Leisurely Saturday Ride

Last Saturday I took a little ride with Tuyen and my dad.  We headed south towards Nogales and then east through the towns of Patagonia and Sonoita.  I've posted the map before so I'll skip it this time.  The weather has been amazingly perfect the last few weeks, 70's and 80's with little to no wind.  Really nice riding weather.  We met Tuyen at a nearby gas station.

Tuyen as he was pulling in.

The masked speed racer has arrived!

Without my wife along, acting as photographer, no action shots from the road were possible:(.  We pulled over at a roadside shrine just before entering the town of Patagonia.  I had seen this pullout the last time we rode through this area and wanted to make sure I got to read the sign this time around.

Looking down the road.  The fall foliage gave a bit of color to the ride.

Old Bonnie has been treating me well.  She just passed her two year birthday in October with almost 21K miles.  I'm on my third set of tires, Michelin Pilot Activ's. The original tires, Metzlers, were giving me about 8000 miles of use.  I'm running an experiment to see if the Michelin's last any longer.
The rear brake pads have been replaced.  And I'm due for my second valve job in another 3000 miles.  I'll probably have the brake fluid replaced at that time.  The only maintenance I perform myself are the oil changes, every 5000 miles.  And I oil the chain every ~300 miles or so.

As I mentioned there was a little shrine in a rock face here and a road side sign.  We headed over to check it out.

I swear, anytime there is historical monument we should set up a large block of wood nearby that states "any morons who feel the need to shoot something please shoot this instead of our signs."

Tuyen headed farther up to check out the shrine.  I don't think it was related to the signage.

Ahh look at that.  A quick internet search and I found the name of this shrine. 

Telles Grotto Shrine – This roadside shrine was carved into a shallow cliffside niche in the late 1940’s. During World War II, the Juan Telles family had five sons in military service. Mrs. Telles vowed that if all five of her sons returned home safely from the war, she would construct a shrine devoted to the family’s patron saint. The existence of this shrine represents the return of all five of the Telles sons and their mother’s subsequent expression of gratitude. Once the shrine was completed, Juan and Juanita Telles kept candles burning in it for many years. The family is now gone, but faithful members of the community continue to light the candles. A small parking lot and a short series of steps lead up to the shrine on State Route 82 about three miles southwest of Patagonia on the east side near milepost 16. (Source)

After heading down the road we reached Patagonia.  We pulled into into our normal parking area and quickly had two other motorcyclist come up and start asking my dad about his Explorer.  They were a couple of locals that did a lot of off-roading and hadn't seen this new Triumph in the wild before.

 Looking for a place for lunch we wandered over to check out their bikes.  I believe his was a R1200GS.

 And the other fellow was riding a nice looking KTM 950 Adventure.

About this time Tuyen was starving, and needed to get some food.  Unfortunately every restaurant nearby was full due to a town art show going on.  Luckily a nice old lady saw us wandering around and mentioned a Saloon across town that should have some room for us.  We said our thanks and headed over.  Welcome to the Wagon Wheel Saloon.

We knew we were at the right place with a number of other bikes out front.

We quickly grabbed a table and in no time had some hamburgers and soda's.

Final shot enjoying our food and staring outside at our bikes.

Unfortunately this was the last photo of the day.  From here we headed on to Sonoita where we gas'd up and headed back to Tucson.  Another fine day of riding in the southwest.  Sorry I didn't take more photos.  I've got a few ideas for this weekend.  I'm hoping to have some better shots soon.  Take care.