Heading through Texas we stopped for the night at an old western town called Alpine, the name should have told us, this place was at high altitude & cold, we arrived in lovely sunshine but by nightfall it was freezing.This old hotel ( Holland Hotel ) was refurbished in 1997  &  re-opened by its present owner, lovely place ‘BUT’ 

  This Southern Pacific Train was heading our way, we passed it on the road into Alpine. During the night this big guy let us know he was coming through & the line was only 100 yards from the hotel.

  They probably use the excuse that this train cargo was criticle! for war in the East !!

  Riding along & suddenly Steve hits the brakes, “i’m home” he shouts..Steve this is America they don’t spell or write like us, we use full stops!! lets carry on..

  It must be my town Steve shouts, ” they even name the bank after me”!!

  We left Arizona & entered into New Mexico, the weather was cold but lovely & clear, we stopped in this small mountain town for lunch.

  New Mexico flashed by, lovely roads & views but soon we were in Texas, we got to the first big town El Paso, we stayed the night & left the following morning heading East towards San Antonio, we found out days later that 16 people were gunned down & killed just round the corner from the hotel in a drug related battle..

  We left Bisbee & went to the old cowboy town called Tombstone, famed for the famous ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’.

 Each day the gunfight is replayed to, as it was on this day a packed audience. 

  The gunfight was what most people associate Tombstone with but it was also the setting for a lot of old western movies.

  We left Tombstone & headed south to a town called Douglas which is right on the Mexican border, it was like a ghost town, so much so Steve went a little pale!!

  The only hotel in Douglas was the Gadsden Hotel which was in its day very grand, this lobby has been used in many movies &  the TV series.   

   We left Tucson heading for Tombstone when we bumped into these two  Harley guys, after chatting for a while they suggested going to Bisbee which is only about 20 miles from Tombstone & has much better facilities. Thanks guys. 

  Bisbee is a small town surrounded by mountains & was once a thriving copper mining town, this ‘The Inn At Castle Rock’ a very old wooden hotel run by an Australian.  

  This is Wayne & Debbie who were babysitting the hotel why Wayne’s dad was back in Australia on business, some holiday for these guys!

  Wayne’s dad also purchased a 99 acre plot of land, included in the sale was a pile of old part dismantled motorcycles. After a chat with Wayne he took us down there for a look, Phil was was in heaven & quickly spotted a from mudguard for his 1976 GS750 Suzuki he is rebuilding at home, out came the spanners & it now sits proud on the pillion seat of the BMW.

  This picture is of the natural well that is in the centre of the hotel, the building was built around it by the local Mayor.

  Wayne & Debbie looked after us even giving us the two seats as close to the log fire as we could get, it was wet & freezing cold outside.

  After spending the day being cowboys the next day we went to fly a few planes!! 

  Out of all the planes out there we still had this Harrier Jump Jet down as one of our favorites. 

  The museum is set on 75 acres & is the third biggest air museum in the States, we spent all day there & could have stayed longer.

  After following Steve on the bike for this long he is pretty safe, not sure I would be going on this flight with him though! 

This reminded me of Warrens sort of flying

  Our first day in Tucson we headed for the Old Tucson Studios where all the old western movies were made, looks like a new sheriff is in town!

  Remember this TV series, Uncle Buck, Blue Boy & the others had left town.. 

  The old film scenes & the equipment used in them were there to walk around, you could just imagine John Wayne walking round the corner. 

  Steve has found a new hobby, forget the guns he wants to start shooting movies!

  It was nice to be back on the bikes & out in the countryside, just look at the views, like this in every direction & vast open spaces. 

  Time for another photo stop, behind is one of the straight counry highways that go for ever!

  See what we mean, no trouble spotting onward coming traffic!

  What a great feeling eventually geeting at the bikes, no sign of any damage but a few bits missing, Phils bug & Steve’s lucky Shamrock. 

  Getting the bikes out of the crates was the easy bit, getting them out of the warehouse was not so easy, to get over the 4 foot drop in the loading bay we had to lower them down on the lorry ramp with very little room..Once we had them down off we went through LA in the pouring rain, the following day we had the bikes serviced & new tyres at Irv Seaver BMW in Orange County.

  We set off from the Grand Canyon heading back to Los Angeles, as we headed south the weather started to turn, you can see the storm clouds gathering on the mountains ahead. 

  We stopped for the night hoping that the weather would clear, this truck is what we should have when the weather gets bad.. 

  This was our first view of the Grand Canyon, taken at sun set from the Cowboy ranch.

  This warning sign was not for pussy cats, guess these ere a little bigger!! 

  You can see on this photo the snow on the rim of the canyon, it was cold this day and we had no sunshine..

  This is maybe what them big cats were looking for, not sure he read the warning sign he was quite happy walking along the road watching the cars go by.

  Looking down into the canyon, you can see the Colarado River running through the middle.

  Lovely quiet roads, apart from the cold weather this is probably the best time to visit, guess it would get busy in the summer months.