Camping and Couch Surfing in the Name of Laughlin

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.com

Motorcycle travel by definition is a fair-weather activity. You’re not going to do it when there is snow and ice on the ground. As a consequence, living as I do in Colorado, the trips I’ve taken have been in the summer months, when wind and rain are the only hassles you may have to deal with.

That made it all the more intriguing – and uncertain – when I made the decision to go to the Laughlin River Run in Laughlin, NV, this past week. It’s only April. I would be crossing the Rocky Mountains at a time of year when two-foot snowfalls are not uncommon.

Knowing that a spring storm the day before I planned to leave could upset all my plans, I remained uncommitted to the trip until less than a week before departure. By then the long-term forecast was available and it looked good. I actually started to think I really would be going. As the remaining days ticked by it became more and more real, until Sunday arrived and I loaded up the bike and donned my riding gear.

Ready to leave, I turned the key and pushed the starter button. My bike did not start. From the weakness of the cranking it was evident it was not going to start. Damn! So I quickly hooked up my trickle charger and found something else to do for something more than an hour. When I tried it again it did fire up, and I tucked my charger into the saddlebag in case I needed it again. This delay would prove to be a blessing in disguise.

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.comThe delay didn’t hurt on this first day because I was only going to my brother’s in Grand Junction, a mere four-hour ride away. The day was sunny and warm, the roads were clear, and it felt incredibly good to be on the road on the bike. In Grand Junction, I charged the battery overnight and all was fine when I was ready to leave.

The next day was just a matter of blasting across Utah on the interstate, and again it was a beautiful day. The interstate is not a preferred route but when you need to cover ground it is efficient. And again it was just so totally cool to be out on road trip on the bike. In April!

For my second night out I had a totally new experience to look forward to. Or feel very uncertain about. I recently discovered an organization called the Motorcycle Travel Network, which you can join and then either provide accommodations for motorcycle travelers coming to your area, or stay with other members in their homes when you’re in their area. I had joined a week earlier and found two members who lived along my route to and from Laughlin. One couple was not going to be home, but the other said yes, they would be glad to be my hosts in Cedar City, UT.

While the MTN bills itself as “The only bed and breakfast network for the traveling motorcycle enthusiast,” the closer I got to Cedar City the more it hit me that this was not going to be a B&B. At a B&B it is strictly a business operation and the hosts do their best to meet your needs but then get out of your way. I was going to be walking into the middle of some family’s life. I was nervous.

And what a family I walked in on! Three generations plus a foreign exchange student – nine in all. And it was one daughter’s birthday so everyone was going out to dinner, including me. Despite my initial trepidation, they made me welcome and I had a very enjoyable time. I felt a bit odd about the one son being evicted from his bedroom so I could use it but felt reassured when told that he would get a cut of the $10 I was to pay them to defray their expenses. This $10 payment is standard with the MTN.

© Ken Bingenheimer / RumBum.comThe next day it was on to Laughlin. Along the way I found the desert stunningly decked out in green, like nothing I’d ever seen before. In the past it had always been black and brown and grey. But I’d never been through the desert in April before.

In Laughlin, I had accommodations lined up for the five nights I would be there. Best laid plans doing what they do however, on the second day, finding other quarters was on the agenda. That’s a whole other story. But I did some camping, very much along the lines I described in the Roughing It On Two Wheels article that ran on Rum Bum, oddly enough, while all this was occurring.

What was also on the agenda was solving the problem of my motorcycle not wanting to start. Long story short, I ended up with a new battery, though not before the trickle charger I brought with me did some service.

With the rally over, I blasted across Arizona to Flagstaff on the interstate and then turned north on U.S. highways, making it all the way to Cortez, CO, in the Four Corners area. The ride included the obligatory stop in Seligman, AZ, for a milk shake at the funky little malt shop in this old Route 66 town.

Again, the weather could not have been better. And the nearer I got to Cortez the more I started seeing other motorcycle travelers. These folks were clearly not coming from the rally, they were just out on their trips through the Southwest. And it made so much sense. The OFMC has been to Laughlin before, most recently in 2007, and it was July and 115 degrees. You may not want to go to Yellowstone in April on a bike but if you’re headed for Arizona or Nevada, this really is the best time to do it.

I stayed at a cheap motel in Cortez (fabulous bed, incredibly skanky room) and rode on over Lizard Head Pass the next day, to reach my friend John’s place outside of Montrose. It got cold on Lizard Head but I had my electric vest and the road was clear. Then, heading home from John’s yesterday I crossed McClure Pass and hit the interstate, which crosses Vail Pass and goes under Loveland Pass through the Eisenhower Tunnel. Vail Pass and the tunnel were both cold but bearable and the weather continued to be the best I could have asked for. What a fabulous time I had doing a motorcycle trip in April! And now the forecast is for snow tomorrow.