Bisbee, baby!

A quick weekend road trip with Susie…1200 miles in 36 hours from here to Bisbee and back, in a roundabout sort of a rolling trip.   I had originally planned to take the Cyclone on this trip, but I came back from China with a wicked flu and I didn’t want to tempt fate with a long distance motorcycle ride in what could be questionable weather.   It was a good decision on many levels…it got down to 33 degrees the night we were in Bisbee, and the Corvette is a dynamite way to cover major miles in style.     Okay, so…on to the photos!

We rolled into Bisbee at about 8:00 p.m. on Friday, and after checking in to the Grand Bisbee Hotel (with real room keys, no less!), they pointed us to the Café Roka a few doors down.   It was awesome!

I was up early the next morning to grab a shot of the Lavender Pit, the area’s scenic open pit copper mine…

This was my third visit to Bisbee, and it was everything I remembered and more.   I first blew through Bisbee in ’92 on my old Softail (it was new back then) with my good buddy Dick Scott.   Dick and I both rode Harleys in those days, and we had some grand adventures together.

Bisbee is a cool little Arizona town, and the ride into it is awesome….

The town is motorcycle friendly, and it’s likely that this will be one of our CSC adventure tours within the next year.  All of the old hotels looked very cool, and every one had a bike or three parked out front…

We stayed at the Grand Bisbee Hotel.   It was fun.  It was the real old West, like I remembered from all the old movies and TV shows I watched as a kid.  The Grand Bisbee had a real saloon downstairs.   I woke up in the middle of the night and I was certain I could hear a piano playing “Buffalo Gal” but Susie told me I had been dreaming.

Bisbee is kind of an old hippy town.   Lots of cool folks and lots of guys my age with pony tails.   I remember George Carlin used to do a comedy routine about old guys with pony tails.   It was funny stuff.   Anyway, Susie and I were riding around town when I spotted this door.   I stopped the car, the owner was just leaving the building, and I asked if I could photograph the door.   His answer, of course, was yes…

Another cool photo…the counterculture is alive and well in Bisbee, and when I spotted this RV, I knew I needed a photo.   I sent it to my good buddy Robbie (he and I used to work together at Alfa, an RV manufacturer).   Robbie’s immediate comment was that we’d have to offer a 10-year warranty if we put this puppy into production…

And another photo op…a KLR done up in a military motif.    I like it.   I’m thinking about the Cyclone in a similar scheme.   Hmmm….

And that’s about it, folks.   One last shot blowing out of Bisbee on Arizona Highway 80, where we pulled over for a beauty shot of the mighty Z-06 against an Arizona sky…

The Vette is a nice touring car.   I’ve owned it for almost 12 years now and it’s still an exciting ride.  I imagine it’s what the Italians had in mind when they coined the term “Grand Touring” (or, as they would say, “Gran Turismo”).    The Z-06 is a bit noisy (Chevy removed most of the sound insulation to keep the weight down and the car’s gigondo tires make a lot of road noise), but it’s a comfortable ride.   We were doing 75 to 79 mph on cruise control for most of the trip, and even at those speeds, the Chevy averaged 25.3 mpg overall for the entire trip.    Good times.

That’s it for now.   More stuff on the Cyclone coming up, folks, so stay tuned!