Florida to San Francisco - rt66 OK west

[pinkfluffybunny]

Just got back yesterday.

Florida to San Francisco and back.

Picked up Rt 66 in Tulsa, Ok and road as much of it as we could (without being stupid....lol).

Had a great time. heat wave the whole way - but worth it -

Have some pics here

[whitelocust02]

Very cool pictures!! Reminds me of when I was younger and we would travel from Riverside CA to Tennessee & back. Traveled similar roads. The indian gift shop with animals on the rocks is a cool sight isn't it?

How many miles, days, etc?

[pinkfluffybunny]

Our trip was 16 days - 6400 miles.

Learned a lot of lessons on this one.

We were expecting cooler weather and packed cool weather clothes, sent 30+ pounds of stuff back in San Francisco. Next time I’ll pack what I think I need and put half of it back.

Going west through Texas and Ok, we hit 35 mph cross winds with 45 gusts for a couple hundred miles. Then heading east we had 300 miles of 30 mph cross winds with 65 mph gusts. Wore out a set of tires, We found a Honda dealer in Memphis on the way back who said he’d never seen ties worn that way….lol.

My wife lost a face shield in the wind in Oklahoma and she had to ride with a clear shield. She had a Nitro helmet, made by Vega (picked it because it was light), and we tried every bike shop we could find and no luck on shields for it.

There were more dead deer along the roads to count, so we didn't travel early in the morning until after the sun came up until it got to hot.

There was no problem finding Harley dealers all across country, there are billboards all across country for them, but Japanese dealers were hard to come by (phone book time) , and when we did find them they carried mostly 4 wheelers, farming accessories, snow mobiles and dirt bike stuff.

Trying to stay on Route 66 was a job. If I did it again I would use 40 and get off to see the sights, since Rt. 66 parallels 40 most of the way and is less than 25 yards from the interstate. 40 has a lot more to see, it doesn’t dead end and there are actually gas stations along the road.
Service centers (truck stops) are great places to stop. They carry almost anything you will need.

We kept hearing “it’s a different kind of heat”, but it’s still the same sun, and it was 108 in Colorado when we were west of the Rockies.

Next time I will allow more time (we allowed ourselves 3 weeks), but because of the heat wave we decided to cut it short and head back. I would also leave in April instead of May /June. I would rather have some cold days than the triple digit heat most of the way.

Everyone we met was friendly; every biker we met had a story to share or advice on the route.

When we got to OK, we took the toll road to Tulsa and picked up Rt 66. Rt 66 through OK, was great, after Ok, it was hard staying on the old road, and the hotels and gas were hard to find.

A great little road to the Canyon from Flagstaff was 108 (a local recommended it). We couldn’t made reservations in the lodges at the Canyon because we didn’t know when we’d get there, so we stayed in the Canyon Village outside the park. The Canyon was truly impressive, I figured we’d get there and say, “Ok, we’ve seen it let’s go”, but it really is bigger and more majestic in person than the photos or video, so we stayed. The Meteor Crater, was smaller in person,,,,lol.

We were staying in Best Western, and Holiday Inn expresses at first, but you never knew what to expect from Best Western (one had a pool full of dirt and fly squatters in the room) but we didn’t have much of a choice in Vega Texas on Route 66 (96 degrees and 40 mph cross winds).

We tried Super 8’s and for the most part they were great and reasonable (we stayed away from the ones that were full of truck (too noisy and run down).

We decided to take 50 east back “the loneliest road in America”, there were some great sights to see on it, but there was also a whole lot of nothing but hot desert.

Next trip this long, I will plan for a month and cool weather.

[Loki]

Good report of your trip. Good captions on some of the photos. The photos were great. The way you took them reminded me of family vacation photos.

[MBE500]

Enjoyed the story and pics very much. The heat must have been brutal. Bill

[kevo]

Great trip, I'd like to do something like that (in reverse) to visit friends in FL. It must have been fun. Just have to pick one nit, the photo titled "Red woods", well, they're not.

[Ally House]

Nice post and pics. Brutal ride, tho. Sounds like it was a good time.