FJRBandit
Well-known member
Well, I guess its up to me to get this down on paper, errr, at least on the forum for posterity… Anyway, Mfletch and I had big plans this year to take our V-stroms to Alaska. You know what they say about the best laid plans… so instead of making it to Alaska this year we decided to set our sights on Ground Zero. Not the more recently infamous Ground Zero in downtown Manhattan, but the original Ground Zero made famous by a little bomb blast that resulted from the Manhattan Project.
Only twice a year does Big Brother allow us to visit this place in the Jornada del Muerto, translated from Spanish to English this means Journey of Death, or further described in Wikipedia as "route of the dead man". This was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto Desert basin, and the particularly dry 100-mile stretch of a route through it on the trail that led northward from central Spanish colonial New Spain, present-day Mexico, to the farthest reaches of the viceroyalty in northern Nuevo México Province. The route later became El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
It is a rather appropriate name for the place where the Worlds first atomic bomb was exploded in the remotest of the remote parts of central New Mexico. Come the first Saturday of April and the first Saturday of October, the White Sands Missile Range holds an Open House for those of us that want to travel to the place that was chosen primarily due to its vast remoteness. What else are you suppose to do with an FJR?
So, what initially started as a, pardon the pun, rocket ride to the New Mexican desert to see a stack of rocks in the middle of nowhere, became a full blown 4,000 mile journey over the course of seven days. Yes, the math does equate to near IBA numbers at an average of 570 miles per day.
It soon became a journey in which we experienced all four seasons with all of natures fury over the course of those seven short days. As youll see in the photos below, our travels would take us through eight states where we experienced everything from blasting heat to tornadoes to three feet of snow and then more heat and then more storms. To avoid further delay, lets begin with our journey to the Jornada del Muerto.....
Starting out on Monday morning Mfletch and I had decided to meet in Greenville, MS. Here I am making the final preparations for take off.
Just 8 miles east of Greenville, Mississippi in a little town called Leland, Mississippi deep in the Heart of the Mississippi Delta I made my first stop...
Then it was time to climb back on the steel horse I ride and head on to meet Mfletch down the road in Greenville...
As we crossed the Mighty Mississippi River (that's just back water in the background, the actual river is MUCH larger) Mfletch began to show off his photography skills...
As we came into somewhere Arkansas we approached this...
We had a nice dinner of soft tacos while we waited this one out then pressed on to Arkadelphia, AR for the night.
The next day the real fun began and we soon found out we had to ....
This was in Oklahoma only about 80 miles north of Dallas when the big storms were throwing tractor trailers around down there. Of course, we were oblivious to that information at the time as we were trying to dodge our own funnel clouds, as noted in the action self portrait below.
Although we never found the pot of gold, we did ultimately find this place....
Where we had this...
and stayed right next door...
The next day we were off to Taos, New Mexico and ultimately Durango Colorado for the night. I'll leave you with this for now....
Only twice a year does Big Brother allow us to visit this place in the Jornada del Muerto, translated from Spanish to English this means Journey of Death, or further described in Wikipedia as "route of the dead man". This was the name given by the Spanish conquistadors to the Jornada del Muerto Desert basin, and the particularly dry 100-mile stretch of a route through it on the trail that led northward from central Spanish colonial New Spain, present-day Mexico, to the farthest reaches of the viceroyalty in northern Nuevo México Province. The route later became El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
It is a rather appropriate name for the place where the Worlds first atomic bomb was exploded in the remotest of the remote parts of central New Mexico. Come the first Saturday of April and the first Saturday of October, the White Sands Missile Range holds an Open House for those of us that want to travel to the place that was chosen primarily due to its vast remoteness. What else are you suppose to do with an FJR?
So, what initially started as a, pardon the pun, rocket ride to the New Mexican desert to see a stack of rocks in the middle of nowhere, became a full blown 4,000 mile journey over the course of seven days. Yes, the math does equate to near IBA numbers at an average of 570 miles per day.
It soon became a journey in which we experienced all four seasons with all of natures fury over the course of those seven short days. As youll see in the photos below, our travels would take us through eight states where we experienced everything from blasting heat to tornadoes to three feet of snow and then more heat and then more storms. To avoid further delay, lets begin with our journey to the Jornada del Muerto.....
Starting out on Monday morning Mfletch and I had decided to meet in Greenville, MS. Here I am making the final preparations for take off.
Just 8 miles east of Greenville, Mississippi in a little town called Leland, Mississippi deep in the Heart of the Mississippi Delta I made my first stop...
Then it was time to climb back on the steel horse I ride and head on to meet Mfletch down the road in Greenville...
As we crossed the Mighty Mississippi River (that's just back water in the background, the actual river is MUCH larger) Mfletch began to show off his photography skills...
As we came into somewhere Arkansas we approached this...
We had a nice dinner of soft tacos while we waited this one out then pressed on to Arkadelphia, AR for the night.
The next day the real fun began and we soon found out we had to ....
This was in Oklahoma only about 80 miles north of Dallas when the big storms were throwing tractor trailers around down there. Of course, we were oblivious to that information at the time as we were trying to dodge our own funnel clouds, as noted in the action self portrait below.
Although we never found the pot of gold, we did ultimately find this place....
Where we had this...
and stayed right next door...
The next day we were off to Taos, New Mexico and ultimately Durango Colorado for the night. I'll leave you with this for now....
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