The first day of the 2023 Southwest Adventure has begun. The goal is to travel to San Ysidro, CA which is the southwest corner of the lower 48 which will make the third of the 4 corners that I’ve ridden to on my motorcycle to. I did Madawaska, Maine in August 2021 and Blaine, Washington in September 2022.
Bill, who I’ve ridden with on numerous day rides, is part of this expedition, riding his Victory, and our plan is to get to Hwy 191 and take it most of the way to southern border. The departure date was sort of loose and we decided on Wednesday the 17th as good as any.
I spent a couple days before getting stuff together although most everything I needed I already had from past rides. I replenished my backpacker meals with a trip to REI but made up a big batch of “overnight oatmeal” to take care of breakfasts.
Tuesday afternoon was about gathering everything together and doing a preliminary packing to be completed on Wednesday morning. Our departure time was set for 7am and when Bill showed up there was a bit of rain falling. Only a bit.
I was almost ready to go.
We hit the road at 7:09 and only had a few sprinkles before it cleared up. We rode the usual get-out-of-town route, following Rimrock Road west and weaving our way through some back roads to the town of Laurel. From there it was a quick ride to Rockvale on Hwy 212 where we turned south on Hwy 310 which took us through Fromberg, Bridger, and Belfry before crossing the state line into Wyoming. The first stop was in Cody for gas.
There was a scenic point along the way.
After we passed through Thermopolis, we rode the Wind River Canyon which was awesome for motorcycling. It was a curvy road along the river with rocky cliffs on each side.
We then continued south to Riverton, WY where we stopped for lunch and gas.
The next leg took us over South Pass which reminded me of being on top of the Beartooth Mountains though not as curvy, but steep and it put us way above the tree line. After a bit we saw a threatening cloud up ahead and pulled over get our rain gear on. That was a guarantee that we wouldn’t hit any rain, and we didn’t.
Somewhere I took a couple photos.
Down the west side of the mountains we arrived in Farson, WY. About all that was there was a gas station and convenience store where I stopped for beer. The only singles they had was crap beer so I bought a 6-pack of a really nice IPA from Snake River Brewing.
The campground I picked was about 10 miles north of Farson. We rode there and turned down a dirt rode that wasn’t too bad, mostly. There were a few sections were it got pretty rocky but we continued on and found the lakeside campground empty. We quickly selected a prime spot and set up out tents as another storm cloud came in from the west.
About the time we were all set up and had taken a closer look at the lake, the wind came up and so did the rain. There was a picnic shelter nearby so we took our seats and beer there and watched the storm blow across the lake.
Once the weather calmed own we fired up our stoves, boiled water, and had some dinner.
Cell service here is marginal so I am writing this offline to be posted later.
A 371.8 mile day.
A note: I brought my dashcam but the mount for the bike is a kludge and I don’t get very good video but I can grab some still images. Here’s a sampling.
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