"JIM THE BARBER" and BILLY IRVIN'S TRIP TO THE WESTERN STATES |
"STANDIN ON A CORNER IN WINSLOW ARIZONA" |
The Western Adventure On Motorcycle By Billy H. Irvin Saturday (Day 1) After waiting 45 days in anticipation and having everything packed for a week, Jim Buettner and I are up at 4:00AM on Saturday May24th getting ready to take to the open road. Jim is riding a 2000 Harley Davidson Electra Glide and I'm riding a 1999 Harley Davidson Electra Glide Ultra. Jim meets me in Blountsville at 5:15 and we leave out at 5:20 to ride to Cullman for a big breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We arrive before they open and sit in the rocking chairs and discuss the trip ahead. We both comment that we neither one got much sleep due to the anticipation and excitement of the trip. After a hearty breakfast, Jim goes outside and leaves me to pay the bill. Actually in the weeks before the trip we decided that we could make the trip for a thousand dollars and before leaving Blountsville Jim gave me his five hundred and designated me to be the official banker and bookkeeper. We leave Cullman at 7:00AM and ride north on Highway 157 headed to Memphis and I-40 west to Sallisaw, OK our destination for the first day of our trip. It doesn't take long before we are in Mississippi and by 11:00 AM we're in Arkansas. We stop in East Little Rock for a snack of crackers and a Coke and a man at the service station tells us that bad weather is headed our way. He states that we want make it out of Arkansas before we hit rain and his statement proves to be true. We run into rain in Morrilton, AK at 3:10 PM and have to stop. We have ridden 426 miles since before daylight and we can see nothing but dark clouds ahead so we decide to spend the night. The owner of the motel is kind enough to allow us to park our motorcycles under a canopy in front of our room. By 5:00 PM the rain has stopped and we can see only white clouds in the west. We ride across the interstate and splurge and eat steak at the restaurant that the locals say is the best in town. Sunday (Day 2) The next morning we leave at 7:00AM and ride for about 30 minutes to Russellville before stopping for breakfast. We meet several other bikers who are out riding and we all discussed were we had been and where we are going. After breakfast we are again headed west on I-40. Destination Tucumcari, NM. Since we had planned to be in Tucumcari by day two we had to make-up the miles that we missed yesterday. We ride across Oklahoma and into Amarillo, TX were we stopped for a quick snack. Since we again see dark clouds ahead we decide that we had better hurry back to the road if we are going to beat the rain to Tucumcari. After 566 miles we pulled into the motel parking lot at 8:30 PM. Jim states that I had better hurry so I jump off my bike and ran into the office and asked the lady if we could park or motorcycles under the stairwell of the motel. After receiving permission, we had just got inside when the bottom fell out. Heavy rain, lightning and wind began to pound the Tucumcari area. After about thirty minutes the rain subsides and we decide that since Denny's is next door that supper and breakfast the next day will be at Denny's. Monday (Day 3) We awake with cloudy and overcast skies and wet pavement. We take our time getting packed and eating waiting on the pavement to dry. We leave at 8:00AM again headed west on I-40, destination Flagstaff, AZ. By now we are both getting bored with the interstate and ready to see some pretty sites. Everything looks the same until we get to Albuquerque, NM where we began to see mountains and the colors begin to change. By 2:00PM we are in Arizona and stop in Winslow for a picture of us "standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona". We meet John Harvey, who runs a gift shop across the street from the statue on the corner, who volunteers to take our picture. After pictures and souvenir purchases we again head west to Flagstaff. We ride 534 miles today and arrive in Flagstaff around 5:00PM and discover about forty people in line attempting to check into our motel. They have just come off of a two-week trip down the Colorado River. They tell us that the motel don't even have the rooms ready so we decide to go to another motel. Jim looks in a book and states that we can backtrack about three miles and stay at the Economy Inn. We arrive and check-in and go across the street to eat. After returning to our room we discover that the air conditioner isn't working and the temperature is in the eighties. The manager moves us to another room on the other side of the parking lot. At least we now have cool air. Tuesday (Day 4) We sleep in late after the previous long days and (two hour time difference) leave out around 8:30AM with beautiful weather. The temperature is in the high eighties with low humidity. We ride south to Red Rock Country-Coconino National Forest-Sedona, AZ. The forest is 160,000 acres and the landscape is beautiful with massive red rock protruding out of the ground. We stop at a roadside market in Oak Creek Canyon and purchase souvenirs from native Indians. After several pictures we head north back to Flagstaff to the Harley Davidson dealership for tee shirts and a taillight bulb for Jim's bike. We discuss riding 250 miles further west to Needles, California. After discovering that it is 110 degrees there we change our mind and head west to the mountain town of Williams and then north via highway 64 to the south rim of the Grand Canyon National Park. Over a mile deep and 277 miles long, the canyon is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. We take many pictures and then head east and then north threw the small towns and villages of Cameron and Tuba City. The area is very desolate with only rundown shacks and a few older mobile homes dotting the landscape. We travel 338 miles today and arrive in the town of Kayenta on the Navajo Indian Reservation at 8:30PM. With dark fast approaching, we check in at the Holiday-Inn. Being the only motel with a vacancy we have to pay over $100.00 for our room. However, being in the middle of no-where, and no other alternative, we pay with a smile. On the Navajo reservation there is no alcohol so we can't buy beer to wash the dust out of our throat. We go across the street to the restaurant and arrive just as they are closing. We ride up town about a mile to the other restaurant in town for supper. Upon returning to our room we discover about a hundred moths in the room. We see the maintenance man and Jim asked for a flyswatter. The maintenance man offers to return with a shopvac and precedes to stuck-up the moths. Wednesday (Day 5) We awaken with beautiful weather and as we are packing up several Japanese tourists from the tour bus parked across the lot come over to admire our motorcycles and request pictures. After taking several pictures, Jim takes one of the Japanese girls for a ride around the parking lot while her father takes a video. We then go across the street for breakfast where we meet Bob and Linda Noland from Deep Creek Lake, MD. They are on vacation riding Harley Davidson's. They had their bikes shipped to Denver and they flew in and picked them up and are riding to Tucson where they will fly back home and have the bikes shipped by truck. We head north on the Navajo Reservation, which is the largest in the U.S., dominating northeast Arizona and extends into New Mexico and Utah. Approximately the size of West Virginia, it contains more than 29,817 square miles. We enter into Utah and ride through Monument Valley Tribal Park, with its sandstone spires and buttes. We take many pictures of the haunting spires and buttes that have graced movies from John Wayne's time to the most recent "Vertical Limit." Before reaching Four Corners, the only location in the country where four states meet, we stop at the only gas station within miles. We discover that they only have regular gas and no premium or high octane. The lady at the station tells us that it is about 40 minutes to the next station, so I decided that I could make it. About five miles up the road my fuel light comes on. Luckily, we get behind a slow moving lowboy flat bed truck and I ride as close as I can in order to ride in his draft and conserve fuel. Fortunately, we make it to a station before I ran out. Jim discovers that the rear breaks on his motorcycle is squealing when he attempts to stop. We plan to have it repaired when we get to Durango. We then head northeast into Colorado arriving at 6:00PM in Pagosa Springs after 397 miles. We can see beautiful snowcapped mountains in the distance as we splurge and have Prime Rib and beer at the Hog's Breath Restaurant. Thursday (Day 6) After breakfast we continue east toward Durango with several stops planed for the day. It begins to sprinkle on us for about five minutes and then it stops. The weather turns cool and we put on our windbreakers and continue toward Durango. The Harley Owners Group (HOG) directory doesn't show a Harley Davidson dealership in Durango. However, as we come into town we see a Honda and Yamaha dealership and we go about another mile when I spot a Harley Davidson dealership. We pull in and Jim tells the service manager about his brake problem. The service manager immediately takes Jim's bike into the service department. While waiting for the bike to be repaired (and buying tee shirts) we learn that the dealership has only been open a few weeks. An hour after we arrived we are back on the road with new brake pads headed east to Taos, NM. We stop in Taos at the Overland Sheepskin Company and buy sheepskins for our bike seats. It is unreal what a difference it makes. It makes the ride allot cooler and more comfortable. We actually eat a real lunch today, taco salad, at a nice southwestern restaurant in town. We then head to Angel Fire, NM home of the Vietnam Veterans National Memorial. A. Dr. Westphall and his family began work on the Chapel in the fall of 1968 following the death of their son, David, in Vietnam on May 22, of that year. The Chapel was dedicated in 1971 and is the first memorial to Vietnam veterans anywhere. The Chapel is a place of reflection and quiet. All warriors who cross its threshold find a place of peace and rest. It was very moving to visit this place of honor. It is operated with donations only and receives absolutely no government funding. After talking with several other bikers in the parking lot of the memorial we head east to Eagles Nest, NM a very small village nestled around a lake with a beautiful mountain range in the distance. We enter Carson National Forest and there is snow lingering on the ground in areas alongside the road where the sun is unable to reach. After reaching the top of the mountain we stop at a store to get a Coke and take off our windbreakers, as it is now hot. The bikers from the memorial that passed us in Eagles Nest are already there. They are headed south and one of them advises us to top off our fuel in Springer before striking out on the 100-mile trip east to Clayton because there is nothing except ranch land between the two towns. We found that to good advice since all we saw between the two towns was open range with a couple of ranch house and several antelope in the pastures with the cattle. After arriving in Clayton, NM with daylight still available we stop and ask a couple how far it is to the next town and if it had a motel. They advised us that the next town is Dalhart, TX about 40 miles south and that they were several motels available. We arrived in Dalhart around 9:00PM (its now central time) after traveling 371 miles. Supper for the night was Sonic Hamburgers and beer. Friday (Day 7) We eat breakfast the next morning at the local restaurant across from our motel. There is several locals eating and drinking coffee (just like home) and we discover that Dalhart, TX was the home of the XIT Ranch, one of the largest ranches in the US (3,000,000 acres). Jim commented that it also must be the train crossroads of the US because the train came through every fifteen minutes during the night. We leave around 9:15AM headed south and see nothing but pasture and farm land with grain crops and allot of grain silos. We continue south on US 87 until we reach Amarillo were we pickup I-40 and head east toward Oklahoma City. We get to Oklahoma City in time for afternoon rush hour traffic and the temperature is 101 degrees, the hottest day we have experienced, while on our trip. We began to wonder whose idea it was to come this way as we fall in with the stop and go traffic before finally reaching the suburbs and a normal flow of traffic. We arrive in Sallisaw, OK at 7:30PM after traveling 518 miles. After checking into our motel, supper is a salad at the truck stop across the street. Saturday (Day 8) We are up early eating breakfast at the truck stop by 7:00AM. I had asked the night manager at the motel if Sallisaw was the home of "Pretty Boy" Floyd, the notorious 1930's bank robber? He stated that it was and that his grave was only a few miles from the motel. After breakfast, Jim and I rode over to Akins Cemetery and after looking for a few minutes we asked an elderly gentleman visiting the cemetery where the grave was located. He showed us the gravesite and went on to explain that Charles Arthur "Pretty Boy" Floyd was very kind to the poor people in the area providing food and money. He went on to explain that after "Pretty Boy's" death in 1934 at the age of 30, his brother, E.W. Floyd, who is buried next to him, went on to become sheriff of Sequoyah County, Oklahoma from 1949 until l970 and that he never carried a gun. After thanking the man for his generosity we left at 8:15AM headed east in search of home. The ride was much cooler than the day before with the temperature in the eighties and a cross wind of ten to fifteen MPH. We ride across Arkansas into Tennessee, Mississippi and into Alabama and stop in Tuscumbia for our last fuel stop. After filling the tanks, I asked Jim to guess how much money we had left? His guess is that we're probably broke. I tell him that we have ten bucks left so we split it, climb on our bikes and head home arriving in Blountsville at 6:15PM. after traveling 571 miles. We traveled 3,721 total miles in eight days in ten states. We averaged 465 miles per day with 29 gas stops, 18 meals, and 7 motels and spent $990.00 dollars. Jim Buettner is a 61 years old resident of Oneonta and the owner of The Sculptor Room barbershop in Oneonta, Ala. Billy is 49 years old and resides in Blountsville, Ala. and an Enforcement Officer with the State Revenue Department, Motor Vehicle Division. |
first ride on a Harley |
dry parking |
girl in a flatbed ford |
standin on a corner in Winslow Arizona |
red cliff in Sedona, Arizona |
Mexican Hat, New Mexico |
Pretty Boy Floyd's gravesite |
------------------------------------Grand Canyon-------------------------------- |
Monument Valley |
New Mexico mountains 9000" |
Rio Grande |
Utah line |
