Day One Santa Clarita to Cedar City - 534 Miles

After five months of planning meetings, losing three potential riders, and gaining one, four of us, Lane, Bob, Steve and myself, the Horck, departed Santa Clarita on the first day of our journey to Nova Scotia, Canada, via Sturgis, South Dakota, for the 70th annual running of the motorcycle rally. We met rider five, Bill in Victorville, CA. Our sixth rider, Jack, departed two days prior with other friends headed for Sturgis. We'll hook up with Jack in Sturgis.

The morning began on a deflated note when Steve discovered that he only had eight pounds of air in his rear tire. Apparently, some mischievous devil must have let some air out because after it was re inflated it functioned as advertised for the remainder of the 535 mile day.

We made good time across the desert today and lunched in Mesquite, NV, with a good friend, Jim Sida of Crout and Sida, Criminal Justice Consultants, Mesquite, NV and Templeton, CA. Always good to see and break bread with old friends. As we were making such good time today and only had 90 miles left to our evening destination, Cedar City, UT, we elected to deviate and take the scenic route through Zion National Park, in retrospect, not the best decision of the day.

What the ranger at the gate didn't tell us is that they are working on two thirds of the road through the park. In lieu of enjoying the beautiful red-rock scenery we were transfixed on maintaining our bikes upright on a red dirt, pot holed, dusty, sometimes wet and slippery surface with several prolonged stops for single-lane only traffic. Instead of arriving in Cedar City around four PM, we arrived at ten PM. There was a redeeming feature however, we rode through the Dixie National Forest, tall pines and long grass meadows in the late afternoon--just beautiful. We spotted one deer crossing the road and regrettably several more alongside the highway that did not fare so well. One has to be particularly cautious traversing highways through forested areas in the evenings. Statistics tell us that the majority deer vs. motorcycle accidents result in fatalities for both parties.

No major mishaps today and after one day on the road we're still all talking to one another, only 28 more days and 7,500 more miles to go! As to the weather fans, the temperatures today ranged from a little over 100 degrees in Las Vegas to the mid-fifties in the Dixie National Forest, UT. Just after departing Mesquite we ran headlong into a thunderboomer complete with huge raindrops and hail. I have to tell you, hail on the shins at 70 MPH stings like hell. Glad to have had my full modular helmet on. We'll have to remember to ask Bob how he enjoyed that experience with his open-face helmet. Stings, huh Bob? We were dry as a bone twenty minutes later in the afternoon heat. Tomorrow, we're off to Wyoming.