Flagstaff Days, Monte Vista Nights
Last weekend was the second ‘ride and rally’ event of the summer. It was made special by the fact that it was Katherine’s first long ride since her accident. I would not have forced her to ride again had she not wanted to…although I would have been sad about losing my best riding buddy.
When a friend asked "Are you really going to do that again?" she simply replied, "It’s what we do."
We decided to avoid the interstates and do blue highways from Tucson to Flag, hence practicing what I call LSD touring: Long Slow Distances. We added miles going the round-about way, of course, and stretched a five hour trip to eight hours, but what we gave up in time we earned back in the pleasure of the scenery and the sheer delight in the sensations of riding.
We were often passed by cars and SUVs exceeding the limits by fifteen or twenty miles an hour. We pulled to the side and waved them around. The result of just pooking along was that we got fantastic gas mileage. (For example on the way home, from Payson to Tucson, a distance of about 170 miles, Katherine’s BMW F650cs got 77 miles to the gallon. Admitted: Largely down hill some of the way.)
We never exceeded the speed limits…55 mph, mostly…and we stopped every hour to drink water and stretch. Even though the bike is doing all the work you can dehydrate very easily on a motorcycle. The wind simply wicks it out of you. Katherine was wearing a "camel back" with a liter and a half capacity, which she managed to suck dry on each leg of the trip.
We started in low desert and temperatures around 100 and it wasn’t until we got to Payson, in Arizona’s rim country that the temperatures moderated.
In Flagstaff we stayed at a restored (well, sort of) hotel called the Monte Vista.
I like restored hotels and often stay at them. I’m attracted by the grandeur of their lobbies, but to be perfectly honest I would prefer stay in a modern motel, where I can park the bikes right outside the door to my room and don’t have to carry luggage up flights of stairs and down hallways.
The plan was for all the folks in our motorcycle club to stay at the Monte Vista, which would keep us together for social activities and within walking distance of the watering holes of "Historic Downtown Flagstaff." The hotel lobby was nicely restored and the rooms, for those of us who were lucky enough to score what we had actually reserved, were comfortable but the reservation system was so badly screwed up that most of our folks ended in motels scattered along Route 66.
But we got our room and that put us only a four flight walk down to the bar. ..and a Drag Show scheduled for 8 PM that evening. It was "Pride in The Pines" weekend.
Flagstaff Days, Monte Vista Nights II
We had quite an elegant room, somewhat fancier than what you see here.
Its main feature was a king-sized bed mounded high with ornate bolsters, cushions and four extra pillows. The bolsters were covered with a purple brocade, which matched the thirty pound purple bedspread.
In order to get down to usable layers of this bed all the decorative upholstery had to be piled on the floor around the television stand at the foot of the bed. Stretched out on the bed this mountain of comfort rose like some mountain peak into your field of view and seemed the new perch for the TV set.
The hotel was built in 1926 and in those days not every room had a private bath. Happily, ours did. The square footage of our bathroom was less that that of our bed. I know because I measured it. The shower stall in one corner of the bathroom had no light of any kind so that when you stepped into the shower and drew the shower curtain closed you were standing in nearly complete darkness. There was plenty of warm water, though, if you gave it a minute, turned it full on, and didn’t run the cold.
We were not there to watch TV, which was a good thing. A small sheet of scratch paper lying in front of the screen bore the following set of handwritten instructions.
- Push TV Button
- Press and hold Mute and Power button at same time for 2 seconds.
- Press #4 button 3 times
- Continually press Power button` while remote searches until TV goes off.
- When TV goes off press TV button
- Should work
The ceiling fan worked. The ‘Noisy Little Air Conditioner Who Could’ worked. One of the two windows actually opened…sans screen…and gave you a fourth story view of East Flagstaff. The fresh air was nice but an open window invited in the bleating horns of diesel engines as trains rolled through town so it didn’t remain open long.
One train in the night is romantic. Trains all night long are not.
The Monte Vista has one old, small, elevator. A sign in the cabin asks passengers to be kind to it and respect its age. Early Sunday morning, after a ragged night sleep, I left the room in search of coffee. There was a sign on the elevator door that said something like the following:
Hi! I’m your friend the elevator. I’m not feeling well this morning,
so I’m taking a rest. I hope this doesn’t make you feel bad. My friends
the stairs said they would help. Please see them.
An electrical outage in the night had blackened about a quarter of the downtown area.
When the electricity came back on the power surge had damaged something in the elevator’s aging nervous system .
…….to be continued
