It’s a lovely balmy evening and we are relaxing with a glass of bourbon and cola outside our room in a mediocre motel in the small town of Meadview. Meadview is a rather inconsequential collection of residences, a rundown shop and filling station, a club for ex-military and a rather strange but very friendly bar known as Fisherman’s Landings. There is no view of Lake Mead as the name suggests but a skyline of mountains illuminated by the setting sun is idyllic. Our neighbour and the only other occupant of the motel pulls to a halt beside our Road King in his huge four by four. We exchange the usual pleasantries and we tell him of our plans to visit the Skywalk the next day.
“Not on that you won’t” he warns “There is about 15 miles of dirt track to get there and your Harley-Davidson is not suitable”. He advises us to ride back the 40 miles to Dolan Springs and leave the bike there while we take advantage of the tour buses which are laid on. He then tries unsuccessfully to entice the attractive but rather scatter-brained motel manageress to join him for a drink and we retire to watch an hour of American entertainment on the antique TV in our room. We are reminded how we used to cope without modern aids such as remotes, as the valves take their time to warm up.
Although I’m a bit nervous about taking a fully laden Harley touring motorcycle complete with pillion passenger off-piste and directly contravening the rental agreement, there is no way I’m going to pass up a chance for this small but adventurous diversion…
This article was first published in Issue 7 of OVERLAND magazine.