Las Cruces To Tucson Via Tombstone

Tuesday 29th

Nigel and I left Graeme and Sandra to have a more leisurely morning while we headed off to Tombstone. On the way Nigel decided he just had to go and look for some critters, IE a rattlesnake! Fortunately all he found was a lizard!

While G & S had a nice quiet, gentle ride to Tombstone we took a more 'sceneic' route! it started off very nice heading to a pretty little town called Pearce and then it changed to a 'primitive' road for 25 miles! When they say primitive they really mean primitive!

Unfortunately for us it was one of those roads that sucks you into a false sense of security in that 'yes it was rather rough, but it was rideable with caution'. Then it got narrower and then more bendy....and then steeper...and then more gravelly....and then much steeper and with drops off the mountainside! At points I had to get off while Nigel negotiated the bends on his own, one of which he fell off on nearly going over the edge. Not my idea of fun at all! We actually met another car coming down the opposite way to us going up and they just smiled and drove on....no mention that it was really not a road for a motorbike....especially a 3/4 ton touring bike!

Having reached the point of no return we just had to continue on. Eventually it started to go down and Nigel did really well to control it on the gravelly downhill bends. As we levelled out we passed a New Mexican border guard who we stopped to speak to. He was out looking for an illegal and said there were reported to be nine bandits in the mountain! Thank goodness we only found out afterwards otherwise it would really have added to the scariness! Apparently though they would not bother us and if they spotted us would only have asked for food or water. As we had neither we may have asked them for some instead!

I think we can honestly say that our Electroglide will have been the ONLY Electroglide to ever have ventured or be likely to venture over that mountain.

Relieved to be in Tombstone we were overjoyed to find that it was a really pretty place with a lot of character.

We had an ice cream which I think you can see from the photos was huge. I couldn't actually manage it all which really is a first for me! I dread getting on the scales when I get home...I will need to go to a weigh bridge!

The ride to Tucson was super and I got some lovely video of te sunset over the Catalonian mountains.