Blatherings From The Editor

The Highways and Byways.   

Our network of highways and byways in the US is pretty awesome when compared to any other modern, industrialized country.  We are a car country and we demand lots and lots of roads to enjoy our motorcars and motorcycles.  Computer mapping programs advertise how many "millions of miles" of roadways their software covers.  It's hard to image a million of anything much less "millions of miles" of roads.

     The freeway is the way to go when you have a limited number of days (still putting in the 8 to 5, 5 days a week).  A bunch of miles goes by pretty fast when you keep a steady pace on the freeway.  Without too much trouble, Wanda and I can average 75-plus miles per hour for the first three hundred miles of the day.  An eight-hour day on the freeway will get you better than 500 miles down the road if you keep up the pace.  The plan here is to get there in a hurry; enjoy the time there; then get home in a hurry.  Beats you up a bit to be in that much of a hurry though.

     When there is time, the back roads and the byways are a lot less hectic and way more interesting than the freeway.  There's a lot of history off the main highway.  What you see to the side of most freeways in the Southwest doesn't give you an inkling of what you will find just a mile or two down a remote, two-lane road. Here you will find small, seemingly deserted towns that have amazing historic backgrounds.  Remember that the Southwest was the route for thousands of tough, Calistoga wagons heading west in the middle and late 1800's.  They left a lot of themselves both literally and figuratively along that trail.

     There are several books available about motorcycle riding on back roads with titles like "Traveling in the Southwest," or "Ghost Towns of the Old West."  Check out any good new or used bookstore and you'll find a couple of the more popular ones.  Recently I leafed through one such book and found several less traveled roads that I never knew about.  Check out Old Highway 80 that connects Interstate 8 and 10 at Gila Bend. The dirt road over the mountains between Douglas, AZ, past the Slaughter Ranch to Cloverdale, NM, is definitely on my list of roads to do.  Old Hwy 666 (now known as Hwy 191) up to Alpine is in every book on riding in the Southwest, as it should be.  It is one awesome road.

     Next time you're planning a trip, look for some of those obscure side roads.  If you are using a mapping program change your preferences so that you avoid freeways.  My program can plot a route from Sierra Vista to Flagstaff with absolutely no freeway.  The back roads take a bit longer but its time well spent.  Deryle and Wanda, always looking for new back roads.

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