CnC

03 July 2009

The Road to Dodge Needs Tyres - 311 miles

We took a long hard look at our rear tyre last night and determined it probably will not make it to Tulsa and back to Albuquerque, a distance of about 1400 miles. So we looked in the Gold Book and found the next Honda dealer in our track was at Dodge City. 300 miles away. Will we make it?

The weather was fine and cool on departure and our first 30 or so was on freeway. Easy. Then we turned east on US50. We stopped at the little town of Fowler where we had phone coverage to call ahead to Dodge City. Tyre is available. Now all we have to do is get there.

20 miles further on we stopped at Rocky Ford at a NAPA store (something like Repco) for a new bulb for BRed. Easily replaced, fuel and coffee and we were on our way with just over 200 miles to go.

The scenery had changed a lot by now from all our previous travels in USA. We were now east of the Rockies and on Colorado's prairie country. For the fist time, not a mountain in sight. Just like traveling west of the Great Divide back home.

The roads, however are much better here and we made good time, the only stop being for the mandatory photo shoot on the Kansas border.

Finally we made it to Dodge, and while the others settled in, we went straight to the Honda Shop (really a Harley shop that diversifies) and got the new tyre put on.

Feeling better, we checked in, then went and did a little shopping and all went out to a very sumptious Thai meal nearby.

Long day - good day.

Here's pics:-

Interesting trailer style in Fowler

Seemd the Colorado people aren't happy aboutrecent tax changes

Look Ma - no mountains. Click for biggerness.

In between the corn and wheat farms, the fertilizer factories

Fourth of July coming up - fireworks for sale everywhere

Dodge City - who'd have guessed

Mural in Dodge

In for tyre

The metal strip is the modern version of a hitching rail

The old one - pretty sad

02 July 2009

Getting High in the Rockies - 218 miles

My turn to lead again today. We had a cool start again. But again, it soon warmed up. Only 30 miles down the road, in fairly heavy traffic we came to Aspen. First glimpse of the affluence in this place was the large number of private jets parked at the airport.

Then in to the town and it was quite pretty, well maintained and manicured, and whilst very green at the moment, would look really good with a coat of snow.

The ski runs can be seen from the main street, where we found Paradise Bakery, after getting directions from a town manicurist. He'd probably be called a garbo anywhere else.

Coffee and a warm cinnamon bun went down well, the only problem being the outside chairs had no table. Hard to balance a coffee of the lap whilst devouring a warm sticky bun. I guess even Paradise isn't perfect.

back on the road, we once again broke an altitude record, making 12,095 ft above sea level at Independence Pass. Probably the highest we will be on this holiday (with feet still on the ground) and probably as high as I want to be. Breathing doesn't do much good up there - there's practically no oxygen. Those of us with reduced lung capacity from past smoking had big trouble just walking the short scenic walk.

Down the other side I was a very good boy, sitting right on the 30mph speed limit. Guess who was sitting on my rear all the way. Yep, the local sheriff. Well at least it took the heat off Ken.

Whilst at the top, Charleen need to go to a loo. They were setting up some porta-loos, but they were going to take a while. So off we went. Well, of course everything happened. We had the sheriff making us slow, the road was quite irregular in parts making for the occasional suspension squashing bump, we were running beside a rushing river and there were no towns or parks in sight and with cliffs on one side and river on the other, no real place for a girl to go.

Ever compassionate, I kept riding so she could see and hear the river although I did try to avoid the bumps - really I did.

She was almost screaming in pain when we finally came upon a town and I missed the public loo. A quick U-turn and ride right up to it - only to find the cleaner was busy doing his thing.

He was nice enough to step out and let her in - along with a few others in our party.

More nice riding followed as the area opened up on to open range country, bare fields ringed by distant snow-speckled mountains. Nice. We stopped at a small town (six building in total) diner/bar for lunch. Some nice burgers with fresh-cut chips - skin-on. That filled us up.

Not too long from our destination was the turn-off to Pikes Peak. It was an in-and-out route to the hill climb but Ken and Bob were a bit tired and opted to carry on to the motel.

We tackled the climb, but I piked (on Pikes Peak - get it?) when the road turned to gravel. I managed a few hundred metres, but the first major corner looked too much for my abilities on this bike - and there was six miles of twisty dirt road ahead. Discretion was called for. Discretion was a U-turn.

We made it to the hotel and after settling in we all went to a nearby diner adjoining a truck parking area for some bowls of chilli. Too full after those lunchtime burgers for a full meal.

Another great day on the road.

We even took some pictures:-

There's an eagle sculpture on top of the church spire - Aspen

Aspen main street - view from Paradise Bakery

Ralph Lauren building gussied up for 4th July

Nice Aspen architecture

First glimpse of a beaver - we think

he posed for more photos

Ken tries moon walking on snow

Up there.

Cruising down the eastern side

Who knew it was at the base of Pikes Peak, Colorado?

We didn't take that long - or use that much fuel

01 July 2009

Three Good Roads - 328 miles

First thing on the agenda was visit Arches National Park. My goodness we have been in to a lot of parks. They all need to be paid for. Thankfully, we all had pre-purchased our parks passes. They were $80 each but I think they have paid for themselves two times over just this week.

This park is truly magnificent. Huge sandstone walls, towers, mesas and all other shapes abound. You can see a layer under the largest sandstone layer that is crumbling badly. Gives rise to all the shapes, many of them looking quite precarious. We did a little walk to see Delicate Arch, the one Utah uses on their number plates. At this altitude it was quite difficult for us sea-level dwellers.

Then it was back to Moab for a refuel and we headed out on a road Ken had picked out last night. Turned out this was a very scenic route that followed the Colorado River. This ancient stream had cut hundreds of metres into the surrounding sandstone and the walls of this canyon, named Hal Canyon were huge.

We followed this for quite a while until it made it's way towards I-70, which we turned onto. This is a major highway and the trucks run at very high speed. We needed to keep up to the 75mph speed limit to avoid being overtaken and buffetted off the road. While dicing with one, we almost missed the Welcome to Colorado border sign. A bit of reversing ensued, and the requisite pictures were taken.

We soon stopped in Fruita for a coffee then entered another park, Colorado National Monument. This is a road built into the side of a large canyon, a project of the depression years last century. They did a great job, and more recent upgrades have made it in to a spectacular - if a little scary - ride overlooking the surrounding countryside.

After that we all got a little lost in Grand Junction. They've built new roads since our maps were produced. By the way, Ken was leading today and has proved to be a bona fide Wing Rider, leading us to at least three U-turns for the day.

A late lunch and we finally headed out of Grand Junction only 12 miles of I-70 and we turned off onto Hwy65, also known as Skyway. A good name too. We reached a new record (for us) height of 10879ft above sea level. A good 320 feet higher than previous.

Climbing up the hill, we paused at a pullout for a scenic view. A local law enforcer was there talking to someone else. As we pulled out, he took a look at Ken's bike and ran for his car and chased him down. First time we have been pulled up for Ken having no number plate. They had to unpack the topbox to get the papers from the bottom that showed it was a hire bike and no plate had arrived for it yet. He was a nice policeman and let us continue on.

After checking out the wonderful scenery from the top of the Skyway, we ran down the other side and still had another 80 miles or so to go to Carbondale. Over another pass we went on Hwy 133 and we raced a very fast moving stream all the way in to town.

Finally checked in to our motel after 6:30pm after a very long and very spectacular day.

Take a look at these:-