| All throughout our tour of the park I never stopped sweating. The slow speed riding as we rode around the Village area, as well as the numerous stops while following Chris around made it worse. By then, I was ready to get the hell out of there and do some high speed cruising just to dry off. We did just that on Highway 89, the road east of the park, which lead down to Flagstaff. Again, Chris was in the lead and he was hauling the mail. We were passing many slow moving cars, which unfortunately were all bunched up in the only twisty section of Highway 64 as it hugged the Coconino Rim and descend back onto the Coconino Plateau. The same slow pokes we passed during the twisty section ended up passing us when we stopped for gas somewhere in the middle of nowhere. After our fill up we continued on down the road and had to re-pass the same cars again. Thankfully, when the 89 reached the plateau it became wide open sweepers and long straights. Chris was cruising at 100 to 120 mph or so with Marty behind him, then me and Mat. That�s when Chris once again went into his �emergency� stop mode every time he saw an Indian booth selling Native Indian wares. The first time he did it, just like the last time on the way to the Grand Canyon, I almost rear ended Marty�s XX! We did this until Chris satisfied his shopping appetite. The native Navajo Indians were selling hand made jewelry (no exotic rocks used), ornaments, and pots using age old techniques and materials. The workmanship was beautiful and the artisanship was like nothing I have ever seen before. Even though I didn�t appreciate the constant stopping along the way to shop, I was actually quite glad we did since it FORCED me to take a closer look at the artwork and craftsmanship of the Navajo, and I actually ended up buying some jewelry for my wife and daughter, which they really liked. So I have Chris to thank for that. However, like the ride up to the Grand Canyon, there were a few times I wanted to stop to take photographs of beautiful scenery but there was no way to signal Chris way up there leading the group in his ZX11. I finally took matters into my own hands and stopped and let the group go ahead while I took a few pictures. I eventually caught up to them but when I did they were fairly alarmed that one minute I was there, the next I was not. Thus, I didn�t do this stopping on my own thing afterwards. |
