Last Day - Coming Home

Last day today. I don't feel like having this end. A day or two off maybe, but I loooove seeing the ever changing landscape and meeting amazing people.
Dave is always first up and sneaks out for coffee. Dick is always next and I am always dragging. These retired people get up too early!
Today's plan is to relax and take the secondary roads back through New York. We had a fender bender of sorts at one of the "go, no wait, no go, no wait" intersections and the only casualty was my license plate falling off. So I zip tied it to my bag and we carried on. So now I have an expired licence plate hanging off my bag with zip ties. Any self respecting police officer should be at least a little curious, but I made it all the way home without incident (I have a temporary registration so I am actually legit).

The wonderful thing about an interstate is that they leave behind roads with nobody on them except the farmer moving his squash from one side of the road to the other. Rt7 runs just far enough away from the interstate in NY that you don't know it's there. Very quiet, no traffic, very relaxing. The small valley farms are just beginning to harvest the corn and most of the hay is all wrapped up for the winter. We met a guy who talked about how the horse people have ended up keeping the ex-dairy farmers from starving since horse people are used to dumping vast quantities of money into their hobby, Kinda like boat folks I guess (a hole in the water to dump money into?). So here is a kind thanks to you horse folks out there.

The one stop I wanted to make (other than coffee stops) was the real Bennington Battlefield site, which is not in Bennington, but rather just over the border in New York. The big Bennington Monument marks where the stores that the British were trying to capture were kept, but the Brits got spanked over in New York before they got there. Of course, there was no Vermont in 1777 when the battle was fought. The monument was built in 1887 for the 100th anniversary (ok, we are a little slow here in Vermont) so..
My prep school roommate Skip had texted me that he was in Claremont, NH so I decided to head there after splitting up with the brothers in Bennington. It was great to have the three of us together the last week.
Rt 11 goes all the way across the state right into New Hampshire and right into Claremont. Skip had just finished up at work so we went to dinner at a beautifully restored mill building and caught up. He has the "snow-bird" thing figured out by the sounds, spending summers in NH and winters in Florida.
One last cold ride home up the interstate with a stop in Randolph to pour hot liquids inside me and add another layer. I have not ridden on dirt for 2 weeks and it was very odd sliding around the long back way home. Deb was up, the dog was asleep, and it felt good to just crawl in bed and fall asleep.
America is big and beautiful. The news outlets are doing us a real dis-service, scaring us into thinking that there are lots of "bad people" out there. I met nothing but wonderful people who want to help you out if you need it. Today we just stopped to zip tie my licence plate on and an electrician stopped to make sure we did't need help, So turn off that crap and go out and talk to people, they are wonderful.
A motorcycle is the perfect vehicle to see the country. If you add a Vermont license plate, it is a huge talk magnet. How can you walk by an unshaven old guy with a couple weeks of grime, a motorcycle with a Vermont tag, and a big smile on his face without saying "where ya headed?"
And it's perfect because you never get bored with the scenery (Dakota grasslands, Kansas or Nebraska emptiness, south-west desert, mid-west corn and soy (or soy and corn), because you are only 2 days away from the next landscape. And you can ride faster than the weather so with proper planning and no itinerary, you never get bad weather. I started at 93675 on the clock and ended at 97900 last night so 4225 miles this trip.
So sell your house, buy a motorcycle and get going. Life is short my friends!!

Chopper Chicks in Zombietown

 Another day another antique motorcycle museum. This one was called Bill's Old Bike Barn in Bloomsburg PA. He has about 100 old bikes, but to drag in everyone else, he collected anything you can think of. Flat irons, hair dresser supplies, model trains, telephones, Elvis stuff (what self respecting museum would not have Elvis stuff?), dolls, antique dental stuff (chair and ceramic spittoon to boot), Hot Wheel cars, marine engines, fishing lures & poles, mouse traps, slot machines, and a full size 1939 bar (think drinking beer bar). Oh yeah and old motorcycle 'B' movie posters like Chopper Chicks In Zombietown" and "The Sidehackers" ("Hard Riders Mounted On Burning Steel with only their lethers between THEM and HELL").
And we found Bill working in the building down front selling Harley parts from a store front packed full of chrome, castings and leather. We told him about the 100 year old bike race and he was none too happy about those show-offs ruining perfectly good antiques by driving them across country. No love lost there..
My eyeballs were worn out by the vast amount of stuff he had collected over his lifetime. All for $5 admission.

 So out in the parking lot, Dick discovered he was down a quart of oil in his Gold Wing after having used none the whole 2 weeks he has been riding. We saw  it dripping from the oil filter so assumed the filter was loose, but no oil filter wrench, so there was a Honda dealer 10 miles away and they very nicely verified that the filter was indeed loose, tightened it up and sold Dick more oil. We found a tiny state road (Rt487) that went north for a long way and sure enough, it led us through more beautiful twisty roads and valleys and not much traffic. Like I said yesterday, Pennsylvania is really pretty if you find the little side roads going from nowhere to nowhere.
Coffee break at Towanda and then north on Rt220. When we got to the Susquehanna River, we opted out of the busy southern side and instead took a small road just over the river on the other side. This was pretty with some nice vistas of the river and valleys around it. It got busier as we approached the Endicott area and we decided to call it a day. Nice folks at the motel grilled us on the trip and we rode to a steak place for dinner and cold beer. Looks like tomorrow will be the last day and I got a text from my old roommate Skip and I'll stop over in NH to say hi before I head north. I'll leave all the old bike pics below.

Beautiful Day on the Backroads of Pennsylvania

 What a beautiful place Pennsylvania is if you find the right back roads. Big valleys with still working farms and small towns with brick storefronts and sidewalks. Pennsylvania always confuses me because parts are not so attractive and parts are more urban and parts are run down, but today we found the pretty parts. The temperature was wonderful in the morning and got a little steamy mid-afternoon (and then it rained on us for the last 15 minutes of the day).
We left Cumberland MD after a long conversation with "the most interesting old guy on earth", or so it seemed. He was a wonder, spry 84 year old who lost his wife some years back but had a long time girlfriend. He was a skier from way back and now had ski and bike shops, has a BMW R100 (classic 1980s bike), which he was riding today, raised sheep, and was Irish (his grandfather moved here in the 1920's. He told us about Grand Canyon PA which we hope to visit tomorrow.

We first stopped at the new(ish) memorial to Flight 93 that crashed in a field near Shanksville, PA. It was one of the 9/11 planes and the story goes that the crew overwhelmed the terrorists and the plane nose-dived at 500+ mph into the ground. They have a simple memorial setup there. Kinda disturbing.
After that we went east on Rt30 which is the Lincoln Highway that used to be one of the coast to coast roads. We found a little road, Rt26 which took us through some beautiful, twisty back roads and was the high light of the day. I counted the Trump and Hillary lawn signs today and it was 44 Trump signs to zero (0) Hillary signs, about the same as yesterday. So looks like Trump is looking good down here.

We rode through State College PA, home of Penn State, which is a huge college town. Lots of college kids out enjoying the sun, and I must admit, it would be nice to be 20 again, playing Frisbee with the coeds. Now there is no temptation for us Miller boys because we were wise enough to marry beautiful women who encourage our pursuits. They understand our joy of motorcycle adventures, our hobbies, expensive tractor a attachments and motorcycle accessories. Heck, we would not be surprised a bit if they might encourage us to buy, say, a new motorcycle, because they understand us. That is what true love is all about after all.
After State College, we hit the highway and headed for our end destination, Williamsport, PA. We had to stop and put our rain gear on and got a pretty good shower the last little bit. We got a room and then off to a burger / beer place a short walk away.
Another great day. One or two more and we will be home, so no idea where we are going tomorrow.

West By God Virginia

Another awesome day! We got up early and hustled down to see the old bikes take off and again it was quite the scene of old guys (and gals) and old bikes, some in costume and some in jeans and t-shirts, some from the US and some from other countries. All a big family having the time of their life. The crowd of folks who come to send them off was just as interesting. I sense that there are a lot of motorcycle guys and gals who just ride along behind the pack, being careful to stay out of the way. We talked to a guy with a Honda NC700 who retired two years ago from Ducati (motorcycle company) and had put 100K on his bike since he retired (or a couple bikes, since he said he had 29 bikes at home (and was still married)) and he was following these guys until Utah and then he was heading to California. I am guessing there were a lot of bikers following the race all the way. Lots of support vans and trinket sellers too. A moving party. Fun!!
So after the sputtering, smoky herd of Harleys Hendersons and Indians were all gone, we stopped for breakfast and to figure out where to go. Rt 50 goes all the way across the US and was build in the late 20's.
The interstate made it a lot less busy after 1960 and that is what we found today.
I always think Ohio is flat but as one guy today explained, the glaciers stopped in southern Ohio so there is a ridge of rolling hills here. All day we were treated to rolling hills and smooth roads. The a big sweeping turn and across the Ohio River one more time and into West "By God" Virginia as the seem to call it down here.

The roads got a little bumpier here and the hollows got deeper. A lot more remote towns with a lot of Trump signs out front. If you think Hillary is a shoe in this fall, think again. I saw one Hillary yard sign and at least 40 or 50 Trump signs. A couple mentions of politicians who "still care about coal", so that is obviously a complicated local issue (aka jobs).
We cut north on a small paved road directly north and then east on Rt68 until we found a cluster of hotels. Nice place tonight and then walk down the street for a cold beer and a burger (salad too, don't worry).
Maybe north to PA tomorrow.

Old Men and Old Motorcycles

 By old, I did not mean us by the way. We are just feeling downright bad-ass. We left Dry Ridge KY fairly early and knew we wanted to run into the antique motorcycle rally guys, but did not know exactly where or how. The route is a secret and as we discovered when we chatted with a couple of the volunteers today at a coffee stop, nobody knows but the riders. A day on these trips is measured in coffee stops. And coffee stops mean talking stops. We rode through the fog rising off the Ohio River (which we have crossed a few times now), which was spectacular. The rush hour Cincinnati traffic was not as wonderful however but you just grin and bear it (and we had to rip Dicks hand off the handlebars when it was over).

 We shot out of the highway traffic due east on Rt 50 and the traffic all disappeared, so the first stop was a dinky gas station / store with mostly empty shelves and a coffee shop next door. A couple locals (one with teeth) chatted us up and explained the farming climate (most farms are gone, the kids don't work anymore, big ag companies run the show, etc), what all these plants are (soy whose leaves turn yellow in a week or two and then they wait for the beans (3 or 4 in a pod) to dry so they do not have to dry them artificially, costs money), and how the government is taking over the trucking industry with video surveillance and computerized logs.

 One guys sister (not the toothless guy) ran the coffee shop and and a third sibling (with a pony tail and a hat) all seemed to help out with the restaurant(but one was a trucker). The ongoing joke was that the nice Indian man who ran the store kept losing the key to the outside men's room so we all had to use the outside women's room, including the M&M woman which is too complicated to explain. Anyway, I feel like we now have another family in Ohio if we ever need a backup (or a truck driving job).
So off to Chillicothe and we found a hotel pretty easily at 11am, with three real beds (no pullout), so Dick got lucky as tonight was his shift.

 Now we have to find the bikes. The two volunteers in the coffee shop (not the toothless guy or bald guy or ponytail guy) said they thought the bikes would NOT use Rt 50 so we decided to just go get lost (which is why we chose John to lead, successfully I might add). We got good and lost in a rolling, well treed area of Ohio called Hoking Hills which people flock to, presumably to escape the vast flatness of the mid-west. They have creeks and caves and hardwood trees. We saw wedding places and beautiful countrysides, pastures, all the stuff we have at home. But we did not see a single 100 year old motorcycle, so we headed back to Chillicothe to catch the 4pm arrival of the bikes. We met a couple other guys in a car sitting waiting for the bikes on Rt 50, and they had seen nothing. One of them had raced in NH in the 70's so he and Dave recalled the good old days of rowdy Laconia NH. We saw the same guys a couple hours later at the motel the bikes all arrived at.

Sure enough, just as we pulled into the Hyatt hotel where the bikes were ending the day, the old bikes came pouring in. These guys are having a blast and you can tell they have all worked hard the last couple years preparing these old bikes. We heard accents from Germany, England and Japan so this is a big deal. Some were just regular Joes and some wore period leather stuff and they were all kinda grey from following other smoky old motorcycles the 218 miles they traveled today. I love to be around people who love what they are doing!!
So for a measly $30-$40K you can buy one of these old beauties and race next time in 2 years.

No more bikes coming in so we checked out the behind the scenes action (lots of wheels off and bearings being repacked) and then off to dinner and a cold beer.
Tomorrow we head for Pennsylvania and some Amish country. I am officially the only non-retired person present all day. Am I missing something?? Hmmmm.

Kentucky to Indiana to Kentucky

My brothers snuck out to get coffee while I was sleeping, but failed to account for the timezone so I found them waiting for the hotel breakfast folks to get set up when I finally did get out of bed. I pulled the short straw on the rollaway but slept like a baby anyway. Today we are heading north so we picked a long road (Rt79) and only one number so we didn't have to keep track of lots of turns. We are trying to get positioned so we can intercept the 100 year old motorcycle race, somewhere in Ohio.We are seeing a lot of corn and tobacco being grown and the harvesting has begun. Barns are stuffed with tobacco leaves drying and the corn is dry in the field and they must be picking the ears off. We always cut corn green and stored it in silos green, so I'm not sure what happens when you leave corn to dry in the field.
No more dead armadillos so that must have been a Missouri thing.

We crossed the Ohio River at Brandenburg and the road name changed to Rt135. We wanted to miss the city of Louisville so headed north until we got north of it, and then east. Indian started to flatten out, more rolling than hilly and more big field crops (no tobacco). Soy and corm by the looks and I saw some sorghum. At Salem we headed east above Louisville and then hit the Ohio river again. This is a big river and a lot of fancy homes are built on bluffs overlooking the rive. There are 2 lane bridges (old ones) that cross here and there and people setup campers on the shore. I am guessing they set up for the summer. A lot of tough looking camps and homes are on the banks as well. We rode on Rt 56 all along the river bank and went through some nice old river towns with lots of restored brick buildings with sidewalks. You can just feel that these were happening towns back 100 years ago doing all of the rivers business. We crossed back into Kentucky and let Dave's GPS weave us through the crooked back roads until we got to Dry Ridge where the interstate goes through and the usual mix of motels can be found. The towns near the river seem to be cleaned up pretty well. I am guessing tourism is supporting lot of the restoration.
Tomorrow we go north again and since they do not publish the Cannonball race course, we will have to guess where they are riding through. Stay tuned..

West Plains MO to Russellville KY - East Millers Meets West Miller

Rained last night but it was still pretty warm this morning. I slept like a baby again so did not get going until 8:30. Found an ATM for more cash (I only have one credit card so play it safe with cash). Missouri is also a big state and the "meet up with the brothers deal was I would text after 1pm and see if we ended up within striking distance. Missouri actually got prettier as I took some small 2 laners with big roller coaster loop-the-loops which was fun. Small farms (hobby farms) with beef cows and old tumbledown bans. Trees got bigger and lusher and pretty soon it looked like back home in Vermont. I didn't go through a lot of bigger towns, but my sense is things are a little depressed here, but it sure is pretty.
I stopped for coffee a couple times since I had a lot of turns. The other weird thing with Missouri is their small roads are letters instead of numbers (A, J, BB, DD, etc).
I ran into another BMW guy doing the same thing i was doing except he was coming from Idaho and going to Florida, trying to plan around the thunderstorms and figure out the weird roads.
I found the really long narrow old steel bridge that got me across the Mississippi River and got a nice view of all the barge traffic. The water looked low with a lot of exposed banks. I was surprised that you immediately cross the Ohio

River on another long skinny old bridge.
A lot of corn was being "picked" I assume since it was brown and dried up, but the big John Deere harvesters were running up and down the fields filling trucks. There is something they grow that has a leaf like corn, but has a big brown tassel. I thin it's sorghum and they have not harvested it yet. It has been growing since Kansas.
I stopped for coffee and to check on my brothers progress and the ground was soaked. A thin but intense weather front had blasted through here. I checked the radar and the front was just ahead of me so I sat and enjoyed a second cup since it made no sense going east. I burned a half hour there and then took a zig-jag route toward Bowling Green. I stopped again and my brothers had just got into a motel in Russellville KY before the same front hit them, so Russellville it was.
I pulled in an hour later and they were just getting fresh laundry from the nice lady at the front desk (That Miller charm and a few bucks I assume). We walked across he road to the local place and then had a couple PBRs and cigars. They have been having a great time and I think the only plan is to somehow intercept those 150-200 people on 100 year old motorcycles racing across country.

Coffeyville KS to West Plains MO - Hot and Stormy

With high temperatures and high humidity, there were thunderstorms all over the area last night. When I woke up this morning, the radar showed two storms on either side of me headed north east. I was hoping to go due east, but I would have run right p the backside of one of the storms. So I waited until 10:30 when the last cell went over me, and then headed north east in between the 2 storms. I crossed into Missouri (finally) at around noon and stopped for coffee in Nevada, MO to plan the next step. By then the storm was just finishing up in Joplin MO south of me. I headed south until I got just above the storm and then due east. I might have gotten to the same place if I had just waited back in Coffeyville, but I am here to ride and see as much country as I can. Even the locals are complaining about how hot and humid it is so this is unusual. And it is even worse down on Arkansas and Oklahoma. The next few days should see it cool off a bit.

This part of the country is slowly getting much moister and greener and with a lot more rolling hills, creeks and trees. Most of Kansas was falt and a little green but as you got more east, the trees started in. Missouri seems a lot like Vermont with lots of lush countryside. It seems economically a little depressed and a lot of the old farms have all grown up. There are manufacturing plants here and there and some farming. I started seeing armadillos beside the road, so they must be here along with opossums and huge corn fed raccoons.  Pretty uneventful day all told,

I talked to my brother and it looks like we may meet up in Kentucky tomorrow night. They did the tail of the dragon and stopped at the Wheels Through Times motorcycle museum where the crazy owner guy was riding a motorcycle through the gift shop this morning. That is another great museum if you make it down there. That guy is living out his lifelong passion for sure. So I have the AC on and it's pretty comfy here and tomorrow hopefully it will stop raining by the time I head out. Beemer rolls over 96K tomorrow. My old friend..

Looks like Dick & Dave have been having a good time.

Hays KS to Coffeyville KS - Motorcycle Museums

Yes I am still in Kansas, but I have 2 good excuses.
There was a big storm system east of me and instead of runing up the backside of it, I decided to go south and try to weave under it (almost worked). I was seeking, and found, small Kansas towns. It was more humid and got hotter than yesterday so the morning was ok, but by noon, the air was really thick. Just before Great Bend, I say a little brown sign that said "Motorcycle Museum) and the arrow pointed up a small county road to the left. So I figured, what the heck, might be kinda cute. It was about 14 miles and I came into the town of Marquette, KS. I completely missed the museum, it was right on Main Street (pretty much the only street), of Marquette which is a small quiet town with one of most everything (did not see a hardware or grocery store). The guy inside had just retired (la-la-la retirement is awesome la-la-la) but knew a ton about all the bikes in the museum. It was basically 2 large joined room and maybe 120 motorcycles. Lots of early 1900 "motorized bicycles", lots of Harley's, Indian's and Henderson's, and lots of "classic" 1950,60,70s bikes. I saya couple I have owned (Suzuki  cylinder 2 stroke and Triumph 650). I love these early bikes because they are loaded with Mechanical Engineering experimentation, back when they were building things, watching them break, and then building the next generation. The museum is the bikes left over from a guy from the town who raced motorcycles from 1942 until the 1990's. He collected a few bikes and a lot of people loaned their restored bikes to the museum. Well worth the stop.

I left the museum and half way down the county road, back to Rt 56, it went from drips to dribbles to drizzle, so I stopped to put on the rain gear. I just got my florescent gear on when an old guy in a rusty pickup stopped to check that I was ok. These mid-westerners do watch out for each other.
The guy at the Marquette museum said I should drive teh 2 hrs to Augusta KS museum which had even more restored bikes. I did and they did. A little smaller than the first museum, but equally impressive collection. He said the owner had just left to run in the annual Cannonball Race where they race from coast to coast. This year, the motorcycles have to be at least 100 years old. They actually start on Saturday from Atlantic City, NJ. I  checked the route and we may be able to catch them when the go through Ohio. How cool (and smoky I bet) would that be. He said there were 150-200 old bikes going from NJ to San Diego. My but hurts just thinking about it, those tiny seats.

The rain stopped and the second museum guy sent me on some nice quite roads to end in Joplin Missouri, but when I pulled into Coffeyville KS, a wall of black clouds and big lightning and thunder was between me and where I was supposed to go, so I stopped for the night. Sure enough it poured as soon as I got into the room.
I unpacked and called my brother to see how they were doing, heading west to meet me. They had just gotten to Maggie Valley, NC and so we are still almost 1000 miles apart. So maybe a couple more days until we meet up.

The rain stopped so I walked a few blocks to a BBQ place and chatted up another traveller who turned out to be a computer guy (IT) and we swapped stories about the good old days of S100, CPM, the original IBM-PC, etc. He was a few years younger but we both lived and worked through all the same technology changes. Nerd on vacation..
So tomorrow I head to Missouri. I'll add more pics of those beautiful bikes I saw today.

Boulder CO to Hays KS - This May Take a While

Got a late start since I was up late with Laura jabbering about old dead relatives. Thanks Laura for dinner and great Miller info!!
I just headed east right out of Boulder and got a nice tour of the suburbs of Boulder. Laura says the city bought a lot of the open land to provide large areas of natural space around it and limit growth, and so it is lovely outside of Boulder.
I had to get on RT470 to bypass all the ugly Denver suburbs and the usual stuff you see outside cities. Anything to avoid the Rt25 - Rt70 intersection. Denver seems to have a lot of smog, which I remember from 1978 as well. Lots of cars (and BMW motorcycles of course) and no mass transit.

I finally got on Rt70 and went east until I hit Byers. I wanted to get off the interstate to find a remote back road. Rt 36 provided such and it was peaceful and extremely remote. Having a 19 year old motorcycle with almost 100K on the clock makes me a little nervous about being this far off the beaten path. So I stayed on 30 until I found the next turn south back to the interstate. I rode through a huge wind turbine farm and they were majestic, out in the wheat and corn fields. Best crop they got growing out here I would guess.
Then time to pay my dues, so back on I70 and drop into that deep meditative trance.
My first clue that this was going to take a while was the fact that at 2pm, I was still in Colorado. Rocky Mountains my keister!

Finally I hit Kansas and it was almost time to plan where to stay tonight. By 4pm the humidity started rising, no more dry western air. It was very warm as well and overcast. So I was getting hot and sticky so Hays seemed to be the place to stop. Lots of empty motels and places for cold beer within walking distance (I can have two!).
I met a retired guidance counselor from upstate NY heading to Moab to meet his kids for a 2 week holiday. We walked to the steak place up the the street and had a couple cold beers and a great evening exchanging notes about our families and the inevitable topic, retirement. Wish I could run into at least one person who did not like being retired. OK, sleep calls me. Storms east of me so I gotta figure out where to go tomorrow.

Green River UT to Boulder CO - Rocky Mountain High

 What a day! I almost decided, but undecided, to take an extra day in the Rockies but I need to get across the plains, so the compromise was to do one last long day in the Rockies and then lookup my new found cousin Laura in Boulder to pick her brain about family genealogy.
I hit the starter just as the sun was peeking over the eastern horizon and clipping the Buttes across the valley from the motel. Heading eeat in the morning means riding into the sun, but it was weak sun and the view over my left shoulder was once again, stunning. Today was like the last 20 paintings in the Louvre when you brain is numb from beautiful pictures and it's not fair to those last few pictures.

I quickly realized it was too cold for just my porous jacket, so I stopped and put on the new hi-viz rain jacket (which I am told you can see from the Indian Ocean), and that was perfect. It was sunny and clear, but it gets pretty cold at night.
I put a couple hours on and stopped west of Grand Junction for coffee (to do the job the BHC was supposed to do (Bad Hotel Coffee). A group of old car guys (the cars and the guys) at was what I suppose was the weekly old car farts club gathering. Two brothers picked up the Vermont plate on my bike and told me all about their town and all the get together's they have with their cars. Their generation for sure are motor-heads. They drove off in their gorgeous El Camino.

Southeast from there on Rt 50 and it was Rt 50 for 180+ miles. It is very rolling and a fair amount fo grazing in this upper western slope. Rt 50 is relatively busy with lots of campers and big trucks as I am guessing it's the only main-ish road down into the mountains in central Colorado.
The rolling got higher and then the passes started. The temperature in the valleys was in the 80s, so not too warm, and the temps dropped a lot when I would go over the passes. Lots of mountain pass mambo with short passing lanes and big lumbering rigs. A motorcycle makes it easy to pass and if you just drop it a couple gears and hit the throttle, you can pass a whole string of cars with one slow motorhome in front, and you have the road to yourself until the next big hill.
I hit was able avoid he bad Denver traffic when I came off the last hill by skirting north through Golden (home of Coors), and rode the 20 or so miles up the same route I used to take to go to work back in 1978 across Rocky Flats and into Boulder.

I left a message for Laura and poked around Boulder which brought back all those memories of 35 years ago. Found a hotel in-town and unpacked. Laura stopped by and piked me up and gave me the nickel tour. Boulder has done and amazing job of protecting large open areas around the city. We drove up above the city to the place Woody Allen filmed parts of the movie Sleeper back in the 60's (70's?). It is where NCAR (National Center for Atmospheric Research) is and my co-hort George worked there when we lived out here. The sun was just setting and we got a beautiful view of the city.
Then it was time to talk Miller family history.

Laura has been doing family genealogy since she was a teenager and we are 7th cousins. I am a rank amateur and have been dabbling for a couple years so she gave me the Ancestry tutorial, and we talked Miller family history until we couldn't talk anymore. Her family branched off in the early 1800's and she has all sorts on nationalities on her side. She had discovered the Dummerston Millers a while ago and took her whole family to Vermont to where they all started. Looks like I need to get Ancestry dialed up when I get back. I think my lineage is pretty English but we will see.. OK, Kansas tomorrow..
Oh yea, didn't see any marijuana dispensaries today but it seems to all the buzz out here..

Glenn Canyon and Capital Reef (and more).

OK, before you read this, you should smother your credit cards in bacon and feed them to your dog. You will get them back (might need the vet..) but it will give you a couple days to settle down. If I was sitting home, thinking about work tomorrow, and started reading about riding a motorcycle across Utah, I'd quit my job, buy a bike and head west. Today has to have been the most beautiful riding I have seen, ever, period.

I left Farmington, NM around 8am and got pleasantly lost, but soon picked up Rt 64 west to Shiprock and then cross into Arizona to Teec Nos Pos (cottonwoods in a circle, I just knew that really(not)). 

It became quickly apparent that cell service was going to iffy so no cellular, no GPS Maps, no problem. I pulled over and scribbled all the turns (there were a lot) on a hotel receipt and stuck it in the gas cap. Dad would be proud.

It was actually kinda flat and moderately interesting riding but there was almost no traffic and the temperature was perfect. I at one point thought I would skip Capital Reef and just go north to Moab and ride those nice canyons up there and maybe catch Canyonlands, but I decided I could make it through Glen Canyon and Capital Reef and loop north to the interstate 70 and put some miles in toward Colorado.

Deb and I did Rt 95 in a cage (motorcycle term for car) and it was beautiful. An old Utah guy told us it was the most beautiful road in Utah and he was right.

 Glenn canyon is like Grand Canyon, but you can ride through it. There are no towns to speak of anywhere so you need to watch your gas. I got 95 octane at one point, but the Beemer laughs at low octane gas and ran fine. I had one cup of coffee all day as there really was not much other than gas station stores (aka bad coffee dispensaries) but no shakes tonight.

I must have stopped 20 times (poor starter) for pictures and I'll include a few here. It started as a really peaceful morning and I was just getting settled into not being at work and relaxing when all this damn beauty starting popping up. Roads were in good shape, except that section with those little tar worms that sealed the cracks and causes you to slide around a bit. The guys got a little carried away and I saw at least one set of tar line initials and one tar rainbow. Bet that was not DOT approved.

 Stopping and taking pics got kinda stupid because every time I thought I had the most amazing picture, I went a few miles down the road, and a better vista inevitably popped up.
Once I left Glenn Canyon, I headed right into Capital Reef, which is, in my opinion, not as nice, but it is very different. Lots of white rock and then grey sandstone, followed by deep red rock with dark streaks in it.
After Capital Reef you drop down into a valley that God must have decided should have plenty of water, and suddenly, everyone was growing hay and a little corn, and there were cattle and sheep and, yes indeed, llamas? Lots of irrigation rigs running and canals beside the road with water running in them.

 At the other end of this valley I had to turn north on Rt 72 to head up over a bald mountain range with grass growing and animals grazing. The temp dropped quite a bit and then going down the other side, the rock formation started up, as beautiful as before. I just couldn't take much more beauty so I headed to the interstate (Rt 70) to start back east, and damn it if that wasn't drop dead gorgeous as well. I guess I have never been on this section of Rt 70 or I would have remembered it. This section has almost no towns as well so I rode all the way to Green River.

The interstate speed limit is 80 by the way, but I puttered along at 65, not wanting to push the old girl too hard (out here with no BMW shop for 400 miles). Found a motel and a nice little local Mexican place, where I was entertained by the waitresses 2 daughter who were just starting pre-school and kindergarten. We spent a good amount of time discussing mixing different colors of Play-Dough and had some differences of opinion on the resulting colors. I forgot how many questions these age kids can ask and I assured heir mom I rather enjoyed the conversation as she tried to keep them from bugging me. Very cute and they were switching from Spanish to English easily. I asked what language their teacher used in class and she had to think about it. I don't think they even think of the two as different languages since they just speak whichever works. Cute.



I chatted up a couple bikers from Denver who both had 650 VStroms and of course loved them. I must say, some of those back roads the park service now makes available would be pretty enticing..

I stopped for tomorrows gum ration and the checkout guy told me all about his KTM and how he rides all the back roads.
I'm beat and will figure tomorrow out in the morning.
P.S. in case you have not noticed, I do not check grammar or spelling or anything, but just blister this together at the end of the day so, I really do know how to spell, but am just too damn tired. I'll fix it later. Good night!!