Western tour to the Overland Expo

Here is a quick entry about a trip I took this spring.
For a few years now I have wanted to go to the Overland Expo out in Arizona, but it just never worked out for whatever reason.  This year I bought a KTM 990R from a buddy of mine, and rode it around a few weeks, did some maintenance on it and took off for Arizona.

The first day on the road took me from Wisconsin to Iowa for a quick stop at a friends dealership in Iowa City, and then into Missouri.

Photo by Jeff Simpson / Sun & Fun Motorsports

I made it to Rolla Missouri and while looking for a place to eat, I noticed a cheap dive motel, and some dark clouds and called it a day. The motel was pretty sketchy and I was actually a little surprised to see the bike outside in the morning.

The next morning I got the bike packed up and hit the road, and went through the rest of Missouri, and into Oklahoma, with a short wrong turn into Kansas due to the GPS trying to avoid toll roads. I turned that off and hopped on the toll road and went all the way across Oklahoma and into Texas.

The day ended while riding into Amarillo Texas and noticing a KOA campground not too far off the highway.  I wanted to camp out in the boonies, but convenience and a warm meal won out, so I shelled out the money for a KOA.

The following morning I was itching to get into the heart of the west, and so far I haven't been making as many miles as I was hoping. The first day was around 600 miles, the second ended up being around 700, and today would also end up being 700.  I left Amarillo, into New Mexico and through Albuquerque where my Garmin Zumo GPS decided to take its last breath.  Luckily I had some maps loaded on my Garmin 60CSX which I was going to use for off road sections.

Towards the end of the day I finally rolled into Flagstaff and made a quick stop for gas and camping food and head down into Oak Creek Canyon towards Sedona.  While it was mid-week, many of the campgrounds were full.  I didn't mind riding up and down the canyon looking for a site, and I was really close to calling it quits and doing some guerrilla camping on the canyon rim when I found an empty site in the canyon.

The next morning I wandered around Oak Creek Canyon and Sedona, then I picked up more supplies and headed towards Mormon Lake campground, where the Overland Expo was being held.

When I arrived at the Expo, I found out that what I was told about signing up for the whole weekend "Experience package" couldn't be done on-site, only online ahead of time.  I guess I understand that they need to know how many people are coming to the workshops, but I was also quite bummed as that what one of the main reasons I wanted to go. With my work schedule, I couldn't say for sure if I'd be able to take the trip or not and didn't want to get hosed out of all of that money if I couldn't go, so instead I got hosed a different way.  Such is life..

 Above you will see my campsite, pretty nice huh?  Well this was the second issue I had.  Once I paid my entry fee for the weekend, I was told all bikes park down on the other end of the grounds.  When I got to the other end, I was told I couldn't camp there because it was only for those that had signed up for the Rawhyde package.  I found a lady with a radio and she called in and they said "go camp anywhere in those trees". WRONG!  Turns out I picked a vendor site, luckily for me, nobody claimed it so I didn't have to move and ended up with a nice shady site.

Some of the bikes in the Motorcycle village.

While walking around the grounds, I was really impressed with all of the wild, well traveled rigs!

Earthroamer!

Some of the Rawhyde bikes

This vehicle is 50 state legal, wouldn't that be fun!

Since I call my site Lone Wolf Expeditions, it was cool to meet the folks from Wolf Bike Defenders, a group that is trying to help save the Mexican Grey Wolf.

It was really cool to see these folks, Terry, Sandy and Jack from the Adventure Trio.  Such a cool family and so full of energy and positive vibes, really good bunch there, living the dream.

http://adventuretrio.com/

 Their new BMW's ready for the next big trip, check out their site, its awfully impressive!

It was a lot of fun walking around and seeing all of the cool rigs, and to meet some really interesting people.  I got to meet a few people that I have been following in the media and through Facebook.  The Overland and ADV communities are actually quite small, so it was a lot of fun talking to these interesting folks.

Some of the highlights were:

Shaking hands of the legend, Ted Simon of Jupiter's Travels, http://jupitalia.com/

Talking to Terry Borden of the Adventure Trio http://adventuretrio.com/

Meeting film maker Sterling Noren from Noren films, http://www.norenfilms.com/

I finally got to talk to Ben Slavin, author and traveler. http://www.motorcyclemexico.com/about/ 

Harold from Giant Loop Luggage  http://giantloopmoto.com/

Rob from ADV Pulse, which I met through a crash he did on his 990, which has lead to a writing gig for his site! http://www.advpulse.com/

And the Outdoor X4 magazine crew!   http://www.outdoorx4.com/land/

Bill and Susan Dragoo, a great couple from Oklahoma that do some great writing and photos of their travels.  http://www.outlookoklahoma.com/archives/m.blog/27/adventure-travelers

And so many others... It was crazy, so many cool, influential well traveled people in one location.

After part of the day Thursday and all day Friday at the Overland Expo, I was a bit worn out and ready to hit the road.  Saturday morning I packed up the bike and headed north...

To be continued.