Friday to Durango...just barely!

Friday morning dawned with the bluest skies, and the promise of a beautiful day. I slowly reassembled my luggage with all of my newly washed clothes, and figured out what little bit I could send back in a flat rate postal box to lighten my load. I'd shipped some hiking shoes out there, and sent those back, along with a short and long sleeved t-shirt, my disk lock, the yarn I'd bought, along with some ambitious knitting needles that never were used. I gave the bike a quick wash in the garage and loaded it up.

I wasn't expected in Durango for anything before supper, so my departure time was flexible enough that Adair and I went for breakfast downtown, sitting outside and watching magpies steal butter off the table next to us. I didn't leave until about 11:45 (and felt bad doing so, because Adair had locked her keys inside her vehicle...stink!) However, I didn't have any locksmithing skills, and I did have an appointment in Durango, so I had to leave. For the first half of the day, the bike seemed to run ok. Still a little on the wheezy side, but actually better than it had been when I'd taken it up to Glenwood Springs (before adding the fuel stuff).

The route I took went up to Carbondale, and over through Redstone on 133 to Delta and down to Montrose. There was everything from a mountain pass (McClure) to big open valleys, to rock faces along a river bank, to high desert scrub. In one part, the road was closed, and the directions of traffic were being diverted onto a gravel road to skirt the construction. The road was rough enough, I had to stand on my footpegs while riding across, and while doing so, I heard a clang against my gas tank, but wasn't sure what it was, until I got back on the main road and sat down. My EZ-Pass had been jounced off the velcro tabs holding it to the windshield, and there was no way I could have gone back to get it. Boo! (At least I'm not planning any trips that would need that any time soon.)

Once in Delta, I stopped to change from my black textile riding jacket to my white mesh jacket, and was very happy to have that option, because it was stinking hot going through there (and anyone who thinks dry heat is the way to go can kiss my toe.) A few miles down the road was Montrose, which is pretty much where the fun starts for the last 100 miles to Durango.

Well, the last 100 miles to Durango would be fun if your bike wasn't suddenly seized by a mysterious illness. While going through town, the bike started acting peculiar, with hardly any power unless I kept the rpm pretty high. I had to stop for gas anyway, and hoped resting it for a few minutes might help whatever kink was there to get out. Drank a bottle of water, put in the second half of the bottle of fuel treatment in the newly filled tank, and got back on the road. If there was any grade at all, the bike would start to slow down to the point I'd have to downshift a couple of gears and rev it up to get any kind of power. The elevation at Montrose is 5806, which shouldn't have been high enough to give my bike any problems, since it had gone up McClure Pass earlier (8763) without too much of a problem. I figured I'd push on until it wouldn't go any more, since there wasn't anything I could do to fix the problem, and just had to keep the bike in the 6,000 to 7,000 rpm range to go forward.

Once in Ouray, at 7792 feet up, I thought I might get a few dirty looks for violating their noise pollution ordinance, because even though I was only going 25-30 mph through town, you could hear the engine revs from several blocks away. After Ouray, the biggest and baddest mountain pass was yet to come, in the shape of Red Mountain Pass, with sheer cliffs along the outside lane of the highway. Almost like magic, a Subaru appeared in front of me. From Florida. Florida only has curves in entrance ramps to the interstates, so any curve that requires skill simply baffles a Florida driver. Which means they drive very slowly through anything with a mild bend, which tends to make it hard for me to keep my bike in the rpm range it needs to be. Rawr! What's even worse, they refuse to pull over into any of the 'slower traffic move right' lanes, and I can't get around them until a bonafide passing lane shows up on a fairly level stretch.

I finally pass them, and a nice open stretch shows up, where I can make some time, but then a gradual grade appears. I try to keep it revved enough to maintain my speed, but even with the throttle twisted completely open, I keep losing power. Downshift and throttle? Still losing. Downshift and downshift to first gear. I've got the throttle opened all the way up, and the bike has slowed to right about 30 mph, and I'm in a 45 or 50 mph zone. I was about to think I'd need to start looking for a place to pull over, when suddenly the bike acted like it had been kicked in the pants, and the speed started building until I was going 60 mph and still pulling. I upshifted some, but started losing power again. It ended up with me going through the pass in 1st gear at about 30 mph, running between 8k and 9k rpm. The bike starts the redline at 11k, and by the time I crested the pass, my temp gauge was creeping into the red (what a shock!)

Once I got over the hump, though, I was able to let gravity help out, and kept the bike more in the 6k range, in about 3rd gear. Even with that, though, the bike continued to surge and lunge, and it was wearing me slap out. When Silverton came into view, I saw someone on a dirt bike at a garage attached to a Conoco, and thought about stopping in there, but decided to try to push on. The next curve had the first grade starting up the next pass, and the bike was still fighting me. I though it might have had a clogged air filter, or gummed spark plugs to make it run so horribly, and when it was still bucking when I was trying the next hill, I pulled over into a parking area, and headed back down the hill to the Conoco.

I rode around to the back where the shop was, walked inside and told the guy I might need some help on my bike. To my dismay, he told me he didn't know the first thing about bikes, and wouldn't even know where to begin to look for anything. Hiawatha! It was 4:30 by then, and I had told Jo I'd be in Durango between 4:30 and 5:00. Not gonna happen. I was so tired at that point, almost to the point of shaking, and with the disappointment of him not being able to help, I had to fight tears for a couple of minutes. I took the seat off the bike to see if it looked hard to get to the air filter, since I knew the general area where it was. Yeah, it wasn't like in a car where you spin a wingnut and pop it out.

The Conoco guy did offer encouragement that the next pass wasn't nearly the climb that Red Mountain pass had been, and he also pointed out that the extreme heat of the day also caused the air density to be considerably less, so not only was the bike having to deal with less oxygen from altitude, it was getting a double whammy from the heat. He suggested if I wait until it got dark, and cooled, I'd probably make it ok. It was only another 50 minutes or so to Durango from there, so I decided to wait a few minutes to rest and gather my wits again, and just push on. At 5:00, I got back on the road, and was able to wrestle the bike up the pass. There's a nice view at the top, so I pulled off to get a shot, although the bike didn't much want to start back up once it was time to go.

Finally got it cranked, revved it up, and headed DOWN the mountain (hooray!). I still had to keep the revs up over 7.5k rpm in order to maintain speed, and when I finally got into the outskirts of Durango, I was so glad the ride was almost done. I decided if the bike was going to do that in the mountains, there was no way I was going to put him through that again, since I'm only half way done with my trip...still gotta get home, and thought it not prudent to flail the bike up the mountains again. Plus, it wasn't fun to have to ride it like that.

By the time I pulled into Jo's driveway, at 6,500 feet, the bike was running way worse than it had in Aspen at nearly 8,000 feet. There were already a dozen bikes lined up from other riders coming in from various neighboring (and not so neighboring) states. I was pretty disappointed about it, but went ahead and told Jo I couldn't ride the next day. She told me they had room for me in the 'chase vehicle' that would be following the bikes, so I'd still get to go on the run, just not on two wheels. Ah well, at least that would give me the opportunity to get some decent pictures while not having to deal with a cranky and finicky bike at altitude.

About 20 minutes after I arrived, the last two of the group showed up from Tucson, and we shortly headed out to dinner in town. It was pretty cool to finally get to meet the people behind the posts on the BBO website. Of the group, I could probably identify half of them by sight (pictures posted on the website), and the other half I knew by screen name only. There were bikes mixed all the way from a Ninja 250, to a KTM 950 SM, to a Honda Shadow ACE 750, to a BMW K1300S, to a Volusia.

On the website, I often read (or lurk) more than I post, and similarly, I try to listen more than I speak, so supper was interesting, sitting between someone who'd served in Iraq, and someone who'd gone through a snow shed too fast last year. I was tired, so I wasn't contributing too much, and still bummed about the non riding that would be going on. I was definitely thankful I'd made it that far, and trusting God to provide to get me home, even with the bike seeming in such horrible shape. I finally hit the rack around 11 Friday night, hoping my (inevitably tired) snoring didn't keep my two roommates up.

Aspen TImes - Day 2

This morning (Thursday) was a bit of an earlier start, since I wanted to be in Glenwood Springs shortly after 9 a.m., and it's a good 45 minute trip to get there. Breakfast consisted of some really tasty scones that were attacked viciously by the convection oven. They were rescued with a minimum of scorching on top, although the bottoms were somewhat carbon dated.

Adair followed me into Glenwood Springs in case the bike needed to be left at the shop for anything, but when the service guy came out to do an assessment, he said he didn't think anything was wrong with the bike other than the side effects of running in the thin air, and said I should get some fuel additive to help clean off any goo in the carbs or spark plugs, and just live with it until I get out of elevation, and things will improve. It was nice to hear they thought I just need $4 worth of fuel additive, and didn't try to stiff me for any crazy stuff I probably didn't need.

Since I was already that far down valley, Adair told me I had to ride through Glenwood Canyon on I-70, as it was a local attraction and an impressive trip, and we'd just meet back up at the house. I followed her advice and went through some rather spectacular scenery, following the Colorado River, heading through tunnels, and paralleling an old train track across the way. When I got to the far side of the canyon, I took an exit to get back onto 70 for the return trip, but decided to keep going on that exit for a while, because of the curvy roads that beckoned beyond.

That road was a fun one, and it was hard to finally have to make the decision to turn back around, but I knew we had plans for the afternoon, and I was going to be probably an hour and a half traveling to get back home. The bike did have some nice glamor shots on that side trip, though, and I'll probably have a new wallpaper at work as a result!

Back on 70, I didn't think I'd need to take any pictures since I took a boatload while east bound. However, the west bound road is elevated several feet above the east bound, so the views are completely different. Out came the camera to get a few (dozen) more shots. The trip back to Aspen was a little hampered due to road painting activities, but I finally got back home probably around 1:30 or so.

Downloaded some pictures, checked some email, and we headed out after a while to go see the local jewel...the Maroon Bells. We were hoping for blue skies, but the clouds decided it was their day. Still managed to get some good shots, however, before heading back home to enjoy a fire in the outdoor fireplace by the river. Annie called around 6:15, and we went to look for the bear again, but with no success. Hopefully he'll be back soon :) When we left Annie and her husband to go get supper, she gave me a great hug and smooch, wishing me a safe trip and great remainder of my vacation. Thanks, Annie!

Adair showed me the local 'fort' owned by a screenwriter at the end of the road (think Lincoln Logs on meth) before heading back to town for pizza and postcards. While there, I also posed with the local grizzly, and we came back up to the house by about 9:15. My laundry is drying right now (if not already finished) so I've yet to pack. Or write the post cards. Or finish enjoying my stay here! I'm looking forward to heading to Durango tomorrow where I'm billed as a 'Mystery Guest' for a BBO (Beginnerbikers.org) rally, but I'll miss being up here, for sure..Adair has been a wonderful and generous hostess and genuinely fun to spend time with. (Thanks again for the setup, Brian!)

Now for a few hours of sleep...

Aspen Times - Day 1

Mr. Crunchy sat in the garage Wednesday, while I got to honestly sleep in for the first (and probably last) time on this trip. Adair whipped up scrambled eggs, bacon and biscuits for breakfast, and then took me in to downtown Aspen to give me a mini guided tour. I ended up buying some alpaca yarn at one store, and talking knitting shop with the owner of the place, and then we meandered hither and yon.

Back in the SUV, and we headed up a side road or two (or twelve) to get some nice views of the town and the big ski mountains that flank them. Before heading back to the house, we indulged in a treat of an Oriental massage, and my shoulders were a rather knotted mess for that poor guy to try to mangle into shape.

Once back home, the two dogs Ginger and Jordan went for a bit of a trek outside. Jordan is a gentlemanly Golden Retriever, but Ginger is a chocolate lab who has her own set of rules for how things work, and likes to wander far and away. While Adair went out to track them down, I grabbed a few shots of the river behind the house, and a nice shot of the balcony off my room :) When I walked back around the house, I saw a petite lady being walked by a large English sheepdog, the pair of whom I recognized to be Adair's neighbor Annie (lady) and Emmylou (sheepdog). Annie gave me a very warm welcome, having heard of my exploits from Adair, and Emmylou thought I wasn't a bad egg, either. Annie had to get Emmylou back inside, but came over later for a short visit before joining her husband's son's family for supper.


After her visit, Adair and I loaded up the dogs and headed up to the end of Castle Creek road, past the ghost town of Ashcroft, and up a dirt road into some back country, where there were some fabulous shots. Coming back down the road was like riding a buckboard with a lopsided wheel...pretty rough stuff. Back down to the road where the house is, and we headed to the other end, where the trailhead for Conundrum Creek is, before circling around to go back to the house.

At the end of road, we did get a nice treat when Adair stopped the SUV to look at something on a hill across the river. I asked what she was looking at, and she said she was watching this dark shape to see if it moved, to see if it was an animal or a rock. She'd just started rolling again, when I saw it move and called out for her to look. She saw it and was all excited. I asked what it was, and she said it was a bear :) He was quite a ways off, and my stinking batteries died in the camera right after I took the first blurry shot, but it was a big ol' bear foraging for food, and he must have heard or seen us, because he kept looking over our way. After a few minutes, he lumbered up the hill and out of sight.

Adair was all atwitter about having seen the bear, and called Annie at supper to tell her about the find, and Annie was almost as excited, setting a date to go bear looking the next night. (We did go on Thursday, but Mr. Bear was a no show. Annie is sure he'll be back within a 3 day schedule, and has agreed to send me a picture if she gets one of him. Not a bad thing, since she's a photographer by trade :)

As a cherry on top, we went to eat supper at a bar surrounded by a trailer park! Of course, it was the Woody Creek Tavern, which is famous, not only for its authentic atmosphere, but for its occasionally famous visitors, and seriously good food. We didn't see any celebrities, but did have a good meal, and I even bought a t-shirt to go with the 'been there, done that.' Once home for the night, I did a (belated) blog entry, and hit the rack. The agenda for Thursday was to include a visit to the bike doctor to give Mr. Crunchy a checkup. This meant a 40 minute ride to get up to Glenwood Springs when the shop opened, so no sleeping in on Thursday...

Wow. Just........wow.

Pete and repeat, I'll be updating the exciting details tomorrow when my eyes aren't burning, but I'm in Aspen now. Listening to the river outside my window. Which calls me to sleep. Now.

6-3 update: Sleep still stalks me, but it's been a couple of days, and if I don't get it caught up now, it ain't gonna happen! Soo...


Tuesday morning, I woke up with the barest hint of dawn coming through the window. I didn't really want to get up, and when I finally could see the face of the clock on the wall, I saw it was 5:15 a.m. I laid there a few more minutes before Brock came out to start the coffee and Sharon joined in a few. We watched the news, drank some coffee, and I slowly started to pack. I had an ambitious schedule for the day and knew I needed to get on the road at a decent hour. Brock left for work a little before 7 (and got a hug!) and Sharon cooked me up a nice and strong mocha latte to go with some peanut butter toast as my morning fuel.

I finally rolled out of there right around 8 a.m. with bright blue skies (see the pic in the previous post...that was actually my morning departure). Pueblo is just over 100 miles south of Denver, and I was riding about 60 miles north of Denver before cutting cross country to head over to Estes Park. Even though it was a lot of miles, the roads were familiar, and the distance seemed like nothing. I stopped in Loveland to fill up before going through my canyon, and the bike was still not liking the air. Once it gets revved up above 3k rpm, it seems to even out, but before that, it's jumping like a three legged horse gallops.

The trip from Loveland to Estes Park goes through the Big Thompson Canyon, which is roughly 20 miles of a narrow, winding, twisting road that traces along the path of the Big Thompson River. Whenever we've gone out to Estes Park for vacation, I typically am the family driver, and I love going through the Big Thompson. I know the curves and camber of the canyon, and have long thought about getting to go through it on two wheels instead of four. Even though my plans changed for the trip to the point of canceling my overnight stay in Estes, I still had to make that trip up there, so I could ride the canyon.

There's always a danger of getting caught behind some driver who doesn't know how to handle curves, like say, a Florida native, and this time I had to deal with some slow traffic until the first passing zone, but it wasn't long to wait. I zipped past the pokeys, and had another clear run for a couple of miles before the next batch was in front of me. It wasn't half a mile before the next passing zone opened up, and I proceeded on my way again, unimpeded. A third time, I was behind a car, but literally, within seconds of catching up with him, the next passing lane opened up, and I had a clear ride until just before the canyon opened up to reveal Estes Park below, flanked by Longs Peak and Mt. Meeker to the left, Hallet's Peak and Flattop in the center, and the Twin Owls on the right, all of whom are old friends. It was 11:30 when I went past the bank in town and swung up to the bypass which raises up over town before swinging back through the touristy section.

My primary destination in Estes was Ed's Cantina for lunch, and it did not disappoint. The altitude was taking a bit of a toll, though, and my appetite could not do full justice to the fish tacos, with cilantro cole slaw, black beans and rice, but I made a pretty good effort. I finally broke down and bought a map, since I wasn't sure the roads I would be needing to get to Aspen that night. Before leaving, I strolled up the river to where the old Park Theatre Mall had been, seeing construction underway to replace the structure which burned down in October. I was sad to see a notice that my favorite pottery shop was dealt a death blow by the fire and would not be reopening.

Before leaving town, I got a posterity shot of the bike in front of Ed's and then headed out on Highway 7, which is a Scenic Byway, wrapping south alongside Long's and Meeker. From there, I jumped onto 72, heading through Nederland and then down to Central City and BlackHawk (major gambling towns), and taking a little jog on Highway 6 to get onto I-70 east. That stretch from Estes Park to I-70 took about and hour and a half to ride, going through ups, downs, twists, turns, sweeps and bends, and I managed to get 64 mpg through there. Not too shabby!


While most interstates are not the scenic routes to go, I-70 is an exception to the rule! The traffic was very manageable, and the views were incredible. I had to ride about 45 miles on 70 before getting off on 91, which would take me to 82, which eventually goes through downtown Aspen. Going up the grade on 70 towards the Eisenhower Tunnel, I was cranking along at about 55 mph with the bike in 6th gear and the throttle wide open. Once on the downward side, things picked up, but I was feeling those 500 cc's working hard on the way up. When the turnoff for 91 came, I followed a pickup truck through some fairly isolated terrain, passing frozen lakes, iced over gullies and barren trees. I stopped in Leadville and put on a few extra layers, since the best was yet to come!

Winding south from there, the turnoff for Highway 82 finally appeared on the right. There was a house near that t-intersection, with a little kid standing in the driveway. He waved at the biker lady when she went by and got a big wave in return :) I pulled over to take a couple of shots of Twin Lakes (liking the whole panoramic function on my camera), and when I headed out from there, never had another vehicle in front of me as I made my way up the pass.

Some lady must have her hair all a mess, because there were hairpins all on the road. Crunchy kept plugging away, curve after curve, after switchback, and finally crested the top of Independence Pass. I pulled over, next to a group of five Harleys at the top, and got the picture with the sign, surrounded by piles of snow. I took their group picture, and talked a bit with them while heading back over to the bikes before heading down. There were five of them...four of them were probably in their 40s and 50s, and most had rather, um, comfortable waistlines. The fifth rider? He looked to be in his 30s, and I must say, his leathers fit him very well. Tall, helmeted and handsome. Pitty, patty, pitty, pat! Sigh.

The bike didn't really want to start up there, but I finally got him going, lurching into 2nd gear before riding the roller coaster down the hill. Other than the Excursion from Louisiana who probably had problems driving in straight lines, much less curvy ones, it was a clear shot into town. The Harley guys followed, and Mr. Tall Dark was right behind me all the way to town. Once I rode through town and headed up Castle Creek road, though, I lost them, since they were staying in town, and I was just a little outside of town, near the Conundrum Creek trailhead.

My hostess for the next couple of nights, Adair, was in town for a book signing, and had told me to look for the bookstore on Main Street, because she'd probably still be there when I arrived. I looked for the store, but missed it, so I went on to the house. It was 6:15 when I got here, and since I didn't have any cell signal at the house, I unloaded my saddle bags and headed back into town to try to meet up. While I was riding back to town, Adair passed me on her way back to the house in a slight comedy of errors. At the bottom of the hill, I had a signal and called her, so she turned around and met me in the parking lot of the hospital where I'd pulled over.

Back up the mountain to the house we went, where I was very thankful to be off the bike after nearly 9 hours and approximately 450 miles of riding. It was definitely a wow day, though, from the unjammed traffic in Denver, to the clean canyon run, to the non raining weather, to the snow caps and ice fields, and lovely Aspen home. Total wow.

The Plans of Mice and Men...and Biker Babes

Did I say I was getting on the road early? Hmm. It's almost 8 now, which is an hour later than I'd wanted to be on the road, but I'm having to wait. For the thunderstorm. To quit.

Did I mention I was going cross country through Woodward, OK and Dodge City, KS? The forecast for severe weather has a big orange swath across the panhandle of OK, and the southwest corner of Kansas. Interesting thing is, there's a red blob in the middle of that orange, indicating strong winds and hail. Right in the middle of the red blob are the words 'Dodge City.' I believe I'll be staying the heck outta Dodge on this one.

I still need to go out and check the bike to see if the tank has any dings from last night's hail. We had a kicker storm around 11:15 that lasted almost an entire hour. At one point, I was thinking the bike might fall over in the wind. Thankfully, it didn't, although it wasn't for lack of the wind trying. I'll post a video in a bit, if I can. (edit - the video's too much of a pain to add. Use your imagination.)

I'm about to go dodge some rain drops now. See you on the flip side.

(and the side has finally flipped...)

Monday morning, I'd hoped to get a good breakfast at IHOP just down the road, but those plans were rained out, and I waited until there was a lull in the rain before going outside, wiping the seat of the bike down and riding it over under the portico by the lobby so I could load the bike out of the rain, if it decided to start up again. After lugging the luggage, I went in to the area where you get your 'Super Start' breakfast at the Super 8, which consisted of a donut, a piece of toast with cream cheese, some coffee and orange juice. Sugar, fat, caffeine and protein, and I was good to go. I put all my rain gear on again, since the radar still showed patchy stuff to the west, and I headed out, glad to be leaving behind the dark blue solid wall of clouds to the east.

Once outside of OK City, the road had a nice section that made me feel like I was in a martini shaker. There've been several sections of construction, even getting down to one lane in either direction on 40, and these lanes were beat up enough, they were beating me up. The suspension on my bike isn't great on any given day, and I think lately it's been getting worse. The last few times I've had to go over speed bumps, just crawling, I've scraped the bottom where the two header pipes join up. Some of the boings in the road are taking an even greater toll on me if my boing avoidance radar is on the fritz. Add 35 pounds of luggage to the mix, and it's even rougher.

I rode on I-40 until I got to Elk City, where I took Business 40 through town (passing by a Route 66 museum), and then hopped onto Highway 6, to 152, to 87, which took me over to Interstate 25 at Raton, NM. When I'd decided to change my route to avoid Kansas, due to weather, I was a little bummed to have to go over to I-25, because I thought the extra interstate riding I would have to do would be a drag, as compared with all of the state highways through Oklahoma and Kansas. However, I was on 6/152/87 for a solid 320 miles, and that was some prime riding. For probably 80% of that time, I was the only one heading west and north on those road, while there was a lot of traffic heading the other way, and especially a lot of bikes.

I learned the importance of the wind on this route, not only for the sake of mpg, but also for whether I was upwind or downwind when I passed some feed lots. The first one I passed, I was upwind, so it was just a big plant with hundreds of cows in the corrals. The next one I passed was on the other side of the road, and I didn't think anything about it until I was getting closer and the smell hit me like a ton of bricks. A very smelly ton of bricks, at that. Yowza!

I went through several little towns (according to the map), but some of them were summarized by a four-way stop sign. I passed one place called Skellytown, and if it had been directly on the road, I would have had to get a picture for posterity, but it was a few miles down a side road, so I rolled on by.

Once I crossed into New Mexico, I finally started seeing some little buttes cropping up more and more. Did see a sign that advised against picking up hitchhikers in that area, since the Northeastern New Mexico Correctional Facility was in the vicinity. Good tip. I stopped for fuel fairly often on this trip, and snacking occasionally (Chex mix, ice cream sandwich, wasabi pea trail mix), and drinking water at every stop. One of the coolest things was coming around a curve in the road, and seeing an opening appear between the buttes, with a view of the snow capped Rockies in the distance. It was their first appearance, and it was a dramatic one.

From there, the road wound down to Raton, which looked like a pretty neat place, and I finally was able to get onto I-25. Once out of town, the interstate started climbing, going past the Colorado border, and the first decent stop with facilities was up in Trinidad, about 12 across the line. Once there, I saw a guy filling up a small Hummer, and he recognized me from the trip across the panhandle of Texas, and we talked for a little bit. I filled up, having gotten some pretty stinky gas mileage for that leg (probably in the 45 mpg range) due to the headwind, and went inside for a bathroom break, and to advise my host for the evening that I was about 90 minutes away.

And that's when the bike started complaining. Nothing terrible, but a little hesitation, similar to getting some bad gas, or some little bit of goo in the carb. He kept running, and I figured I'd push on and see if it would work it's way out of the system. Got to Pueblo, and at the bottom of the exit ramp, when starting up from a stop, the bike died, and I had to rev it up pretty good to get it going. At the next light, it was sputtering pretty good, but I got it going again, and made it to my house for the night without too much more fuss.

Brock and Sharon gave me shelter for the night, along with a chance to meet their six (right?) dogs :) Sharon has worked with show dogs, and has boxers that she shows, along with an old bulldog who sits outside in the sun and barks at what she can't see or hear, and the 'upstairs' dog when I was there was Tickles, a French bulldog and one of the most spastically friendly dogs I've ever met. She was fun and was thrilled to death that there was someone new to meet when I got there. I made decent time, and was in Pueblo right around 6 p.m., so I had a good evening to unwind and chat with both of them, enjoying a large plate of nachos. Bedtime comes early in that house, since they normally get up around a quarter of five in the morning. When 9:15 rolled around, and they both headed off to sleep, I settled in to the couch and dropped off like a rock, looking forward to the next day's ride, which would mark off a major goal from one of those lists that I have...the Big Thompson Canyon!

A Day of Rest

Sundays are wonderful, and this one was no exception. I woke up from a solid 10 hours of sleep, feeling somewhat rested, and looked at the map on how to get to the church. If I took the turnpike, it estimated 10 minutes, or 20 minutes if I took regular roads. I opted for the turnpike, but when I got going down the road, it turns out you can't get there from here :) There was a sign for 44 East, but I needed 44 West.

I hopped onto I-35, and took the next exit, which was Memorial Drive, and started heading west on that. I knew the church was on North Western Drive, and was pretty sure Memorial would intersect it. A few miles and stoplights down the road, and there was Western Drive, big as life, and I turned left. I realized within about two blocks I should have turned right. My mental map had Memorial on the north side of the church, but when I turned left, that put me back under the turnpike, and I knew the turnpike was south of the church. Did a quick u-turn, and about four blocks later, pulled into the parking lot. The worship service was good, followed by an interesting Sunday school. The interim pastor there went to college with my senior pastor in Greenville, so it was nice to bring greetings from South Carolina.

After changing back into riding togs, I headed back out and explored a couple of side roads in the area. It amazes me how straight and long the roads are, coasting up and down hills. There are a lot of trees in the area, too, which is nice. I've not exactly hit the 'dust bowl' area I thought I would. Perhaps that will be tomorrow, when going through Western OK, or perhaps it only remains in the pages of Steinbeck. Tomorrow will tell the tale.

One other cool sight for today was the Memorial Park Cemetery. It's bounded by a brick wall that is very interesting looking, and the design extends to the buildings that bound the area as well. I didn't go into the cemetery but did want to get some shots of the brickwork outside.

Pueblo is the goal on Monday, and I'm hoping for an early start. I'm also hoping for some of my sadly out of shape muscles to stop protesting quite so loudly. It's about 550 miles (might have to write some directions down this time), which will be another long day, but once again, after Monday and Tuesday's ride, I've got a two day break in Aspen. I just looked at the map, and I'm going to stick to the state highways instead of interstate, which will run me through Woodward, OK and Dodge City, KS. Turns out I recently had business dealings at work with someone in Woodward, OK, who it turns out rides a BMW 800 FST. Small world, indeed!

Ooooke-lahoma

Day 2 is done, and so am I (for the night). Details and pics to follow when I'm more cognizant, but suffice it to say, Oklahoma City is accomplished.

update...

Since I didn't turn the light out until 2:30 a.m. (3:30 to my EST accustomed body), I didn't set any alarm clock for the morning. I knew I only had about 400 miles to ride, and could afford the sleep. At 7:30, I woke up, feeling pretty decent, overall, and decided to get up and get things together. There was a little continental breakfast in the lobby area that I visited, and was back in my room shortly after 9.

I didn't have any plans in place for where I was staying when in OKC, and last week had asked my pastor's wife if she thought she knew anyone from there who might offer a spare bedroom or couch, since they were from this area. I called her Saturday morning to see if she'd found any takers, but everyone she'd tried was either going to be out of town for the long weekend, or hadn't gotten back to her email or call. For a church, she recommended Heritage Presbyterian Church, so I looked for motels in that area, and settled on the Super 8 closest to it. I called ahead for reservations, and once those were lined up, I started the whole 'haul the luggage downstairs' fun. There's not a lot (any) spare room in my luggage right now, so there's no room for sloppy packing and everything has a specific place it must belong. Once the beast of burden was loaded again, I lubed the chain, hit the body with some Plexus and headed back onto the interstate.

This time, the weather decided to play nice, and it was sunny with puffy clouds sailing around. Nothing looked rainy or tornadic in any shape or form. Whew! I was only about 65 miles west of Little Rock when I started, so that was too early for a lunch stop. If I'd had my camera out, though, I'd have snapped a shot of the hugely ornate First Pentecostal Church when I rode by (and since I didn't, I just linked the church name to some photoblog shots of it). Another 75 miles up the road was Russellville, which had my first Cracker Barrel stop of the trip. I was feeling the wear of the previous day's trip, combined with a five hour night of sleep, so the chance to sit down at a restaurant was very nice. Their parking lot was kind enough to have a shady spot for the bike to wait for me, and I went in to eat my standard BLT and fries on grilled sourdough bread. Once fortified, I then fed the bike at a Shell station before getting back on I-40.

Further west, and I started to see some rolling hills in the distance, as the Ozarks were getting closer. I saw a sign for the Pig Trail Scenic Byway, and wished I'd had time to explore, since that is supposed to be some fun motorcycle pavement. If I'd known it was only 19 miles, as I now do, I probably would have jumped off for the short trip! Ah well. I did end up taking one side excursion 100 miles down the road when I saw the sign for Sallisaw, OK. There is a picture at work in our department known as the 'Sallisaw Man.' He's on the side of a building, and when I saw the exit for Sallisaw, and knew the nature of the picture, I thought I'd make a quick search to see if I could find him. It was a sweet feeling of success when I saw him waving at me just before I was going to turn around and go back to the interstate. I had to get a picture of the bike with him, since this truly was a once in a lifetime event. Here you go Greg and Andrea...this one's for you!

My last fuel stop was 90 miles out from Oklahoma City in Henryetta, and the Shell station was adjacent to Huckleberry's Pig Out Palace (sounds like your kind of place, Greg!) I did not stop in to eat, but did have to take a quick pic of the drum piggies outside. At the gas station, a guy in a minivan on a family trip asked me if I hit any bugs with the helmet when I ride. I handed him my helmet to inspect the encrusted face shield and asked him what he thought. He was grousing about riding in the van with his little brother, and I told him he should enjoy the luxury of stretching his legs and getting to lean back on a seat. The family was from Page, AZ, and the dad commented on how humid it was, wondering if it made riding any tougher. I told him it felt about like home, since I was used to humidity in SC. It was about to make them mop up, though.

I left Huckleberry behind, knowing and glad that I was on the last of the road before a nice break. I got to the Super 8 right around 6 p.m., and this time got a ground floor room, with parking for the bike right outside my door (hooray!). The a/c is positively polar, although the shower is somewhat anemic. After I emptied the bike, I went back out for a quick trip to Target for some Gold Bond powder...the armor in my pants makes my knees sweat and chafe somewhat, and then to the Cracker Barrel (twice in one day!) just up the way from the motel for supper. Sourdough bread topped with mashed potatoes, pot roast and gravy? That's what I'm talkin' 'bout! I was back in my room by about 7:45, took a shower, and got settled for the night. When I went to do the blog update, I found out the internet was acting up on my computer so I called it a night and was asleep by 9:36, welcoming the oblivion.