Home at Last!

Well, the final 200 miles was a cinch, and blissfully uneventful, although I swear I saw as much law enforcement in the last two hours as in the previous two days. Dave out to meet me in Safford, and we had breakfast at the Manor House. It was *much* more civilized coming home in 85 to 90 degree weather, rather than 103 or so weather.

I have to give Dave a tremendous amount of credit for putting together all the logistics and details of the trip, even if he didn't get full benifit of them, himself. It was a real pleasure spending time with everyone in the group, and I was sorry we didn't get more days to ride and visit.

After I bid Dave farewell, one of my first tasks was to do something about the dirt I've been complaining so mightily about the last few days. A hose only got it part way, and I spent over an hour or so working to scrub the rest free (or at least most of it, hopefully). You should be able to see the before and after pictuers below.

Click here for pictures.

Click here for a map of route.

~r

17 JUL: Cortez to Eagar, and Beyond! (well Safford actually)

After posting yesterday's blog, I called the Best Western in Eagar, AZ, to move it back a day (to today, rather than tomorrow.) Much to my surprise and chagrin, they were full. What?? What the heck is there in Eagar, to fill up a hotel, anyway?

So, I figured, I'd play it by ear, and see how I felt, as I passed Eagar, and then Alpine. I was feeling pretty good up until I started my descent into New Mexico, towards Glenwood. I've always done this ride in the early morning, and it always seemed cool enough. Well, it's a different story in the afternoon. It was about 91 degrees in Glenwood, which isn't too bad, but I knew that Safford was going to be the worst part.

I was feeling okay, once I started drinking about a quart or two of gatorade an hour. This didn't initially dawn on me until I left the interstate headed towards St. Johns, and started feeling kinda weird. I felt better after drinking downing one of the 500ml bottles of Gatorade. Fast forward a bit... By the time I reached Safford, it was 103, and I was feeling punchy, and decided discretion was the better part of valor. I'd been getting pretty tired, and riding on reflex, rather than paying full attention. Time to stop. Timing was probably fortuitous. No sooner had I finished my early dinner at the Manor House, and was in the lobby of the Best Western checking in, when one of those hellacious pre-rain storm dust storms blasted through. This one was a lot worse than others I had seen, and the poor bike got blasted by dust and debris for about 20 minutes, as I watched on from the lobby window. It was really blowing, and I was afraid it was going to tip over, but she held. Good thing I rembered Scott's tip on keeping it in gear. I thought about moving it, but this seemed like asking for a spill...

(I've still got to come up with a name for my bike. My old 65 Chevy Impala was named "Big Blue" by the family (okay the car was my parent's car, really). My friends called the Chevy the blue bomber, due to it's enormous size. I haven't quite figured out what the FJR would be called. Scott suggested "protein bar," after my favorite travel snack, but that wasn't quite what I had in mind... After today, I may have to call it "Dusty" or "Sandy." The pictures don't really do the dust storm justice, since I conveniently popped the camera back in the top case, just before the storm got significantly worse...

Dave's meeting me at the Manor House for breakfast. (I'm buying!) You can arm wrestle Kari over this, if you like.

Click here for map of route.

Click here for pictures.

~r

PS: Scott, hurry up with your blog, already. I'm sure it will be much funnier when you retell it :)

16 JUL: Glenwood Springs to Cortez, Colorado (aka the whole enchilada)

I know when I wrote my addendum to yesterday's blog, I suggested I'd shortcut some things. It's amazing what a good night's sleep, and a good breakfast (with coffee) can do for your morale. I opted for the "whole enchilada" so I wouldn't wonder what it would have been like.

Click here for route.

This diabolical route Dave devised included about 7 road changes, so I had to break out the tank bag, which up to this point I had just used as a sack to carry stuff in my top case. The tank bag has a map window, which holds the rand McNally laminated maps. Well, it's supposed to. As I was getting things prepped last night I discovered that the Colorado map is oriented with "horizontal" map sections (wider than higher) rather than "vertical." Unfortunately, it's not square and doesn't fit this way. I considered just mounting it at 90 degrees, and try to read it sideways, but then I got a little annoyed with the map, and got out the new swiss army soldier knife Kari got me, and did a little carving on it, taking off the 1/2 inch edge that was offending. (Who uses those reference numbers along the edge, anyway, right?)

This route is worth every minute of the 8 hours it took. Much of the route had a 35 or 45 mph speed limit, which kept things a little slower than I would have otherwise like to have gone. Gotta check that throttle spring... seems to work in reverse at times, since it seems to keep wanting to go faster. :) Road conditions on 92 reminded me a bit of 191 in the AZ white mountains, with a little bit of stray small gravel pieces... just enough to keep you wondering what's around the next bend.

Note, I've been trying to annotate the pictures the last day or two. (Before I discoved the feature, I had been adding comments, but these aren't as visible in different modes).

I measured the route at 310 miles, and took about 8 hours, an hour less than google's estimate. (Of course I had a protein bar for lunch, unlike normal people.)

I can't count the number of number of amazing scenes I had to forgoe capturing for posterity due to Colorado's apparent aversion to paving nearly every single pullout in the state. The pullouts were pretty dicey looking, many with what appeared to be pea size gravel, of questionable consistency (sometimes deep tire tracks in them). They were frequently canted rather steeply away from the road, and some were littered with baseball sized rocks (or larger).

You really have to ride this one to get the full effect.

Next time I have to bring my tail-gunner to photograph everthing. She just looOOoves to do this. (I can see her eyes rolling, already). I use the universal signal for "take a picture of that" : Tapping her left knee, and pointing. Photography is easy if you have good help. (Point and shoot).

Click here for pictures.

Misc Facts: I can now put down the kickstand by feel, without looking, almost instinctively. I realized this a couple days ago.

Weather: Perfect. Temps ranged from 70 to 90 or so, once the sun came up.

PS: If anyone is having trouble seeing the pictures, let me know. I've changed the permissions to "unlisted" rather than "public", but I think (hope) you can still see them at the link above.

~r

15 JULY: Pinedale, WY to Glenwood Springs, CO

I hit the road about 7:30 after a good breakfast. Lots of boiled eggs, and oatmeal. Oh, and some french toast.

There was a nice hispanic gentleman in the parking lot, that came over and offered to take my picture, when he saw that I had a camera. Very nice of him.

Click here for a map of the route.

The weather was sunny, clear, and calm this morning, with the temperature being about 45 degrees. The rather straight road, with compartively featureless terrain was a nice change from all the extreme beauty I've been suffering from the past week or so :). Rather like cleansing your pallette before the next course. About lunchtime, I passed through Craig, and managed to miss the turn. Somehow the highway labled "40" sounded like an interstate. Yeah, I wished. I still had another hundred miles to go before getting to I-70. It only took me about 10 minutes to realize I didn't seem to be on a business route going back to the interstate.

South of Craig, the terrain grew increasingly more interesting, winding gently through some valleys with a bit more vegetation than the morning's ride. I hit a tiny sprinkle just as I reached the city of Rifle, but just enough to put spots in the dust. (This is irony. The bike is currently so caked in rain/dust/must at this point, you couldn't tell.)

As the afternoon wore on, I soon had to ditch the outer exo-portion of my jacket, and somewhat later the adventure pants. I had been holding out removing these, since it's a minor pain, and rain seemed to be on the horizon. About the time it hit 85 degrees or so, enough was enough, though.

I arrived in Glenwood at about 3:30PM

facts:

starting temperature 45 degrees

ending temperature 90 degrees

rain: only a tiny amount

Distance: 400, including minor detour (wrong turn) in Craig, CO.

Click here for pictures.

~r

Addendum: The trafic/pedestrian situation is about 5 times worse than Banff, which was scary for us riding motorcycles in town. People here are driving much faster through town (30-40 mph, perhaps)... crazy. I'm thinking about just making it a one night stay here, and pressing on to Cortez.

I just re-checked my front tread, and have a full 1 mm before getting to the wear bar, so should be good for another 3 thousand miles, let alone the 900 or so I have left.

PPS: This is the "original Plan A" for tomorrow: Click here.

Seems a bit long, and am thinking about shortcutting some. May go through Delta, instead of Sapinero, and Durango, rather than going by Telluride.

14 July: West Yellowstone to Pinedale, Wyoming

Click here for route.

As you'll see from the pictures, I was greeted by a lovely rainbow as I stepped out of the room, to go find breakfast. Yes, it was raining lightly. After eating about 6 eggs (mostly the white, after popping out the yolk), and a few other miscellaneous things, (Honest, honey, I don't recall what else there was... :) ).

I loaded for bear, and donned my adventure pants and jacket (minus clammy feeling liner) but with the Frogg Toggs on top. After getting onto the park proper, it immediately stopped raining, and in fact didn't rain for the rest of the day. The Frogg Toggs came off. It was cool, but the relatively lower speed of driving around the park (not more than 45, and much less if some yahoo happened to spy an animal out the window of their car) made for warmer feeling riding.

I can see where our hard earned dollars are going, (or someone's grandkid's, at any rate). Exiting the park at the south end soon brought plenty of construction, gravel roads, potholes, mud, etc. I was beginning to worry I'd never make it out of there. Finally, the construction relented.

The road through the Grand Tetons was as impressive as I remembered. See my pictures for some idea.

The road from Jackson to Pinedale was amazing. The terrain on the surrounding hillsides varried from rugged mountains in the distance, to rolling closer hills, both with and without pine trees, etc. Of course there was a major river nearby for the first parts, and the second parts were more farmland.

I've got to hunt for some grub. The front desk clerk was rather curt, and I don't think I'd get a good recommendation for a restaurant from someone so surly.

Click here for pictures.

~r

PS: If you're one of the "splitters," give me a call, I'd love to hear how yesterday went, and make sure you guys got in okay. It couldn't have been much messier than mine. (I HOPE!!) :)

Arrived at West Yellowstone

Click here for route.

Well, this morning I made my farewells to the others, who were headed on to Cour d'Alene.

I had good weather for riding today..... for about 20 to 30 minutes. Turns out I was headed into some of the nastiest weather I've ever riden in. It was raining hard, and a pretty darn windy, also.

Weather cleared about 45 minutes later, although it seemed like hours. It cleared by the time I got the the interstate, but then got just as bad as I approached Butte. The weather didn't last as long, but the rain seemed to be accompanied with some really bad gusts. After getting through Butte, the weather cleared, for the most part, and warmed noticiably.

Note to self: The Alter-ego jacket can handle 45 degree weather, or rain, but not both very well. It was a little brisk. It didn't help that I was already a little damp when I donned my rain gear. Electric seat and grips helped, though.

After getting on 191 headed off the interstate to Yellowstone, it was quite sunny, but the high wind continued, much to my annoyance.

Click here for pictures.

Arrived in Kalispell, Montana

I'm going to keep this short, since the day was long. We rode 483 miles today, and didn't get in until about 9pm. Actually this isn't quite fair, since we arrived at the hotel about 3pm, and then took off for a ride to Glacier National Park after checking in. This was a slight variation of the original plan, since we didn't loop through Glacier from the far side, in case it got too late, or the weather turned bad. Actually it held out well.

Among the intereting things that happened was a moment in the parking lot. I noticed a typical Harley/Biker-looking guy walking with purpose directly at me, and I thought "uh oh, looks like trouble." (I didn't remember cutting anyone off, but who knows). I was quite surprised when he came up and quite amiably started asking me about the FJR, and why I decided to get that, rather than a Honda ST1300, and the like. I guess you can't judge a book by its cover. :) Even stranger, another friend of his walked up and said he was thinking about one too. We talked about motorcycles for at least 10 minutes before I managed to break away, and find the facilities, so to speak.

Click here for approximate route.

Click here for pictures.

~r