Featured Touring 3,113 Miles Across The American West - With A Nip Of Sturgis Mixed In

"One and done" doesn't seem to be working for me (or hubby, Steve, and friend, Russell) when it comes to riding to Sturgis. Barely back from our 2024 Sturgis trip last year, we were already planning for 2025. That said, this year's Sturgis trip was more of an expansive tour of the American West than a Sturgis Rally fest. And a glorious tour it was! In twelve days of riding we rode 3,113 miles through eight states, 17 national forests, three national parks, and visited the Little Bighorn Battlefield. And all along the way we had more adventures than I can count.



This year Steve, Russell, and I were joined by another rider, Patrick, and his Prius-driving girlfriend, Roseanne. Patrick and Roseanne joined us for our Sturgis 2023 trip, too, but that's the year that the rally got more rain than had occurred for the last 25 years. And we got evacuated from our hotel a day early which shorted our trip by a full day. So Patrick was bound and determined to ride his bike right down Main Street in Sturgis this time around. Here's the crew. Hmmm, we ain't gettin' any younger.



Day #1: Tucson, Arizona to Cameron, Arizona / Navajo Nation
Total Miles: 326



We hit the road at 7:00AM to beautiful COOL temperatures which is saying a lot for late July in the Sonoran Desert. Many of the roads were wet and the skies magnificent but we didn't get rained on at all. Clearly, though, we'd just missed a storm rolling through in a number of places on the days route. Temperatures most of the day were in the 70sºF which was wonderful since we'd been experiencing daytime highs well over 100ºF. Actually well over 110ºF!

The ride north to the Cameron Trading Post was one we're quite familiar with and runs mostly through desert and mountains with some small towns sprinkled in. Our only snafu was riding through Flagstaff, Arizona, home of Northern Arizona State, when we took a wrong turn and had to stop and figure out what went awry. We didn't count it as "getting lost". That would not be the best way to begin a 13 day motorcycle trip.

It was pretty quiet when we pulled into the trading post and for a very tragic and sad reason. The Cameron Trading Post has a hotel along with the restaurant, store, and gallery, and it has become a starting point for many tourists bound for the Grand Canyon. Well, not even a week prior, not one but two forest fires broke out nearby, one right on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I'll get into more detail later as it did affect our route and air quality tomorrow. But the fires had clearly had an effect on business here which the clerk confirmed when I checked us into our hotel room.



One of the things I really wanted to do was spend time in the gallery which was closed the last time we stayed here. I thought I only had half an hour or so to look around but forgot about the time change. Arizona doesn't go on Daylight Savings time but the Navajo Nation does. So I thought I would have to make a quick buzz through. But it turns out that the Cameron Trading Post differs from the rest of the Navajo Nation when it comes to what time it is and follows the rest of Arizona. So I have an hour and a half rather than just a measly half an hour!



The gallery is filled to the brim with beautiful Navajo art of all kinds including antique pieces and collections. It's quite large. This photo just gives a sense of what the different rooms are like.



I stepped out to make a phone call (work-related...ugh) and when I returned, Steve was looking at these chief blankets and speaking with a young Navajo man who introduced himself as Jeffrey John.The chief blankets they were looking at were rare antiques from the 1800s and priced at.....$180,000!






Jeffrey was a delightful young man and Steve and I spent the next half hour or so talking with him. Thank goodness for that "extra" time! He works at the gallery and shared his story with us. Presently Jeff honing his silversmithing skills. That bolo tie and the rings and bracelet he's wearing are all his creations.



Jeff's teacher and mentor is Lyndon Tsosie, a well-known and multi-award winning Navajo artist who lives in Gallup, New Mexico. Here are Lyndon Tsosie and Jeffrey John together. This photo is from Jeff's Instagram page. When we arrived home and received our monthly issue of New Mexico Magazine, we were delighted to see an article about Lyndon Tsosie!



Day #1 continued in my next post.....

 

Day #1 continued

Here's another of Jeff's pieces. Jeff explained to us that he works using a silversmithing style called tufa stone casting. Stones themselves are carved and then the silver is somehow poured over the design on the rock. This photo truly doesn't do his work justice. It's gorgeous and I'll probably connect with Jeff at some point to purchase a piece for both Steve and myself.



Jeff's full name is Jeffrey Jim John and he showed us his "signature" that he uses on the pieces he makes. Those are three j's on the bottom of the piece--tall, skinny j's!



Jeff also told us that he was going to be in a prestigious competition for the first time at the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial which was happening only about two weeks from when we talked with him. We wished him well and said we'd follow him on Instagram and--hopefully!--see him in Cameron again one day soon. This is from Jeff's Instagram page.



The gallery closed up around 5:00pm and our group planned to meet up in the restaurant at 6:00pm. I'd been dreaming all day (and even before that!) about their Green Chili Pork Stew and the accompanying fry bread. I absolutely love this meal and have it every time we are in Cameron. I used to come here for work some years back because my school district partnered with the Tuba City, AZ school district on the reservation.

YUM!!! BTW, I douse my fry bread with honey. I think I used about five or six packets.



Russell has taken to getting milkshakes regularly when we travel. So I decided I'll try to snap a pic of him with his shake each time he orders one. This one was prickly pear vanilla. And that's a Navajo taco he's eating with the shake.



Here's a photo of the dining room. It's a beautiful space with amazing Navajo weavings hung on every wall. There's a great stone fireplace, too. NOT burning in the summer, however. The windows on the back wall look out at a canyon through which the Little Colorado River flows--if there was any water in it which there currently is not.



Back near the canyon after dinner



Here's another photo of that suspension bridge in the background of the pic with Steve and me. The bridge is no longer in use and is nearly 100 years old. The "regular" road, U.S. 89, runs parallel to the bridge. Here's some info on this bridge compliments of Wikipedia.

The bridge formerly carried U.S. Route 89, but was replaced by a newer deck truss bridge in 1959. Built in 1911, it has an overall length of 680 feet (210 m) and a main span of 660 feet (200 m). The bridge was built by the Midland Bridge Company of Kansas City for the Office of Indian Affairs and the Indian Irrigation Service. W. H. Code of the Midland Bridge Company was the designer. The suspension design was chosen to address the steep-walled canyon at the crossing, which required a single span with no temporary falsework. When built, the Cameron bridge was the longest suspension span west of the Mississippi River.



The front of the trading post as nightfall approached



The Cameron Trading Post is a true gem in Arizona and the Navajo Nation.



Stay tuned for Day #2, Cameron, Arizona to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah!

 

That shop looks great, @Bikerman. Thanks for the tip. I'll make a note to myself in my calendar for next year to check it out if we get to Rapid City. Actually, it'll be good "excuse" to make it over to Rapid City. We haven't been there in the last couple years.

 

It definitely was a cracking tour, @Pegscraper! I'm sitting here about to put together and post Day #2.

I love the West. When we arrived home, I was thinking about what really stood out about our trip as a whole and it was this. The American West is magnificent and filled with grandeur. It is vast and varied and beautiful. And it makes me feel very small--but in a very good way. I'm so blessed to be able to experience it from the seat of a motorcycle.

 

Day #2: Cameron, Arizona / Navajo Nation to Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah
Total Miles: 268

We woke up our second day on the road all very excited because our destination today was Bryce Canyon National Park. Some of you on this forum may remember what happened the last time we made an attempt to see Bryce for the first time. If not, you can check out all the "fun" here.

https://www.thetriumphforum.com/threads/our-4-day-utah-trip-2-days-of-adventure-and-3-days-of-misadventure.41496/

But long story short, we were a mere half dozen or so miles from the entrance and got skunked out of seeing the park because of a motorcycle issue (mine). Not this time!!

Some of you may also have heard about the massive fire on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon that's going on right now. It's incredibly tragic. That fire, called the Dragon Bravo Fire, and another called the White Sage Fire were less than a week old when we began this trip. Our plan had been to ride from Cameron Trading Post to Bryce via 89A, a smaller offshoot of U.S. 89 which stretches all the way to the Canadian border. However, the White Sage fire had two areas where the fire was burning right across 89A so we knew going in that we'd be chasing our original route plan.

Here's a map of our actual route for Day #2.



This shows the fires relative to our original route and our "detour".



I just today checked and on a site I found prior to our trip that's called fireweatheravalanche.org, info on the Dragon Bravo fire was most recently updated five hours ago. As of right now, the fire is only 62% contained, and burned just under 145,000 acres, and the estimated costs are listed at $84,000,000. The White Sage Fire is the one that rerouted us but we definitely experienced the smoke and haziness of the Dragon Bravo Fire as we rode up U.S. 89 to Page, Arizona.

Getting ready to rock and roll.....



Here's Roseanne, Patrick's girlfriend and "sag wagon", also getting ready to rock and roll. Well, maybe jitterbug since she's in a Prius. But she did put a Harley-Davidson sticker on her bumper!



The further north we rode on U.S. 89, the more hazy the sky became. The wind was blowing from SW to NE, exactly the direction to bring the Dragon Bravo fire smoke our way. When we got to the base of a climb towards the town of Page, traffic came to a standstill. Road work. The first of quite a lot we'd encounter on our trip. This one, however, turned out to be our longest wait...and it wasn't too bad at that. About 20 minutes give or take. The road was down to one lane with a pilot car in use to shepherd the moving lane along.



After a short bathroom break in Page (which I'd needed even before we stopped for road work!), we turned west towards the town of Kanab and the little wide spot in the road known as Mt. Carmel Junction where we were all eager to eat pie at the Thunderbird Cafe!

But, this turned out to be our second "detour" of the day. Today was a Wednesday and the Thunderbird is closed on Tuesday and, yep, Wednesday. We resorted to a fast food chicken place half a block away. Oh well, good excuse to go back!



Note the caption on the above photo. Russell, Steve, and I laughed the whole trip about how most of the time when we stopped somewhere we'd look over and see Patrick with his head buried either in his motorcycle tour pack or the trunk of the Prius!

The remainer of the ride to Bryce Canyon was uneventful--and beautiful! When we arrived in Bryce Canyon City around 2:00pm, we headed straight for the park entrance rather than check in to our hotel first. That turned out to be a good choice because the park was practically empty! Especially when considered against what everyone who'd been there in the summer had told us. That the traffic would be backed up and stop-and-go for miles. Nope! However, by the time we were leaving the park around 4:30-5:00pm there was a very long line of cars waiting to get in.

Interestingly, the road inside Bryce Canyon is an out-and-back, not a loop or series of loops like many national parks I've been to. You can't see the canyon and all of its hoodoos from the road, so there are named pull-outs along the road. The turnaround, called Rainbow Point, is the main area to stop, walk around, and see the canyon from different areas. The road to Rainbow Point climbs up to an altitude of 9,115 ft.



It was so quiet when we were there that we all got parking RIF, as Steve calls it. Right In Front.







Day #2 continued in my next post

 

Day #2 continued

Screenshot from the official Bryce Canyon National Park website


Thank you, Wikipedia
Bryce Canyon National Park is a national park of the United States located in southwestern Utah. The major feature of the park is Bryce Canyon, which despite its name, is not a canyon but a collection of giant natural amphitheaters along the eastern side of the Paunsaugunt Plateau. Bryce is distinctive due to geological structures called hoodoos, formed by frost weathering and stream erosion of the river and lake bed sedimentary rock. The red, orange, and white colors of the rocks provide spectacular views for park visitors. Bryce Canyon National Park is much smaller and sits at a much higher elevation than nearby Zion National Park. The rim at Bryce varies from 8,000 to 9,000 feet (2,400 to 2,700 m).

The Bryce Canyon area was settled by Mormon pioneers in the 1850s and was named after Ebenezer Bryce, who homesteaded in the area in 1874.The area was originally designated as a national monument by President Warren G. Harding in 1923 and was redesignated as a national park by Congress in 1928. The park covers 35,835 acres (55.992 sq mi; 14,502 ha; 145.02 km2) and receives substantially fewer visitors than Zion National Park (nearly 4.3 million in 2016) or Grand Canyon National Park (almost 6 million in 2016), largely due to Bryce's more remote location. In 2023, Bryce Canyon received 2,461,269 visitors.

Steve and I really had no idea quite what to expect when we walked up to the edge of the canyon. Russell told us one of the things he was most looking forward to seeing (having been there several times) was the look on our faces when we saw Bryce Canyon for the first time. It was mind blowing!
I truly have never seen anything like it. I was as awestruck as when I first saw the Grand Canyon, but in a very different way. And, as many say, photos definitely do NOT do Bryce justice.

My first peek over the rail



We're finally seeing Bryce Canyon together!





On the way down from Rainbow Point we stopped a several of the pull-outs that Patrick recommended. These next three photos were taken at Natural Bridge, the one that I found most unique and memorable.







Meanwhile, back at the ranch....

I'd made reservations for us sight unseen at a Best Western Hotel called Historic Ruby's Inn. Ruby's turned out to nearly be a destination it and of itself. What started many years ago as Ruben (Ruby) and Minnie Syrett hosting friends in a single lodge has become a large hotel with pretty much every amenity you could wish for. I have a whole "newspaper" that explains how Ruby and Minnie got their start in the late 1800's to where Ruby's Inn is today. Here's a snippet of that history for those of you who enjoy the back story of people, places, and things.

From www.rubysinn.com
In 1916, Reuben C. (Ruby) Syrett brought his family to the wilds of Southern Utah, establishing a ranch near the present site of Ruby's Inn. A few weeks after his arrival, another nearby rancher told Ruby of the canyon called Bryce. Ruby and his family made a Sunday visit to the canyon rim. They were so impressed by what they saw that they not only took full advantage to tell people of the canyon's beauties, but they also became hosts to its visitors. By 1919 they had obtained permission from the state to build a lodge, the "Tourist Rest", near the brink of the canyon. In 1923, when Bryce Canyon became a National Monument, Ruby moved his "Tourist Rest", to the location of his ranch and named it Ruby's Inn. The Post Office established services at the inn and still serves the area throughout the year. Ruby's reputation grew as the National Monument grew to a National Park, and soon Ruby's Inn became a large business operation. What started with tent houses and a place to serve meals, paved the way for the modern facilities which today serve the tourists at Bryce Canyon, providing all the traveler needs to make a stay in the Bryce Canyon area a trip to remember. Enthusiasm and love for the Bryce area carried over to Ruby's son Carl. Today the same western hospitality and friendly service is carried on by Carl's children and grandchildren, who cheerfully welcome you to Ruby's Inn.

And just a few pics from Ruby's



The lobby entry



The Western gallery



Additionally, there are multiple restaurants, a general store, a post office, a grocery store, and numerous separate buildings that comprise the hotel. You can also rent bicycles, ATV's, and other outdoor gear. I told Steve that if you had a family you could just use Ruby's as your base for a week-long vacation! Many people go to Bryce to hike and there are many mapped hikes available throughout the park.

Stayed tuned for Day #3: Bryce Canyon to Logan, Utah

P.S. I have a new job that's kicking my butt--started the day after we got back to Tucson. I work Tu-Wed-Th so will do my best to post again before Friday. We shall see. Hopefully I'll settle in to the new job soon. If you're enjoying our trip via this thread, please hang in there with me!

 

And RIF is right where Steve winds up getting to park so regularly (whether his be his truck or motorcycle) that it's uncanny, @Markus! Just luck?! Maybe...

 

@joe mc donald
Thank you for your complementary and kind words, Joe. As I've said before on the forum, part of why I like posting ride reports is because I get to relive the trip and solidify great memories. Plus I really enjoy sharing road trip reports on the forum, so I'm glad that you and others find them enjoyable to read. I also find myself curious about things we see and experience along the way so it's fun to do a bit of research upon returning home and then those tidbits in my reports, too--the Cameron suspension bridge is a good example of that.

Stay tuned! I'll probably need to post this report a bit sporadically because of my new job and some other things on Steve's and my calendar. But I promise I'll report on the whole trip!