Getting things in place
I was useless at work on Friday, so I knocked off early and headed for the house. I had all my gear ready and waiting in the front when John ('Tx Rider', prev 'Dyna Sport') arrived, and the 2 of us were ready to go by the time Scott pulled up at around 6:30 PM. The plan was to drive through the night, arriving in the Phoenix area by noon. We loaded the bikes after some last-minute trailer modifications and climbed into the truck. My eyes welled up as I watched my not-quite 3 year old son begin cry as he waived and said "bye-bye Daddy".
The night was so long, but strangley short... Make sense? As we began to enter the more familiar areas that I had once explored, I was struck by the odd feeling that I had never actually left; many things hadn’t changed, and memories came flooding back. Driving through Globe presented a rather surreal feeling, and once in Mesa I felt like I was home…
We arrived a little early and opted to find a motel before going to drop off the truck in Tempe. I had a place in mind that I had remembered seeing on Main street in Mesa; it was a c. 60's era motel that had a neon sign with a woman jumping from the top of the sign landing in a splash of water at the bottom... however, I wasn't married to the idea, so we chose to drive further to see if there was one that was closer to Walmart, as we still had some items to get for the ride. The idea was to find a ground-floor room that we could park the bikes near. We saw a few along the way, and John spotted one that appeared to be in decent condition just down the street from Wallyworld. The lobby was clean enough, and the rates were along the lines of the local Motel 6's, so we took 2 rooms. What was better was that the rooms had patio doors, and we were told that we could just park the bikes in the rooms...
We found the building with our rooms only to discover that the door latch into the building was broken, so after playing with it for a while, decided to just climb the rail into the staircase... after entering the dirty, smelly hall that led to our rooms, I had a bad feeling. That feeling was soon justified; the room was as dingy as the hall leading to it, with dirty, worn walls and floors. John and I made our way to the patio door, only to find it locked with a key that we didn't have... Scott’s door was luckily lock-free, but his room was in even worse condition than ours, complete with a picture hanging half-way out of its frame.
Let's see, disgusting rooms, inaccessible building... the idea of staying there seemed pretty ridiculous, so we headed for the office to check out... early. Of course the owner started making up policies and refused to refund, so John and Scott said they'd just settle it through the card companies, and we left.
We decided to head back to the diving girl place and see what it was like. As we pulled in, I noticed the well kept grounds, and I hopped out and entered the office. The rates were reasonable, so I asked to see the rooms. These rooms were actually very nice for such an old, privately owned motel, and we took them.
Next task was to drop off the truck and trailer in Tempe at Jim's house. I found Jim on Advrider and he was kind enough to let us park the truck and trailer in his back yard while we were away riding. Finding His house was easy, and once our bikes and gear were unloaded, we made our way to one of my favorite eateries, Rubio’s Baja Grill. I was disappointed to discover that they no longer have the delicious Lobster Burrito, but still enjoyed an excellent steak burrito and fish taco.
After stuffing ourselves with Rubio's goodness, the others headed back to the motel while I headed for my old 'hood north of town for a surprise visit to a friend. Unfortunately Drew wasn't home; his house-mate Pat said he was in Mexico, and wouldn't be home until Monday or Tuesday. While I was there, Pat showed me the supercharged Lexus V8 that he was getting ready to slip into an '06 Toyota Tacoma. Never a dull moment at Drew's house!
Hanging
out at
the motel…
