Mon Sep 18, 2017 Guymon OK to Wichita KS

This is the image that comes to mind when I think of Kansas. Big sky and big clouds. From an album you folks of my vintage may remember (music here). 

A storm went over last night and we are chasing behind it today trying not to catch it. Anyway, it was very relaxing, meditative day crossing Kansas. 

Long chat with a guy staying at the motel who used to work in Kentucky in the coal mines, but they closed down and he now works on fleets of trucks as a "wrench spinner". He flies all over the country on 30 day stints, and gets home between stints for 7 days. He has two kids in college and he and his wife are making it all work instead of giving up like most other folks in his home town.

Lots of sorghum again to day (gotta figure out what they do with it), some corn (little short dry stuff) and soy later in the day. 

The highlight of the day was a little museum in Meade Kansas called Dalton Gang Hideout, and the best part was the guy who ran it. His great grandfather moved to this town in 1901 and staked his claim for 160 free acres if you lived and worked it for 5 years. And his grandmother could also claim another 160 acres so 320 free acres of land in exchange for had work. Remember this part of the country only started to be developed in the 1880's. The Dalton Gang were three brother who over 2 years robbed trains and were done in when they tried to rob two banks across the street from each other in a town 300 miles away. 

Townspeople got their firearms and shot the banks up (they counted 300 bullets holes in the banks) and killed all (including the bankers) but one brother Emmett Dalton survived and went to prison for 15 years, was pardoned by the governor and then moved to California and made silent western movies with Tom Mix.So if you moved to Kansas in 1901, you claimed your land, cut blocks of sod (Buffalo Grass about a foot thick) and built a sod house to live in. The soil under was fertile but you did not get a crop the first year so you had to bring enough to eat or hunt ti live the first year. Then you could get a garden in and start some wheat the next spring. For heat you burned dried manure (Buffalo chips). You really had to want to be here to stay. Then of course they got a little carried away with removing the soil cover and the dust bowl wiped them all out in the 1930's. The museum also had an albino raccoon which was just too creepy not to take a picture of.So if you are ever in Meade Kansas, stop by and see Marc Ferguson and ask him about Kansas history. Great guy.

So one of the other people in the museum was from Kansas and was driving west and said we should not miss Rt 160 for typical Kansas beauty. So we took his advice and indeed got a beautiful stretch of Kansas back road. Crops, combines, wind powered water pumps, a few oil pumpers, lots of beef cows grazing, and a lot of big wind turbines. The whole mid-west has been installing wind turbines. Nice to see..

We got in a little late to Wichita because of all the yakking with people. Two motorcycles from Vermont really stand out in small off the beaten path town, but we met and chatted with some really friendly folks today. Another great day.

Sun Sep 17, 2017 - Taos NM to Guymon OK

First off, sorry about all the typos last night. I fixed most or some of them (and will now present a fresh batch of typos tonight..)
We are in Oklahoma and it is OK. Crappy continental breakfast but met a really nice couple on their Goldwing (motorcycle) trike with a trailer. Their other bike is a BMW GS like my brothers, but they take the Goldwing on shorter trips like this weekend. Last trip on the GS he broke 4 ribs on a loose gravel road and they both had a really good story about that one.
The plan was to head toward Liberal Kansas but all the jawboning today put us wonderfully behind schedule, hence we only got to Guymon OK, which is actually a better town anyway (it always works out).
Rt 64 east from Taos took us immediately from the glitzy Taos town with oxygen bars, energy crystals, day spas and alpaca underwear, to a fairly narrow, kind of rough two laner up the mountain into the Santa Fe National Forest. Once again, there was little or no traffic (those Taos folks don't know whats right in their back yard) and the views were kind of Rocky Mt Lite with less crooked roads up not as steep hills to look at less majestic mountains and no snow. But still pretty darn pleasant and cooler than we saw in the Rockies.

At the peak it changed to a nice smooth narrow fresh paved road and we smoothly sailed down the other side, all by ourselves. At the bottom you end up in Eagle Nest which is a very big open meadow / valley where Indians gathered way back when. In 1919 a settler bought it all up, put a dam in and provided irrigation for all the surrounding farmers. Some yo-yo old guy in a 3 wheeled bright red Invader car tried to take us out by passing when and where he shouldn't have. I hope they slip ex-lax in his margarita tonight at the home. Grrrr.
And then we slowly but surely slipped the surly bonds of the Rocky Mountains (John Maggee anyone) and entered the flat wide open plains of eastern New Mexico.

We went through Cimarron which is an old town along one of the east west trails and we saw signs for the nearby Philmont Boy Scout Ranch. From Cimarron we change to Rt 58 which takes us to Interstate 25 where we head south for an exit or two. Now we had some disagreement over which exit to take and Dave got off the first one and I continued just past the exit. The radio still worked and rather than doing the technically more legal thing of going to the next exit and turning around, I just did a U-turn on the southbound lane and rode up the on-ramp joking about the police seeing me and when I got to the top, Dave pointed out the sign saying this was the exit for the NM State Police. Picky picky picky.
So we took a crappy tar and gravel road south to Springer, which is a pretty well put together town and caught Rt 412 which goes all the way across the really flat, empty western NM parts and into the really flat, empty eastern Oklahoma part.
We stayed on this road for a long straight time, but again, it is kind of meditative to travel out here with nothing from horizon to horizon. There was a little traffic and we noticed a lot of Texas plates which someone explained later in the day was because north eastern Texans go to the nearby mountains of NM to take a break from the heat.
We got to Clayton (finally) and stopped at a gas station / convenience store and the place was wall to wall vehicles filling up and people buying drinks and lunch stuff.  A guy from Tulsa chatted us up and said the north east part of OK was hilly and had trees (as apposed to here). We will keep that in mind as we head east.

We then realized we could throw a rock from Rt 412 into Texas so we said, what the heck, lets go down into Texas. We took Rt 87 down into Texas (at Texline, one of several towns that begin with Tex as it turns out), and then east on Rt 296, which is a really narrow, paved (we think) road with a speed limit of 70 mph (yikes), grass falling into the road, but gratefully, no traffic. Now on this looong stretch of road, I kept feeling stuff hitting my feet, which we think turned out to be fat grasshoppers that could not quite jump high enough to hit our wind screens. I had more splattered hoppers on my boots tonight than on the windshield for sure.
The temperature all day was a wonderful 70 degrees or so and not the 90's I had anticipated. That combined with lots of sun, made for a great day.

This section of road was not as barren as north east Colorado where we came in. The was some corn growing, quite a bit of hay and a lot of sorghum being grown.
This area is where the dust bowl was in the 1930's and you can see some signs of it here and there.
We turned north when we finally hit Rt 385 and shortly entered Oklahoma. At Boise City we checked the hotel situation and decided to end the day in Guymon, which is a bigger town than I had realized. These remote towns are really oasis's and they have to be, being so remote.
So we walked to dinner down the street. So ends the day.

Sat Sep 16, 2017 - Cortez CO to Taos NM

♭♭♭Blue skies, nothing but blue skies...♭♭
Another lovely day with no real plan, other than "start heading east". Hotel was a mob scene this morning. The angry English lady was still angry and I am sure she was shooting darts at us since we walked in with no reservations and got a room and she and her friends had to wait last night. It pays not to plan ahead. You know we have been doing this too long when I wander off into hotel continental breakfast room drama.
The long term, or rather middle term plan is to go to Wichita Kansas and go to a museum there on Tuesday. That gives us three relaxing days (250 miles per day each or so). So we decided to swing south a bit and go to the land of Red & Green chili peppers, New Mexico. First we go east to Pagosa Springs (remember that old song Wolfcreek Pass?). Traffic was not too busy. Stop for coffee and then south on Rt 84. It is at this point I would like to point out that "Mr. Prepared" missed the turn to Rt 84 and I caught it (which is more incredible). We were heading north east to Denver, and remember I lost my compass ball so..
After pointing out his error (several times) we went south and very soon were in New Mexico.

New Mexico has the coolest state flag (Zia) and it took me back to the many years of visiting Jake (my boy) when he was in school there (just last year).
The New Mexico roads are not in as good shape as Colorado and we noticed it right away. Not as bad as Vermont roads mind you, but not that great. Of course the roads we were on had no people travelling on them so I'm sure they are not a priority. We saw more of the Black Billed Magpie birds (my on staff ornithologist looked them up) that are beautiful black birds with a long tail and perfect white patches on either wing. We also saw a fox trot across the road in front of us with some kind of lunch in his/her mouth. And cattle were everywhere as these lonely mountains are open range which means the cattle just roam around munching whatever they can find all summer and magically turn into hamburgers come winter I suppose. One particularly serious looking one with big horns gave me the stink-eye as I crept by it.

We climbed over 10,000 ft and got magnificent views all around and one valley seemed overcast or hazy and we then saw a forest fire burning many miles to the west. We saw a couple tiny prairie dog looking things a couple days ago and still are not sure what they were. Too small for a squirrel and to short for a prairie dog. Yesterday we saw a marmot scampering down a street in one of the small towns we went through.
This part of New Mexico is grassier and more rolling than Colorado (hence the cattle) and lots of fence and big trucks and even saw a bunch of cowboys (riding Dodge Ram pickups) standing in a parking lot comparing belt buckles.

OK back to the route, Rt 160 west to Pagosa Springs, then Rt 84 south into New Mexico, then Rt 64 south at Tierra Amarilla, over a high pass (San Juan National Forest) and then down the other side. Now it gets interesting as we go across a large flat valley with at first lots of run down places way out in the sagebrush and lots of junk cars all over (old junk cars so they have been there a while). The other end of the valley is covered with "Earth ships" which are hippy dippy looking earth houses built in the ground with soda bottles for windows. I have been here before but the solar panels and satellite dishes are newer additions (high tech hippies). We then crossed the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge which goes over a very very deep gorge. I'll bet those pioneers used colorful language when they ran into this 150 years ago. That sucker is deep.
Then on into Taos, which has gotten really fancy schmancy since the last time I was here. And the hotels have Moab-itis with crazy high prices. We did find something "reasonable". I hate it when a town gets "discovered" and then gets ruined.
Another nice day not at work..

Fri Sep 15, 2017 - Green River UT to Cortez, CO

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!!

Thurs Sep 14, 2017 - Delta CO to Green River UT

What started as a "take it easy" day, ended up an epic day. We had hoped to take a short cut to Moab, see Arches and then a leisurely ride to Grand Junction. The shortcut turned out to be a dirt road over a mountain, which my RT refused to go along with, so we took a longer route, Rt 141, which also turned out to be an amazingly beautiful canyon ride. Colorado Aspen and conifers gave way to burnt orange rock, sagebrush and long valleys with towering mesas on either side. Lots of twists and turns and almost no traffic.
We put rain gear on early because we were skirting under a nasty dark cloud all morning and got lightly sprinkled on. Late morning brought 90 degree temps  and less threatening skies so off with the gear.

The rain gear is so light and simple it is no biggie to change in and out of it. It can get a bit warm when it stops raining. We both use Frogg Toggs if anyone is interested. Light, cheap, good.
We reached Gateway CO, which seems to be a town built from scratch with modern buildings. Almost like a developer got a bunch of people together and built a community in a beautiful valley surrounded by the redstone mesa's. I am guessing there are locals in Gateway, but there can't be too many from what we saw. Anyway, they picked a beautiful spot

We hit a high pass and suddenly got blasted by wind and big ugly black clouds ahead. So on with the Toggs and over the top. Somewhere in there we passed three cute Bighorn Sheep (they had big horns and they were not white), standing beside the road, grazing and watching traffic go by. Not much traffic to watch since there are very few cars here. We must have just skirted around the storm as we got some sprinkles but not wet, and we got to watch the lightning and hear the thunder after. Pretty awesome flying along next to a big storm. So after getting down off the high plateau and hitting Rt 191 that would take us to Moab, we took off the rain stuff (hot down here), and joined the traffic going north (yuck).

Moab must have gotten trendy since the last time I was here. The first shock was that the hotels are from $150 to $300 a night!! Huh??? And they were not crowded. Price fixing? High Utah fees?? A Motel 6 went for $140. So we decided to go to Grand Junction after seeing Arches National Park. The nice park lady told me, very pleasantly, that my brothers free senor park pass (he has been bragging about for the last week), would not cover me since I was on a separate motorcycle, and that would be $15, thank you very much, and did I know that in three weeks I could buy one (62), but it was too bad I did not get in on the $10 deal, but would have to pay $80. Yes, yes, my brother has explained all of those points many times (per day since we left..), and here is your lousy $15.

We ambled through the whole park, which was not crowded at all, and stopped for a stroll around here and there to take some pictures. A big black crow of some kind, with lots of street smarts was trying to pick open my pack when we got back. Nothing in there but dirty sox buddy. Very bold that one.
When we turned around from Devils Playground to head back for the park entrance, we noticed a big big nasty storm had snuck in behind us. So back on with the rain stuff and this time it poured buckets with lightning and thunder and Dave almost got knocked off the road when some huge gusts rolled in.

We battled our way to the visitor center, which of course was closed and so hung out under the overhang under the bathrooms and watched our bikes get soaked. I think Daves exact words were, "best thing about this is it was free". Bastard..
The thought of paying $140 for a Motel 6 in the pouring rain was too much so we decided to just head north an hour to Green Springs up on the interstate (Rt 70) and saddled up and rode through the rain and cars and trucks. (Yuck).
We found a Comfort Inn west of the Moab turn, checking in and found a tavern down the street that was hopping with people. Good people watching there and real friendly folks, couple Harleys. Off to bed. Tomorrow it looks like we will have to head south east as it is really stormy to the north east. Good night!!!

Weds Sep 13, 2017 - Glenwood Springs CO to Delta CO

Well we only did 190 or so miles today but they were beauties. We needed a slow day or two so we stopped a lot, walked a bit, chatted a bunch. Breakfast with a bunch of older golf guys. This is the second night in a row where we have been surrounded by golf people. Must be lots of tournaments. We first had to backtrack toward Aspen to Carbondale where we came through last night in the dark. I think it was prettier in the dark as this road is built up a bit, but not bad. Then turn south on Rt 133 and magically the traffic disappeared and we had the road pretty much to ourselves. We are pretty pokey and usually move a bit below the speed limit, so very relaxing. Clear blue sky and not a drip of moisture all day.

We followed a mountain stream brown and green from the recent rains and saw various folks fishing or walking or camping near the stream. We stopped at a restored coke oven where they converter coal to coke starting in the late 1800's and then took it by train down the hill to be used for making steel. They are "beehive" looking things all lined up in a row next to what probably used to be the train tracks. A guy from Woodstock Vermont chatted us up and we yakked a long time. He is not retired, but takes a month off almost every year to drive out west and see the parks. Another retirement option. He burns 14 cord of wood and had to get home to split and stack.
The road climbed and then started to twist and before we knew it we were on top. The other side, which is Rt 92,  traverses the top side of a huge valley and the views were to die for.
We met a lot of motorcycle guys with various sizes and shapes of bikes (Ducati, BMW RS, Harley (of course), and a BMW S1000r crotch rocket. That last guy looked too old to be rocketing around on a bike like that, but he did indeed. Guess he lived this long... Very little traffic so we putted along the edge of the valley overlook, stopping to get one more good shot. But they never look as good when you get home.

We dropped down the other end and stopped at the dam by a large reservoir (BMW crotch rocket guy was there). Then ended at Rt 50 which takes us back north to Delta where we decided to bunk in early and do laundry (getting a little stinky). There must have been an antique race car rally going on because the whole way back we were getting passed by old race cars. Lots of people parked beside the road taking pictures of them as they went by. I can't tell you what kind they were (they go real fast), but I would guess 60's vintage.
Got the hotel about 4:30 and loaded the washer with everything we got. Nice day, and actually nice to get in early since we road after dark last night. Utah tomorrow (I think).

Tues Sep 12 - Boulder CO to Glenwood Springs CO

Awesome day today. We were wiped out last night and I think we must have slept 10 hours easy. Those 350+ miles yesterday did us in. But we made it!
First order of business was to catch up with our new found cousin, and genealogy expert, Laura. Her favorite breakfast place was just around the corner and we met there at 9:00 and caught up for an hour or more. She tipped us off to the extensive fires in Utah which explains the haziness yesterday, so we may need to rethink going too much further west. We are related from a bunch of generations back and we are hoping we can talk more about old mutual relatives. And she rides a motorcycle!

We decided to go back up Boulder Canyon (Rt 119) and then head toward Aspen, where our nephew Troy and his wife Chris live. Lots of great photo-ops so lots of stops. I did figure out how to take pictures while moving, but lets just say either me or my phone were going to go skidding down the pavement, and it did not work out.
We had a few constructions waits so some breaks (bikes off so they do not overheat).
We dropped into Black Hawk, which is kinda painful to see. Lots of ritzy casinos in a beautiful canyon. Who wants to be inside at a game table when all the great stuff is outside the window. Really out of place in my humble opinion.

Rt 119 took us to the interstate, Rt 70. Lots of traffic and lots of trucks. Couple tunnels and a couple stops for pictures. We hopped off on Rt 91 at Copper Mt ski area where I used to ski 40 years ago (yikes). Very light traffic and smooth road all the way to the turnoff to Independence Pass.

This road is beautiful and twists and climbs all the way up and over the pass. Almost no traffic which was delightful, our own custom built road.
We stopped at the top for pictures and met a nice young guy on a Yamaha FZ-10 which was a real beauty. He had 300 miles on it and was just breaking it in. He wouldn't need a girlfriend with a bike like that for sure. We saw him further down the other side of the pass standing in the pouring rain next to his brand new bike. How romantic..

We pulled into Aspen about 4:30 and Dave's GPS found Troy & Chris's place. We got caught up with them for a couple/few hours and headed to our hotel in Glenwood Springs. Really nice late day ride with dry warm evening air. Looks like the fires are in western Utah so we should be good to go for Moab tomorrow. Unless we change our minds.