Getting ready for the third annual western Vstrom gathering
(held in Cedar City Utah this year).
Wednesday afternoon I did my pre-ride maintenance . . .
Changed the oil and filter, checked and lubed the chain and put on the Happy Trails panniers.
From San Diego I guess I coulda just slabbed it up the 15 all the way to Cedar city. . . Google says it would have been
482 mi or about 7 hours one of the most boring slab rides I can think of.
Instead I decided to do what
I have done every year for the StromFest. . . .
Make it a No or Low-Slab trip. All in all I clocked 2114 miles in 5 days of riding.
Actually ended up being 852 miles each way staying off the slab.
So Thursday morning, armed with my fresh from Dazzle, semi-unofficial STROMFESTWEST 08 Tee shirt I hit the road about 7:30.
First day was gonna be a long one....I had reservations at a Notell Motel in Flagstaff. It would turn out to be 570 miles to Flagstaff.
3 ½ hours later, Over the hill through Julian and down into the desert to beautiful downtown Brawley
(my apologies if you actually live in Brawley).
Thinking about gassing up as I cruise down the main drag I noticed a local SD area Strom Rider
(Craig) and his wife just finishing fueling up.
After fueling my 6FIddy Craig and Lisa and I head for Blythe.
Craig and his Wife Lisa have 50K
(Probably 30% dirt) miles on their little 6Fiddy including a trip to Alaska
Out of Brawley and heading for Blythe we notice a monster fire in the distance.
As we get closer it's pretty obvious it's a controlled burn of some sort so it's on to Brawley.
From Brawley Craig and Lisa are taking a different route to the StromFest so we part company. I'm heading east now on the only slab I couldn't avoid. . . I10.
Even using the frontage roads I ended up doing about 60 miles of slab.
CONTINUED. . . .