Wickenburg AZ - Trip Home

What a PERFECT day we had, riding from Las Vegas down to Wickenburg, AZ where we planned to spend one night. We took US 93 down and it was an absolutely amazing ride. The scenery was constantly changing from mountains to rocks to Lake Mead to Joshua Tree forests to cactus of every variety and size....never ending! Unfortunately, no photos were taken because we were on two bikes and trying to make time.

We pulled into the Best Western in Wickenburg before dark but tired. While looking at the map for routing, we realized our good friend Nick and Terry Russell were not too far up the road from us in Cottonwood, AZ. We hadn't seen them since last winter in Arizona and shot off an email to see if they were available for lunch the next day. They were and we started to figure out the logistics of visiting them.

Long story short, we ended up extending one night here in Wickenburg. It made the most sense - we didn't have to rush our visit with them, we could take one bike (and no trailer) and last but not least, we had a bed to sleep in. Upon checking we were unable to find any hotels rooms that would have kept us on our proposed route.

So we enjoyed a nice breakfast and headed north to Cottonwood around ten. The ride was about 2 1/2 hours long and gorgeous (thank you Nick for the routing help), a good portion of it up hwy 89. Lots of motorcycles out riding and we enjoyed the quick run through Prescott. Only photo snapped was this adorably painted rock. LOL!



When we arrived at their motorhome we sat and talked for almost three hours before we all realized we hadn't had lunch yet and headed out in their car to a cute little 50's burger spot. Great food! We spent almost two more hours there. Of course this was expected, happens every time we get together.

Nick took a couple of good shots of us and we snagged a couple of them. Then Stu said CHEESE!

Relaxing in Las Vegas - Trip Home

We had four wonderful, relaxing yet productive days in Las Vegas. I continued to rest my ribs, making any trips out on the back of the Trike. We found a close Sam's Club and I picked up a nice HP Envy 14 Sleekbook that will replace my heavy laptop at home (which will go to Stu to replace his older laptop).

The only downside is that it came with Windows 8 - bit of a learning curve but after loading the free app, Classic Shell, things are going much more smoothly. I can now function in an environment similar to Windows 7. I'm still learning things and when we get home, there are a lot of apps that will need to be loaded as well as moving my data and cleaning the PC up for Stu.

Oh, wait. We were talking about Las Vegas, weren't we. Sorry, got a bit distracted. LOL! We didn't run the strip, been there and done that several times. But we did do a little local sightseeing, visiting two businesses that have TV shows we watch from time to time.

The first was Count's Kustoms where we got to tour some of Danny Koker's personal vehicle collection. Really nice stuff! Neither Danny nor Horny Mike (my favorite character on the show) were there, they were off at a show. The final stop was in the gift shop where we got a coffee mug for our collection.

From there it was a mere hop, skip and a jump over to Rick's Restorations. (I should note that BOTH businesses gave us priority parking for the motorcycle.) We could take photos outside and in the waiting area but not in the actual shop since some of the items in there hadn't even been seen by their owners. (Oh, and they were shooting the show while we were there.) The tour took us through the facility where we saw actual work being done. We got waves from Cowboy and Rick himself.

Back outside, Tyler and one of the other guys were getting supplies from a cargo container and we snapped a few shots. Tyler came over and offered to pose for photos so we snagged a good one of him with Stu.

From there we headed to the strip to grab some lunch at the Harley-Davidson Cafe. We'd been eating at the Tuscany in the casual restaurant up to this point. As always, the burgers were great, the beer was good and I even had a small shot of rum/melon/pineapple so we can snag a shot glass along with the beer glass. We have been there twice before but the overhead conveyor wasn't working. This time it was and we really enjoyed watching the motorcycles parade over our heads, in front of the amazing metal chain American flag display.

Our last night there we went to the movies and saw "Captain Phillips". We HIGHLY recommend it, EXCELLENT movie. We also recommend "Rush" which we saw last week...especially if you are into cars/racing. Both movies were based on true stories and thoroughly enjoyable.

We both felt refreshed and invigorated after spending four nights in our studio apartment style/size hotel room. We would definitely go back to the Tuscany again - wonderful service, amazing security, HUGE comfortable rooms, and tons of great amenities. Here are a few shots of the hotel, one of the cold front storm sky moving in and a fun little Vespa.