn in just the 200 miles from Torrey to Grand Junction. If the tires wore the same amount in the 200-ish miles we have to go to the riding class tomorrow then the tread will be almost gone entirely.
While at REI I made several calls to motorcycle shops in Grand Junction to see if any of them had the correct size rear tires for our bikes. In the end the BMW/Harley/KTM dealer had a pair of rear tires of the correct size that are 40/60 (40% street/60% dirt) oriented. This should be great for the riding class, although I am afraid that these may not wear very well either. We will see. I was planning on a tire change in Bullhead City. I know what type of tire I want to use and will order them to be delivered to Bullhead. I’m thinking Neil and I should try to mount them ourselves by hand in order to get some practice doing that for the time we have a flat somewhere. I’m sure that will happen at some point.
The dealer did say they can change the tires for us tomorrow morning. Unfortunately, we will have to remove the rear wheel ourselves and give the dealer just the wheel to install the new tire on. I changed our hotel reservations for tonight and got a hotel right next to the dealership so that makes the logistics much simpler. When Neil, Evan and Darrell Eernisse (a coworker) and I did our ride together 10 years ago this is the same dealer that was able to fix an issue I had with my BMW on that trip. So I know the hotel was next door as we stayed here on that trip also. So it’s going to be an early morning so we can get over there and remove the wheel before the dealer opens at 9:00 so we can get new tires and then remount the wheel and hit the road to get to the riding class location by 5:00 tomorrow evening. It’s all doable provided everything goes as planned (fingers crossed!).
One benefit of being in this hotel is that it has laundry facilities in the building. We’ve been on the road for a week now and it’s definitely time to do some laundry! All that is now done, we’ve had dinner and are back in the room now. Nothing more to do until tomorrow morning.
The riding class is held in an area with no cell coverage and they do not have internet there. So I won’t have a chance to write again until at least Sunday night. I hope to have some good pictures of the riding class to post then. Wish us well in class!
