Hot Again - USA Four Corners Journal Day 25 -

I said goodbye to my cousins, Holly and Hans, and left Corona a little after 6:00 a.m. I’m very grateful to Hans for shipping my broken saddlebags home for me.

The day started out in June Gloom and cleared up after a couple of hours. Southbound traffic on I-15 was very congested and slow, but I encountered no problems going north. The temperature rose as I approached Barstow and was 104 degrees by mid-day.

Somewhere east of Barstow I noticed some riders pulled over on the shoulder. Since this was the middle of the desert, I decided to stop and see if they needed any help. It turned out one of the three had been stung by a bug on the forehead and needed to rest. They spoke with an accent, so I asked them where they were from. They were from South Africa. They had been on business in Las Vegas and planned an extra ten days to tour. They rented Harleys and had been to Yosemite and San Francisco, gone down the coast highway as far as San Diego, and were returning to Las Vegas. They had a great time. they appreciated I had stopped to help and swap stories.

The land is sand desert as you approach Nevada. Other “deserts” I had been through had some vegetation; this one did not as far as I could see. What I could detect, however, was the Nevada border. Just over the border is Jean, NV, a cluster of casinos, hotels, and convenience stores. I stopped for gas and to wet my cool vest. There were a couple of spigots at the edge of the parking lot.

While I was fussing with my gear a guy stopped to talk. He rides a Star motorcycle. He said the seat was pretty uncomfortable and that his butt hurt after 20 minutes. He said he didn’t want to pay $800 for a Corbin seat. I told him I was happy with my Mustang seat. I told him about my ride. Not to be outdone, he said in a year or two he planned to ride from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic by riding the perimeter of Central and South America. All I could say was, “Uh huh. That’s a challenging ride,” but I was thinking, “and you can’t ride your bike longer than 40 miles?!” He left and got into a huge motor home pulling a car.

In Las Vegas I stopped to take a picture of a new casino and to get gas. In the station

I was approached by a couple of ten-year-old boys who asked me for some money for their football team. They weren’t wearing jerseys, didn’t have any official material, didn’t even have a coffee can. I declined. One of them quickly called dibs on a black Mercedes. They asked the woman who got out the same question. She stalled them and went into the store. When she came back she gave them a few bills. After that the boys hung around trying to decide what to do next.

I followed I-15 north through the Virgin River Gorge to St. George, UT

I continued on a couple of red roads east to Kanab, UT and stopped for the night at my mark, Page, AZ. Page was built in 1957 as part of the project that built Glen Canyon Dam and Lake Powell. It’s a very nice self-contained town built on the top of a hill. I rode around the residential area and saw modest ranch homes on small lots. Several people were out riding bicycles for the evening.