I’ve Been Everywhere, Part 3

Once the snow had melted a bit, we moseyed the paltry 90 miles southwest to Zion National Park. We continued to dance right along the edge of the storm, and in some places we could actually see it raining just off the north side of the road but still sunny on the south side. Luckily, though, the snow didn’t follow us and the worst of it stayed to the north.

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See that little black hole just right of the center of the picture above? That’s a “window” which allows light into the mile long tunnel. (Yes, the tunnel runs right through the cliff.) You can see it better in the close-up on the right.

What a thrill it was for Mike to see Zion for the first time! The landscape across Utah is varied, and he had enjoyed taking in the changing view on our ride so far. But Zion is a world unto itself. For those of you who have never visited Zion I don’t want to spoil the whole experience, but the entry into the park is very sudden and dramatic. My favorite national park is now his favorite national park, and I highly recommend that everyone wander through at least once.

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The change in travel plans left us in a bit of a scramble to re-route through enough locations to complete the AMA contests. Instead of going north through Idaho, we went south back into Arizona. (Remember, Idaho is a three-point state for us where as Arizona is only a two-point state.) However…  There were a few bonus words that were not actually location names in “I’ve Been Everywhere”, but were other words spoken in the song. Getting pictures of places including words such as Bud, Sand, Pete’s Sake, and Mountain Air, among others, all count as three-point bonus pics regardless of how far from home you are. So right about now is when things started to get creative…

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All Right!  See what happens when you start paying attention?  Bonus words start coming out of the woodwork! Case in point: “Sand” in Sand Hallow State Park was only a few miles away from where we stayed outside of Zion. We’re not out of the game yet!

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Dipping back into Arizona, we headed for a GPS point that was right in the middle of Vermillion Cliffs. Easy enough, we figured, since the whole place is beautiful. Except once again Zumo felt that the best way to get there was by following a well-groomed dirt road for 26 miles until we reached the first gnarly inaccessible 4×4 road it could possibly direct us down. We were getting a little bummed out with these bad GPS coordinates, so we took a little break to simmer down and have some water.  More on that stop on the next page…

*2019 Addendum: OK, I know I told you I’d include some hilariously awful “secret link” type goodies without making you dig. I changed my mind. Trust me when I say that I think it’s best for everyone involved. It includes such nightmare-inducing images as this:

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Just trust me on this. This is me looking out for you. And also maybe a little bit about me not wanting to blatantly invite an ambush by Mike by reminding him that I blatantly ambushed him 12 years ago. But it’s mostly about you guys.

*2019 Addendum: Before this completely devolves into a 2007 whinefest, I’m just going to go on record as saying the trouble was most probably not an issue of ridiculously uninteresting locations. In retrospect, there were probably several issues. It’s possible that some of these locations were submitted in different lat/lon formats and something got lost in the process of translating all of them into a uniform format. I ended up looking up several of these locations with an online coordinate conversion tool, so several were probably lost in translation there as well. With more than a decade of in-depth Zumo experience under my belt at this point, I think it’s also fair to point out that Zumo does get sadistic pleasure out of deliberately misrouting people. “Oh, did you request NO dirt roads? My bad; I thought you said EXCLUSIVELY dirt roads. Also, this is as close as I’m getting you. You’re going to have to walk 18 miles from here. How bad do you want this?” Then it laughs this deeply unsettling GPS laugh. It will haunt your dreams. Not quite to the same level as Mike’s nudey booty up top there, but still super creepy.

What I’m saying is, I’d love the opportunity to see what all of these waypoints were supposed to be now that I’ve mastered both coordinate conversion and skillfully guessing which of my three active GPSs is least likely to be lying to me at any given moment. I’m going to keep my 2007 commentary intact though because I think my aggravation provides a hilarious backdrop to the story of my riding life going forward from this point. I’d done Iron Butt Association certified rides before this ride, but only using paper maps. My first endurance rally was still two years away, and… well,… I’ll just let the story tell itself.

Maybe it was karmic retribution, but after “The Incident” we had nothing but a long string of bum or just plain lame GPS points. We did dig up a few more bonus IBE points, but sheesh – we won’t be doing the GPS tour next year, that’s for sure!*

*2019: LOLOLOL! Yeah, that was a solid prediction. If there’s one thing I can say for sure, it’s that I’ve definitely avoided all that silly GPS tour nonsense from that day forward.

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First we attempted to take another road to the Vermillion Cliffs coordinates. After 30 miles of hideously lumpy, bumpy, sandy road we arrived at: Nothing. In the middle of a beautiful national monument, our GPS locale was a hill, like every other hill we’d passed in the last 30 miles. On the upside, our Chiropractor made a few extra bucks off us when we got home.

Our next GPS point was right by the Navajo Bridge, the Glen Canyon Dam, and a variety of museums. Where do we end up? At Antelope Canyon -certainly a beautiful place, but staring down yet another 4×4 only road! Come on – Clearly the person who submitted this group of coordinates was either unaware that they should be readily accessible, or figured that since he got there easily on his KLR650 that we should be able to lumber on over on our giant beasts just as easily.

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We threw in the towel for the day, and started fresh the following day with this incredibly lucky find: A community near Flagstaff called Mountainaire, which netted us a cool three bonus points. Sweet! The day was off to a good start! We followed that up with Buffalo Pointe, Arizona.

OK, maybe this wasn’t spelled out carefully enough in the coordinate  submission instructions, but if the point is to take a picture of your  motorcycle in a particular location, doesn’t that necessarily rule out roads that are closed to all vehicles except for park trams? This time we could get to the coordinates, we just couldn’t get our bikes there. (And we weren’t willing to risk our $24 entrance fee to try!)

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Aaaand then it was right about this time that my Zumo crapped out on me. Just wouldn’t turn back on. No more route, no GPS coordinates, no XM, no MP3s, no traffic or weather info – nada. Just up and died. Of course, there is no cell phone reception in the park, and by the time we found a phone Garmin had already closed. And it was Friday, so that meant the last two days and half-dozen GPS points were basically lost to the cosmos. OK, Karma! I’m sorry I ambushed my husband in his most vulnerable moment! Now can’t we catch a little slack?

Oh, Looky! It’s nothing in the middle of nowhere! And it’s too stinkin’ hot to even breathe! Hooray! Now take the stupid picture so we can leave.

Not yet ready to admit defeat (and not wanting to have to ride back through the desert again to re-attempt the coordinates later), I spent hours on our hotel computer digging up maps of the remaining coordinates retrieved from our (slightly damp) hard copy of the list. They all jived with where Zumo had shown them, but it is clear at this point that either Zumo has it out for us, or the person who submitted these points has a twisted sense of humor, or both. Either way, we were giving it one last shot.

On the long, broiling journey back to the highway from the above referenced nothing point in the middle of nowhere near Lake Mead, we decided to take advantage of a little clause that allows for the possibility of rhyming locations. Since only locations within the United States are counted towards the IBE contest, and some places (like Argentina) are not in the US and don’t have a like-named town here, some flexibility is allowed. We figured Kingman is close enough to Kingston to get the job done, and if not, hey – at least we tried to salvage something out of the hour-long wasted side trip to nothing in the middle of nowhere.

And the insults just keep rolling in! That’s right, boys – pile ’em on! “Hey, I know!  I’ll submit my own house as a GPS waypoint! Then I’ll get one point just for being in my own garage! Duh-hick!”

Why stop there? How about an empty cul-de-sac in an industrial park! Is this where the place used to be that blew up a decade or so back? Either way, I don’t care! What’s really important is that it’s 195 degrees out and we’re bordering on heat stroke to get pictures of – NOTHING!! Weeeeee!!

YES! YES! And we’ll wrap it up with a difficult-to-access shoulder next to a FREEWAY OFFRAMP! Woo Hoo! Why Not! Heck, seems like a good idea to me! Of all the stuff in Vegas, we’ve got a house, an empty lot, and a freeway offramp, all within about two miles of each other. Three easy points for some wiener in Vegas, and the final straw for us. The last two GPS points were officially scrapped from the travel plans (both Zumo and the computer showed them to be in the middle of Death Valley with no particular road access – thanks anyways).

So how did we spend our wild and crazy night in Vegas?Well, we started out by applying ice packs to the burns we suffered on our legs from sitting over a screaming hot engine and riding all day through a blast furnace. Then, we hit Hot Dog on a Stick for some high-rolling grub. We followed that up with a trip to the arcade, where we didn’t play anything, then we caught two movies. Then we went to sleep around 11pm. OK, OK, I know – but you have to realize we’re old and crusty now.* That, and we both used to live here and we like our money pretty much not just going away, so all of that part of the city has kind of lost it’s luster for us. Plus, we were tired. So there.

*2019: Old and crusty then? Yeah, that pretty much described our ideal dream date now. Sigh. Those were the days; the heady days of reckless double features and Hot Dog on a Stick.

After a leisurely morning staying cool in the hotel, we made the final searing bolt across the desert and arrived safely back home. No crashes this time, no dangerously bad weather, nothing we couldn’t handle. All in all, a very successful trip! Our total trip was 5,682 miles – a good bit shorter than originally planned, but still not too bad for two and half weeks on the road.

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The good news is that even with the skipped GPS points and the re-routing of the end of the trip, we still managed to squeeze 54 points out of the I’ve Been Everywhere tour – enough for our Finisher’s Plaques – and 48 points out of the GPS Tour. We’ll still have to hit a few local GPS points to get Finisher’s Plaques for that ride, but we have until November to complete the rides and submit our photos. There are about six more GPS locations within an short day’s ride of home, as well as four or five more easy IBE points. And so, this page remains a work-in-progress until we decide we’ve  accumulated enough points. Thank you for sharing our adventure with us,  and check back often for the continuing updates!

*UPDATE!*

It has been brought to my attention that I forgot to give you the update on the Zumo. The day after we returned from the trip, I contacted Garmin International. After a brief round of troubleshooting, the tech determined that the battery had probably been faulty from the get-go. Luckily, my 12 hour-a-day use over the last two weeks prompted the battery to fail within the Super Duper Warranty Period, where they replace the unit rather than repairing it. I sent the dearly departed Zumo back to Garmin via Priority Mail, and they actually overnighted the replacement Zumo back to me. Within four days of my phone call, I had a brand new Zumo in my possession. I wasn’t too happy about the failure, but I was extremely pleased with the way Garmin handled the situation. In this era of customer service being “Job None”, it’s really exciting to find a company that goes out of their way to provide the highest quality of customer service. Thanks Garmin – Keep up the Good Work!

*UPDATE to the UPDATE!*

My expensive GXM Garmin-XM Receiver Antenna has now also failed. I don’t think I need to go into all the details, but let me just say that exceptionally good customer service can sometimes just be a fluke. I did eventually receive my replacement GXM; the person I spoke with said the item was in stock and would be overnighted to me since I was leaving for a tour that week. Six days later, the day before I was to depart, I called Garmin and asked where my GXM was. The reply? “Oh, that was out of stock.  But it’s in stock now; did you still want that?” Sigh. I guess there was some part of “Urgent Overnight Warranty Claim” that got lost in the translation there. I was able to have the GXM sent on ahead and I intercepted it on the first day of the tour. So in the end, I suppose, it all worked out OK. Now lets just hope I don’t have occasion to test Garmin’s customer service for a third time…*

*2019: LOLOLOLOL… Yeah, I just can’t even craft an eloquent comment beyond “Poor, naive 2007 me.” It just had to be acknowledged.

…And A Few Last Stops…

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These are the pictures we submitted for the Best Picture portion of the contest. (We each get to submit one). We once again used the rhyming clause, figuring Jericho was a good rhyme for Jellicoe. Plus, maybe we get bonus points for providing irrefutable proof of having been someplace that doesn’t exist. Will we get three points for this since is clearly says “Kansas”, or will we get one point since we fessed up that it’s really on the set of a television show in California? Only time will tell…*

*2019 Addendum: I still don’t know the answer to this question because we didn’t get a point-by-point breakdown. I still think this was by far our coolest stop though (and by far one of the coolest shows Mike has ever worked on.)

I actually was accosted by some psycho security guard with a God complex when I was taking the picture to the left. She came roaring over in her little securitymobile and started screeching that I was not allowed to take pictures without the express written consent of the property owners. I held eye contact, raised the camera, and blatantly snapped off several pictures. Then I said something to the effect of, “Neener, neener. What are you going to do, arrest me?”* Then I suggested that she buy a coloring book or something to keep herself occupied as I burned out of the parking lot. Who knew that this quest could be so dangerous?

*2007 Note: Now, before anyone comes lumbering over here to arrest me for taking a picture of a big, clearly visible sign on a public sidewalk, that was kind of the Cliff’s Notes version of events (also with a lot of lying to make it seems like I was a lot less meek and agreeable than I actually was), I would be more than happy to recount the life-altering mental anguish I have suffered as a result of the physical threats and  racially charged sexist slurs I suffered at the hands of this horrible beast if you want to drag me into court. And she made fun of the Japanese bike, too.

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Once the weather cooled down some, I made a second attempt at the Nevada GPS points. I was already in Las Vegas  for business, but Mike wasn’t able to join me on account of it was Jericho Gun Club Day. I revisited all the points that we hit after Zumo failed on the last trip. Turns out the actual points were the Rodeo Park, the Ethel M Chocolate Factory, and the Oscar’s Martini sculpture near Freemont Street. Even the point near the Hoover Dam appeared to actually be the place where we took the “What A GPS Point Should Look Like” picture. I take back almost all the nasty things I said about the bum GPS points. Well, the ones in Nevada, at least.

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And finally, we picked up a few points in California. The Griffith Park Observatory is only accessible by tram, so we got a picture from the roof of a nearby Home Depot. Now that’s ingenuity! And a day of beautiful riding brought us to the Sherman Tree in the Sequoia National Park. The Grand Total is now 44 GPS points for Mike, 50 GPS points for me, and 58 IBE points for each of us.

*2019 Wrap Up: So that’s pretty much how I wrapped that story up originally. I did a nice summary a ways up there, then I slapped some stuff on the end. Then I just kind of let it dangle. Sooo…. HEY, LOOK OVER THERE!