It was a dark and stormy night... It poured last night and we saw signs of it during todays ride with red mud in the road slowly turning to dust as the sun baked it dry and gravel and rocks that crossed over pavement on various curvy steep sections. This morning it was just grey and just spitting a bit. The nice front desk lady last night said we could not park under the front awning because of fire codes so the poor beasts spent the night in the rain. And of course they were soaking wet this morning, or rather mine was because "Mr Prepared For Anything" covered his up. Ok, so my 15 year old taxi driver bead seat was saturated (the varnish long since delivered to the jean butt gods) and it took half the day for them to dry out.
We suited up after the usual coffee and conti breakfast and a real fun Harley guy (purple Harley) entertained us with his account of riding 85 in the pouring rain with the wind pushing him at 45 degrees all because those greedy such and suches charge twice for a room as anyone else in Moab. He is the second person that has sworn off motels and swears by AirB&B. Guess we gotta try that. And of course his bike was wet too (same fire codes). @#$%
We backtracked to Moab (home of the $30 hotel room) but did not really backtrack because we did not see anything last night in the driving rain, so it was not a wasted trip. First stop was more coffee at McDonald's to figure out a route and figure out where to buy the grey goose a new headlight bulb. We took off the rain stuff (and never needed it again all day). The weather map showed nothing good for the next few days to the northeast and we are sick of riding in the rain so we are heading home more to the south.
The headlight question was answered only a block away at the first of two side by side auto-parts places (??). I am proud to say that my motorcycle uses the same headlight bulb as those monster John Deere combines we saw in the mid-west. And it was easy to change and only $12.
We gassed up (not Mexican food this time) and got chatted up by a couple guys from Texas who were sharing hurricane stories. Sounded awful down there.
South on 191 and then back to Colorado on Rt 46 which climbs, climbs, then climbs some more to the Colorado border where it changes to Rt 90 to Naturita. We went through the huge valley of sandstone beauty again (we came this way yesterday) and in Naturita took Rt 141 and then Rt 143 where we climbed more and more and once again entered the real Rocky Mountains. There was snow, probably from yesterdays storms, on the mountain tops and we were treated to spectacular views. We stopped in Redvale (I ran out of gum) and then down the other side into Cortez where there are lots of places to stay (and cheaper than #$%@) Moab.
Big snafu at the motel as two very angry English women (accents make anger people sound classy) had made a reservation but the nice check in lady (we did not ask about parking the bikes tonight) gave us a room while they had to wait because of the way the had reserved it or something. Anyway, we got the room in a "not too bad" motel. Dave of course noticed the "central fumigation system" as he is convinced they fume the whole place at 12:05 each day (hence the 12:0 check out time). I think it is a central vacuum system myself..
As luck might have it, there is a Mexican place across the road and they have taco salads.
So life is a good, a beauty of a day, no rain, a few pleasant chats. Tomorrow we head east maybe via Ozarks, depending on weather. Oh, yeah, I lost my little compass ball that I mounted under my mirror several years ago so we may be home in a week or maybe not!!
No comments:
Post a Comment