Where to start? As some know I have quit riding motorcycles, the helmet, boots, and Motoport riding suit have been hung up and the '08 Honda Goldwing aka the Dirty Fat Girl along with a couple of other motorcycles are for sale. For my wind in the hair, smell the world, cheap thrill replacement I picked up a Mazda Miata.
Yesterday I had a hankering for some Bear Wallow Cafe beef and veg soup. A friend was already in Morenci, the kickoff point for the Devil's Highway north bound and he has wanted to make the run since I got the Miata. Works for me: Top down at 0800 Morenci at 1100 Alpine a little after 1300. A big bowl of soup, some BSing and a little after 1400 we split, my friend going on to Pinetop to spend the night and I headed south back down 191.
A little about HWY 191 aka the Devil's Highway because at one time it was HWY 666, and is aka the Coronado Trail. by what ever name it is a motor sport treasure. HWY 191 runs from Douglas on the Mexican border up through Flaming Gorge Utah, Yellowstone, and on to Canada. This part from Morenci to Alpine is ninety-one miles of constant curves, everything from 1st gear peg draggers to 100 mph sweepers. in that ninety miles the elevation changes from about 3000' to 10,000' and back down to 8,000'. The road runs north/south along the AZ-NM border. Yesterday along with the usual vistas we saw beside the road a small heard of Elk, a good number of deer, a bunch of Big Horn Sheep, a gaggle of Wild Turkeys and maybe a 1/2 dozen cars total going in each direction.
Bottom line....It was good to take a break from the bench build, the Miata was a blast, just as much fun as the Wing, different but just as much fun and the time to run from Alpine to Morence was 1:50 almost to the minute what it would have taken on the Wing.
You got me wishing I had some of my grandmother's beef barley soup. I'm going to have to ask my sister to make some.
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