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..
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