Farmington

Departing from the motel we cruised through downtown Winslow past yesterdays photo shoot of  "Standing on the corner" and maybe a couple miles down the road stopped for breakfast. Usually we always find a crowd around our bikes when we return and engage in some good conversation. Fuel up at the Flying J and we r set to knock off our 300 miles for the day. Greg and I are able to focus on the job and know how to knock em off, peel off the 1st 100 and we are a 1/3rd of the way there. While 300 miles might not sound like much to some, we are riding all secondary back roads with some being very limited in maintenance and on vintage bikes. We also decided for this trip to not take a GPS so all of our travels are by paper map, old school baby.
Riding through the reservation is magical upon an Indian and the Indians absolutely love our bikes. It mazes me how many of them ride motorcycles and know and respect Indian motorcycles. One native saw our Indian at the breakfast stop and decided to come in and chat about his 1970's Indian dirt bike.
At Crown Point we had to search hard to find gas. We found a UPS driver who pointed us in the right direction. Out here it is not normal logic to find a place to eat or get gas easily. The last time I was through todays ride was 10 years ago and a lot has changed. Some shopping centers have sprung up as well as the odd new gas station which is actually on the highway and not down some dirt road. Power lines now cross the landscape. Schools, wow many many nice new schools now exist. I liked it better before, no power lines, no commercialization, just Indians and the countryside and me imagining the buffalo roaming the land in years past. It's harsh country and not much grows here at all. Even the odd chunk of grass or more like tusock struggles. The Indians have it hard. It's not like they were given prime land to do something with, it's just so baron and harsh and impossible to make a living off.
Cruising down the roads we have to pay attention as the animals roam free out here and we had to stop several times. Sheep blend in with the clumps of bushes on the road side which can be interesting. We also stopped for goats, horses, cattle, hawks, snakes (didn't stop for them), etc, all part of the reservation experience. I did give my love the the girls (sheep) along the way as it's the Kiwi thing to do.
Roads today were certainly on the lesser maintained list with several miles over some earth that continues to move. It's very active ground so putting down new smooth pavement would be lost in a short amount of time.
I like the 1940-45 Chiefs for their great handling and nice ride. It's the best of all the Indians blended into 1 bike. The spring frame gives a comfy ride while the leaf spring front end gives a nice ride, quick and precise handling which is handy with these hazards. 18" wheels is also key to its great handling. It's also an awesome off road bike should I ever end up going for a wild ride off road!!!
Both bikes ran flawlessly. Up until today we were both pulling in about 40 mpg but for some reason I was pushing upwards of 45-48 mpg even up hills and in 30+ mph side and headwinds. The high mpg occurred all day long even at the 8,000 ft elevations we were running at. Maybe it's the Joe Gibbs Driven Racing synthetic 50wt oil in it. I really like this oil. Another nice side benefit of this oil is when it is very cold out in the morning the bike is still easy to kick over. If it were conventional 50wt petroleum oil it would be like molasis and hard to kick over. I'm just in awe at the mpg. The speedo on this bike is spot on for speed and mileage and I"ve checked it against the mile markers just to double check.
Farmington is set amoung all the dirt hills with dirt and dust blowing in the winds. We'll be glad to be out of here. Mind you we settled on a motel pretty quickly as a huge storm was just up ahead of us ready to dump it's load. Man it was black and nasty looking. About 40 miles back we experienced some big drops so we fitted ourrselves with our riding gear. It was the 1st test for it so it it was nice to know it will fit over all of our riding gear. While checking in at the motel we had to convince the motel clerk to keep it under the small entry way roof which took an act of god. We explained to her that our bikes weren't Harleys and that the big poobah at the pentagon wouldn't want to know the Coast Guard bike got hail damage on her shift. It worked.
Greg and I both like to get up early and get rolling. I like to take pics along the way and have learned to do a lot of them while rolling down the road at speed. I even got some cool video of the bike rolling down the road, wheels turning and with the speedometer in view. Just gotta figure out how to upload it, help anyone??? Left hand throttle makes the picture taking so much easier as my right hand remains free to use the camera easily. Greg gets a bit panicie when he's behind and I'm taking pics or riding with no hands so he led the 2nd half of the day which left me free to goof off behind him, riding with no hands which did get a bit tricky with sudden cross winds but since there isn't anything else going on out here I might as well goof off. A properly built Indian will have perfect balance with the rider leaning a tad to the left to make the bike move left and likewise to the right which this one does. Dam we did good. I'm lovin' it a lot.
Fri morning we will be at Brass Balls Bobbers in Olahoma City to do an oil change and say hi to Dar and see his Navy bike build.
We plan to leave here tomorrow fully suited up for the stormy weather.