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Arizona Adventure, Part 4
After our day of hiking and sightseeing on Wednesday, we had arrangements to stay at the Holiday Inn Express in Scottsdale. Our original plan of returning the rental car on Wednesday night didn't work, but the good news was that Enterprise let us return the car to a location that was in the same area as the hotel and the motorcycle rental shop, and they didn't charge us anything extra to drop it off there instead.
The Holiday Inn Express was very nice, true to the brand. Our rate for the room was just under $90, and the location made it worth that. We were counting on getting directions to the rental company from the hotel staff, and this didn't work out so well. It turns out that there is another motorcycle place that is also in the same area, and they only knew about the other one. This was certainly not something that we could fault the staff for though, and overall they were very suitable.
By the time we figured everything out about finding the motorcycle place and getting rid of the car, it was about 9:30. We had first read about AZride.com (MC Tours LLC) in the USAirways magazine and were looking forward to our first motorcycle rental experience. In the end, we were disapointed with the company and would not rent from them again. If you are considering a trip to Phoenix and are thinking about renting from AZride.com / MC Tours LLC, you should click here to read some important information. Below you can see some pictures of the shop. We had reserved the Suzuki SV650 for Tabitha (the red one) and a DR650 for me (the black one).
After we got through with a mountain of paperwork and a few minutes of packing and rearranging, we were underway on our adventure. We had originally planned to ride back to Sedona via AZ Highway 87, and then spend the night in that area. We found 87 to be a nice road for getting out of town and getting used to the bikes. It was a divided 4-lane highway for as long as we were on it.
One minor drawback to motorcycling is that in order to take a picture of the passing scenery you have to stop and reconfigure. We tried to stop in each major climate that we passed through, starting with the desert near Phoenix, and ending up in the woods near Pine. We stopped in Payson for a pizza lunch that Tabitha had been craving.
Our next stop was at Montezuma's Castle near Camp Verde. It turns out that Montezuma's castle actually doesn't have anything to do with Montezuma. It is a cliff dwelling that was built by area natives, and vacated by the time Europeans found it. They wanted for it to have been Montezuma's, so they made it so by naming the site. The visitor's center had a few nice displays, and we enjoyed imagining a tribe of people trying to live in the valley below the cliff.
In the pictures below you can see some of the rooms of another living space close by. The black stone looks like some sort of grinding arrangement.
This picture is of a model that is on display on one of the paved walking trails in the valley.
I imagined that the people living in the cliff-side dwellings hopefully had more water in their creek then than there is now! It definitely would not be my first choice for a place to live with it being so hot and dry, but things have probably changed a lot and a drought would explain why they might just abandon their territory without any known cause. Once we were finished looking around at Montezuma's, we continued on to find out hotel for the night and to get some dinner.
We had originally planned to spend the night in Sedona, but since we were there on Wednesday night, we kind of had a "been there, done that" kind of feeling. Instead we went to Cottonwood, where we had researched hotels and found much better prices. The Super 8 isn't a hotel that we typically stay in, but this particular one had very good reviews and a rate of $70.26 with tax. Overall, we were pleased with Cottonwood. It was a little less glamorous than Sedona, but it served our purposes well.
We found a nice parking place for the bikes, we changed and then set out to see the sunset on a walk - eventually ending up at a fun place to eat! The sunset was very nice - especially because of the clouds in the sky to reflect the colors! One of the best sunsets I've seen in a while!
On our sunset walk we strolled through a neighborhood. We found a little snake that had been cooked in the sun. It sort of looked like a coral snake, but since the yellow bands weren't visible, we weren't able to tell. We had a good time looking at the houses and thinking about how different landscaping has to be in this part of the country.
The shadows were getting longer, as you can see in the last picture above.
Murphy's Cottonwood Grill in Cottonwood was very good, very fresh and very filling - perfect after a long day on the road. It's amazing the perspective change riding on the motorcycles - every now and then I would sigh - in a good way - releasing tension and thoughts and just enjoy and marvel at the fact that I can totally do this!
I can ride a motorcycle through Arizona and definitely manage traffic and speeds higher than 45 mph!
What an empowering feeling - like flying close to the ground! I enjoyed our time on the bikes, but also enjoyed the rest for my bottom to get off of them for a while!
The menu had a great selection, and we ended up with what you see for $25.55 out the door. Not a bad finish to a long day of riding.
We headed out from Cottonwood early the next morning to get a start on our ride back to PHX for our red-eye flight home that night. It still amazes me how much adventure can be packed into a short amount of time!
But definitely check out some of the pictures - can you tell we were having fun!?
Just outside of Cottonwood, we stopped at Tuzigoot National Monument park with a very extensive museum exhibit and more lizards.
From Tuzigoot, we could see the J on the hillside marking Jerome, where we stopped to visit the old highschool - filled now with galleries and artist studios, a small version of Asheville arts in a way - or at least an artist community, it was very nice to browse through for some mementos. We found a nice Raku pottery place and this is where we bought a small piece of art as a thank-you for our kitty-sitter! We also found a nice kitty sleeping in one of the art studios that allowed us to pet him and tell him how nice he is and how he makes us miss our kitties back home...
This is also where we were able to join the mile-high club - or at least eat at the mile high pub! A nice restaurant and a good place to cool off and enjoy our massive burger stuffed with goodies! Quite yummy and satisfying before our adventure continued, slightly modified!
We enjoyed eating lunch and taking every opportunity to refill TB's camelback with delicious cold restaurant water.
Earlier in the adventure - on our way out, Jared commented how the giant cacti were very true to the cartoons that we've seen them depicted in and he gave them voices to say "hooray for motorcycles!" "way to go!" as they wave their giant prickly arms and lift us up in good spirits for the ride out and the ride back in! I had to stop for a picture to show the massive size!
We also saw some more "meatball" bushes on the way back into town through the desert. I was glad for the sake of the extreme heat that we didn't continue on the longer route. We shortened it and added in some highway time to get us back within a reasonable time window.
Even with the shortened route, the heat during our final ride back in was quite miserable - we were stopping frequently just to alleviate some of the discomfort.
This is where Jared decided he needs a mesh jacket.
The cacti cheered us most of the way back to town and the meatballs helped keep me in good spirits on the highway as the wind gusts tried to push us through the lanes when added on top of the 70-80 mph speeds!
I am quite proud that we made it back without any major mishaps, and with great memories!
Unfortunately with the rental agency experience, we probably won't be renting motorcycles again any time soon - at least not from AZride.
I now understand why so many people haul their own motorcycles to the adventure!
The over-all adventure and experience to ride and raft in Arizona and to enjoy part of our pre-litter Hoorah was quite SPECTACULAR!
"YIPPEE, HOORAY for MOTORCYCLES!"
Good luck finding a wife that says that!
If you do find one, do whatever you have to do to keep her around.
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