Sedona to Las Vegas
There are very few product names that people are prepared to have tattooed on themselves. You don't see many people emblazoned with Marmite or Sony. But thousands of sane people, especially in America, are prepared to walk around with 'Harley-Davidson' drilled in various colours into their arm.
This is not surprising: there are very few brands in the world that evoke such images as Harley-Davidson does. You think of open roads, of the journey itself being the fun, of freedom, and of America.
Today we raced a huge freight train in Arizona alongside the old Route 66, and when we passed him, the driver blasted his whistle - that wonderful, mournful sound. Ridiculously, this was one of the sublime moments of the trip. We were there.
We did not consider any other bike for this trip because to do so would have been to miss the point. And our Road Kings have been great fun. These bikes are made for transcontinental journeys on big American roads: the roar when you start them up, the rock-solid ride at 70mph, the comfort of the seat, the feeling that the road is rolling into your front wheel, as if you were playing one of those video games where you are static and the scenery rushes past you. In a car you are cut off from the outside world. On a Harley you feel a part of it.
Route 66 in Arizona was a long, lonely road. All the traffic has moved onto the Interstate, so 66 passes through dying towns kept alive only by the 66 nostalgia trip - fading motels with wonderful neon signs and junk shops masquerading as museums of what once was the main migration road from Chicago to LA.
Seligman has a couple of good souvenir shops and a cafe run by two brothers, Angel and Juan Delgadillo, who have been there for over 40 years. Old cars sit outside, including a brightly coloured Chevy festooned with plastic flowers and a Christmas tree. Go figure.
Juan, who runs the cafe, plays jokes on his customers. The doors say push instead of pull, the sign says "Sorry, we are open", and the mustard bottles spew out yellow string rather than the real thing. As you can tell, there's not much else to do around these parts.
A few miles down the road we visited the Grand Canyon Caverns - largely for the chance to get out of the heat. Although they are 60 miles as the crow flies from the Canyon, these caves, 300ft below ground, are linked by vents in the rock. There used to be many more attractions along 66. This one hangs on, while others have gone.
If we thought the trip had been on the hot side, it was nothing compared to the 90-mile afternoon ride through the Mojave desert to Las Vegas. The temperature was 44C and the glare intense. We had to stop frequently to drink water. This would not have been a good ride on any bike, tattooed or not.
We were baked, and happy to upgrade from the usual motel to the opulence of the Four Seasons Hotel, the only one on Las Vegas Boulevard - the Strip - without a casino. But if you are desperate there is an entrance into the Madalay Bay casino next door.
Poolside at the Four Seasons, they give you cucumber slices for your eyes, and an inquiry about Evian does not refer to whether or not you would like to drink some but whether or not you would like to be sprayed with it.
Las Vegas, Nevada to Santa Barbara, California
Today, to borrow the words of Jack Kerouac, we and our Harleys just ran out of road. There had been 4026 miles of it on our circuitous route from Huntington Station, Long Island to Santa Monica, California. You reach the Pacific and finally you have to turn left or right.
After two nights in Vegas - where, fittingly, we visited the Art of the Motorcycle exhibition at the Guggenheim - there was a 6am start to get through the desert before it heated up again. We had a lovely drive on a deserted road over the San Bernadino mountains, where Los Angelinos go skiing, before abruptly coming off the hills to find ourselves, in LA.
Hours later, having crawled through the traffic and got lost several times, we reached the coast, tired and bothered. But it was exhilarating to feel the cool breeze off the ocean: the first time in nearly three weeks where the wind brought relief (although having slept in the same room as Dr John during that time I can say that wind has bought relief in other ways).
John has asked me to mention that I have caught up with him in the faffing stakes. I concede some ground but not all. Had he not picked up my bike keys (they are used for locking, not for starting the ignition) they would still be lying at the side of the road in Barstow, Arizona. During our trip I have lost, and refound (after taking off gloves and emptying rucksacks and saddle bags) the keys, the mobile, and countless ear-plugs and pens. I have lost, for good, one hand of a new pair of fingerless gloves I bought to cut down on the faffing and countless ear-plugs and pens.
So it's 1-1.
And now we are in Santa Barbara, or more precisely, Montecito, a plush beachside suburb where, as they say, there is a lot of money. My friend Brian, an Englishman running an antique shop here, says that the new stars live in Hollywoood because the work is there, those who wait for the call live in nearby Malibu and those who do not have to bother with waiting for the call live here, 90 miles north. Oprah was in his shop recently, and nearby residents include John Cleese, Kirk Douglas and Steve Martin. Just like Muswell Hill really: our views are pretty special, too.
