We had a short desert run today to Las Vegas, no opportunity for new photos. En route we passed through a small bit of Arizona's northwestern corner, which puts us now up to 13 states, and still not in California. We arrived in early afternoon with a room at the hotel New York New York. The rooms are quite reasonable in price and lovely. The prices for everything else, well, it’s a combination of Las Vegas and New York. So is the traffic, a bit of NASCAR excitement going from the north end of the city to the south on I-15, followed by midtown Manhattan on the city streets around the Strip. Add a mass of tourists milling around and it is quite an adventure on two wheels. The driving pattern ranges from aggressive to worse.

One of the features of this hotel is that it has a monster roller coaster, the newer steel type, looping all around the block-sized skyscraper building. Part of it runs not too far from our room on the 18^th floor, and the trains rumble past every few minutes accompanied by screaming. I sort of hope they shut this off at night, but since it’s Vegas, it probably is 24/7. Oh, well, we have our earplugs!

Sue is visiting the spa to get the motorcycle-wrestling knots wrung out of her shoulders. After considering the Cirque du Soleil offering at this location, an “adult entertainment” version called “Zumanity” (interesting) and the prices thereof (yikes!) the decision was to pass on the show, spend part of that price on the spa and a good supper, and retire to our room  for our own adult entertainment. No, there will not be pictures or text in this regard: what goes on in Vegas is going to stay in Vegas.

 

The scenery along the route was often spectacular; in the morning we passed through the Capital Reef area, and at one point we rode through a gap in an enormous escarpment where the earth’s crust abruptly tilted and thrust hundreds of feet up in huge blocks.

 

Today’s pictures are from the Ghost Peak from roadside “view point” areas established along the route area; to keep moving, we had to pass up many other scenic views.

 

We met a number of other BMW riders at stops today, and there are more on the road in today’s area covered than in the Midwest. However, the predominant bike on the road remains the Harleys. The winds have been southerly, like yesterday, but stronger, and between around noon and 3 to 4 pm each day are overlaid with strong unpredictable gusts. The evening news reported various areas including some we passed through with gusts reported above 45 mph, For a while we  (mostly John) thought about cutting short for the day, but as we moved to I-15 and headed south, it was easier to deal with a head-on wind than the earlier side blasts with a more westerly road direction on I-70.

 

As ever through the trip, the land shifts appearance as we go, never ending with the sort of scenery where we began. On a day where the rock formations and topography predominate as features of note, one might think the tone would be a statement of enduring permanence and stability – but that’s an effect of the long distance vistas of the mountain and mesa features. Closer in, the same features convey a homily on the constancy of change, as sense that everything, even these rocks, is shifting form and changing constantly, that everything is constantly changing, each part at its own rate in its own way.

 

So, this morning all was well with the bikes, and more or less so with the riders. We loaded up with farewells and thanks to Robert, and cleared the driveway without further problems, We stopped in Crestone at Curt's Store for gas, John making the by-now obligatory wrong turn getting there. We photographed the town sign, including a t-shirt brought along for this occasion. "Gene's BMW Cycle Shop" belonged to someone we both formed a fond appreciation for who died last year. We thought we'd take a bit of him along on this ride, as he was wont to saddle up and take off for any corner of the continent for many years, Crestone seemed a good place for the documentary picture. It is one of the few places in the US that he may not have passed through, and we think he'd appreciate adding another interesting place to his list.

It was cold enough for shirt, sweater, riding jacket, and a windbreaker until we had passed the Monarch Pass elevation, the highest on our trip plan. We heard several optimistic suggestions that we'd make Grand Junction CO in 4 hours. This may be technically possible with perfect conditions, but finding ourselves crossing the continental divide behind not one but two doublewide "mobile estates" being trucked somewhere put a considerable extension on our travel time, and that of an impressively long line of other travellers inching up and down the mountain roads.

However, we were able to make good time crossing the Curecanti territory that contains the Black Canyon of the Gunnison and Blue Mesa Lake despite blustery winds . After the northward turn at Montrose CO to Grand Junction, we encountered larger clouds that were trying to rain, but almost none of it reached the earth below in the dry air. Geek note: this is technically known as "virga" in meteorology; there's your trivia for the day.This happened on and off for the rest of the ride to Green River UT. We paused in Grand Junction to replace some spare fuses we'd used up en route and fill in gaps in the kit. Sue also finally caved in and bought sunglasses for riding into the sun half of every day.

Utah, our eleventh state so far, seen from this route (HWY 50 joins I-70) appears a brown vast expanse with mesas rising here and there, sprase vegetation anywhere, and a long, long road to the horizon with a scattering of cars, a variety of huge trucks (some with three trailers) blazing along at speeds over 80 punching shock waves through the air around them - and a couple of senior motorcyclists being passed by everything else. I am due some serious points for restraint staying under the official 75 limit.

The town of Green River is having a melon festival this weekend - rather odd for a place with 180 miles of desert in every direction. But in fact the Green River runs a very long route through eastern Utah, invisible from the interstate for the most part.

 

We rise for an early breakfast ready to pack and go back up the valley to Hwy 50. The thought occurs that it will be A Good Thing to top up the gas tanks, especially since we don’t know how much the K1200 lost while recumbent. Hmm, can’t seem to find John’s ignition key. No trouble, we have a spare.  Wait a minute   -  the key probably got left with the bike last might in the confusion of getting all the gear into the house. And so it was, right there in the ignition switch – which had, between the adrenaline rush and  sheer forgetfulness, been left in the ON position. Since we arrived in daylight, no one noticed the lights were on, and by the time we went out to dinner they weren’t on any more to be seen.

Well, we HAVE a battery charger, but we DON’T have a long enough extension cord to reach from the house. Robert phones a neighbor who has one at a construction site and drives off to fetch it. That in place, we discover that the charger gets power from the house, but it’s not getting through to the battery. The finest minds in the galaxy turn this problem over for a while, Sue’s bet is on a blown fuse. After a few minutes combing through a lot of fuses that don’t fit, we come up with a ten-amp fuse the will fit the 7.5 amp slot. By now we have exhaustively read all the BMW owner’s handbook info, plus the owner’s association guidebook, and know there are no BMW riders close than Alamosa or Salida who have listed willingness to aid including owning a trailer for carrying injured bikes to repair, and we know the closest dealership is in Grand Junction, on the northwest side of the state and the other side of a lot of mountains. This better work… Sue wins her bet, and the lights come on correctly in the charger, bringing much relief all around. Now for hours of checking to see when the charger thinks it has the battery at least up to 85% Once we get at least to that level,  we can keep up the charge riding long stretches of highway miles ahead if necessary. As I write this entry, Robert is doing laundry and graciously saying it’s no problem if we have to stay over today. Sue is taking a nap (her prize for the bet). The time is nearing noon two hours into the charging process. We’re not up to 85% yet, but the lights and all the little pump motors and instruments now respond when the key is turned, so things seem to be going in the right direction.

Footnote - it takes all day and a night to revive a totally drained battery by using this type of  charger.

 

 

There’s been a delay in posting data to the web page. We moved from Lamar, CO, where we stayed at the Best Western Motel also labeled as “The Cow Palace”. From there we headed West – oh, you guessed that part? I suppose you also know we did so on Highway 50? Right, well, then, no surprises? Let’s see.

Lamar is at the eastern border of Colorado, and nearly as far toward the southern border.. It looks like what was back there on 50 in western Kansas. But you recall the elevation was going up. It keeps on doing so, fairly gradually for quite a while. The farming gives way to cattle country, though they remain intermixed. Large feedlots at terminal shipping areas begin to appear. The rail lines continue to parallel 50, and the predominant line seen is the BNSF, Burlington Northern &: Santa Fe, a merger of two of the older rail empires in the west. Coal trains are seen most often heading eastbound from the mountains, 2 or 3 diesel engines at both front and back, and a LOT of cars – Virginians who have seen the similar rail lines from the Appalachians will be familiar with this, though the trains tend to be longer, and have farther to travel in the West. We passed one such train eastbound while we were running westward alongside it. We were at 70mph and the train appeared to be at about the same speed. That’s a total of 140 MPH. Those who like arithmetic can work on this: it took exactly two minutes to reach the back end of the train. 5280 feet in a mile, 60 seconds in a minute, 70 mph is 110% of 60 mph, that’s 110% of one mile in a minute... So, how long was that trainload of coal?

On ward – La Junta, Pueblo, after that no more big cities for a while. Pueblo has a wrinkle in the road that gave us an interesting problem. There, with the mountain chains now is sight and the foothills rising around us, we had to turn onto the northbound Interstate 25 briefly and then exit to resume 50 West. The signs were quite explicit, we were to take the exit toward Canon City, Fine. The sign over the center lane said “Canon City” while the right lane listed various local roads for the right-hand exit.  We followed the go-straight arrow in the center lane and waited ( in busy high speed traffic) for the nest exit to be 50 West to Canon City. Then we waited for another exit. And another. Around 6 miles it became clear that we would wind up in Castle Rock or maybe Denver, but the chance for 50 West lay behind us. Turn offs began to appear which were not exits to roads, but just places to go off the interstate into unpaved high desert sagebrush and rocky gullies. There were lots of out-of-state license plates on vans full of families waving maps on the side of the highway around these, and plenty of circling buzzards, not a promising prospect. We doubled back around 8 miles out, and sure enough, that very first bit where the sign told us to stay in the center lane was in fact where we should have gotten off I-25. There, back on the road –

so no more surprises…?

Up through foothills and into the mountains, the highway is a fine road, more curves but sustaining high speed. Sue spots a Benedictine monastery near Canon City with some kind of sign about wine, and we turn in to pick up a bottle for Robert Philleo, who is going to host us at his home in Crestone CO, the place where our son Tim and his bride Wendy were married. Something’s not quite as expected; the first monastery building we approach turns out to be a training facility for guards in the state prison system. OK, we’ll turn laboriously in the parking lot and go to the other side of the grounds. There someone says this isn’t it either, the winery is about 300 feet down that road to the east. OK, that’s it, and we purchase what turns out later to be a very good cabernet sauvignon. Not from monks, though: the Benedictines have sold off the monastery and gone elsewhere, and the winery is now an independent producer who apparently paid for the rights to use the monastery’s name and labeling. With this all strapped into the luggage, off we go West again. No more surprises…?

The pass and canyon route for 50 to Salida, and to Poncha Springs a few miles past there where we will turn south to Crestone, is gorgeous. The sun is shining, there are a few fluffy clouds, the Arkansas River which runs along this route is a bright clear blue punctuated by the occasional fly fishermen, and the weather is mild. We stop in Salida to call Robert and let him know about how long until we’ll probably arrive. And, it’s time to fill the gas tanks. The gas station is 8 feet or so below the highway grade, with pacing around the station and in the road-cuts onto the highway, but there’s gravel on the slopes.

Sue heads straight for the highway, a steep slope. I follow her. At the tip of the slope, unfortunately a brief burst of traffic passes, and there’s a stop before going all the way up onto the road. Sue slips and her bike falls over sideways, taking me down like a neighboring bowling pin. Various helpers are gathered up – a trucker, a young man Sue finds in the store, and a deputy sheriff – the bikes are set upright again, no injuries except a raised heart rate and acute embarrassment. This time Sue leads out onto a side road with a lot better grade and angle, and we’re flying to Poncha Springs. All together, now, “No More Surprises”.

As we turn southward for a trip of about fifty miles of well tended state highway, darkness falls in the form of a dense dark gray cloud that heavily shadows the landscape around us for a mile or so ahead. It begins to shower. The shower gets harder. We are of course not dressed for rain, or the colder that comes with it. But it’s only  a mile to where we can see the sunlight warming the road and fields, and it really isn’t safe to stop to open  the bags and change coats.  As we press on toward the sunlight, it becomes apparent that this particular cloud is going our way, and it keeps pace with us for fifteen to twenty minutes. Finally the road swings to the right a little and we escape into sunshine – another twenty minutes and we’re dry again and warmed up. Almost there now, we find the branch-off for state highway 17 that parallels the mountains to our east as we move south through the valley in the general direction of the Great Sand Dunes National Monument. The county roads count down and on the south edge of Moffatt we find and turn left, east, onto County Road T. Then we ride on and on and on (it’s only ten mile but seems longer when you are ready to stop; riding for the day). Robert’s directions make it easy to find his street on the mountainside, but not so easy to spot the low roadside numbers in the brush that mark his driveway. We find ourselves out of paved road and past the intersection onto a loose gravel road. Uh, oh. With fifteen minutes of scouting afoot and some heaving on the rear luggage rack by Sue we manage to turn the K1200 around in a fairly level gravel driveway, and I catch my breath while Sue walks back down the mountain a couple of hundred feet to spot the house number and point the way. I drive down the gravel stretch less than calmly, and turn into Robert’s driveway. This is also gravel, not a bad hard-pack, but with a couple of ruts in the narrow crowned entry between ditches and trees. Another surprise evolves as I seem to take a whole minute to lose traction on the front wheel and topple gracelessly over onto the OTHER side of the bike this time. No injuries again, much embarrassment, Robert recruits some stalwart neighbors, and I repeat the now-familiar lecture on how we get around 700 pounds of machinery, fuel,  and luggage upright without damaging any helpers. It helps to be vague about the weight so they don’t run away. We strip off the luggage, the tank bag. and one side case to ease the burden, and up she goes. One neighbor reports some sort of leakage, but it turns out to be only the gasoline overflow that results when the bike is horizontal.

The bike starts and runs fine, and I pilot it back to Robert’s house where he has moved his car to clear a good space for parking the bikes. Thanks all around. Then we walk back up the mountain road, by now thoroughly short of breath, to unload Sue’s bike , toss the gear into Robert’s car, and turn the F650 around to head back to the house. I have burst of “get back on the horse” bravado and Sue doesn’t complain when I fire it up and ride it back  this time managing to handle the driveway if not with style at least without incident. We lug the gear into the house, Robert has some cheese and crackers at the ready, and we open the wine and drink to arriving with surprises but no injuries. Our gracious host even took us out for a very good supper at the restaurant which was the reception site for the above-mentioned wedding. Want to bet on “No More Surprises?”

Stay tuned!

 

387 miles – a fair number of them in slow construction zones and small towns, the rest of them flying down long straight stretches of what looks like perfectly flat land until you begin to believe you might fall off the far edge. It’s not flat, however - a check of the GPS elevation data shows we ended up more than a half mile higher than where we started.

Changes in counties are marked by a small cluster of homes and small businesses around huge mega-silos operated by farming co-operatives.

Skip the fake cowboy gunfights in Dodge City: go directly to Mike Casey’s steak house, you can get direction from the Visitor’s Center on West Wyatt Earp Avenue. Just don’t say the word “Applebee’s” in front of the owner, or you’ll get a voluminous education in the difference between modern mass produced pre-processed franchise food and  How It Ought To Be Done. Eat one of his steaks and you’re likely to end up agreeing.

Windmill farm at Spears, KS. Wow – and this isn’t even one of the big ones.

The “Nap Day” picture goes with the day we stayed over in Emporia.

We had figured on going further to La Junta, but calling ahead found no rooms available, so Lamar is today’s stop. Holy cow, this must be the 18-wheeler capital of the world, right through the middle of town. Like an urban version of I-81. They don’t bother the Little Red Bike, though: must be some sort of secret recognition among truckers so they know she’s a member of the club despite the change in vehicles from 18 wheels to 2.

 

Tomorrow we’ll work up into the mountains, and detour off Hwy 50 from Poncha Springs to Moffat and Crestone for an overnight stay with Robert Philleo. Then we’ll retrace to Hwy 50 and head toward Grand Junction CO via Gunnison the next day.

 

 

A beautiful day and an interesting road today. John discovered that in Missouri, highway access ramps often have a parallel entrance to  a road that turns out not to be connected to the highway... don't ask...

We have already been to California, so the rest of our travels are a bonus. California is located between Jefferson City and Sedalia MO on Hwy 50. It appears to have no smog, no freeways, no garlic festival, no sea lions, no bays of any sort, and no mountains..

Missourians seem to have distinctive burial customs. First we discovered that , like VFW meeting halls, the typical location is right along the highway for easy access. Then there is the matter of categorizing the, er, inhabitants. At one point we discovered that Lutherans, a prominent religious group in Missouri, seem to be buried surrounded by fences. In some cemeteries there are only Lutherans. Where there are non-Lutherans, the fencing separates the sections. It was not immediately apparent whether the fencing was intended to keep some people out, or to keep the Lutherans in. Next, we found a cemetery with beautiful carved stone entrances spaced along the highway, each one framing a road to a well-kept  burial ground, and with the carved inscriptions at each entry indicating the category of clients admissible by that entry - Evangelical Christians, Other Faiths, and Masonic Order members were the three we cataloged once we realized what we were passing, but there may have been more. Perhaps this is to simplify matters for record-keepers at the Pearly Gates.

Wait, there's more: entering on small but ambitious town, we found a proud sign at the roadside stating that the land behind it was to become the Industrial Center. So far so good - but the land immediately visible behind it was a hill covered in neatly tended gravesites. Industry? Well, there was one town where a sign explained that the buildings in view belonged to the Missouri Casket Company, the nation's leading purveyors of caskets. The prize burial custom for the day, however, appeared when we crested a hill to discover an elegant iron gateway proclaiming the gravesites beyond to be the "Useful Cemetery". No explanation was immediately apparent. Imagining what they had in mind filled quite a few miles on the road past that amazing sight.

Lunch in Kansas City, the one in Kansas, just had to be a steak dinner. J. Alexanders did a pretty good job, now we have to diet for days. Tradition, however, must be served, after riding through some of the great historic railheads of the old cattle drive days.

No buffalo seen in MO or KS so far. There IS a large herd in Illinois, a rather unexpected sight!More ancient sea bottom;, giving way at the state border from large flat farms to large flat stretches of ? grazing land? fallow fields being paid a subsidy for not growing crops? leftover prairie? in Kansas. between Olathe and Emporia.

The land rolls like ocean swells to far horizons which are punctuated by grain elevators like inscrutable monoliths in the distance. The evening was actually cool, and rolling toward Emporia at sunset we were glad to have heated handgrips on the bikes

 

 

Shortly after we left Olney, the appearance of a large black rolling mass in the sky approaching rapidly with rising wind convinced us to put on our rain gear. Just as we restarted the bikes, a loud clap of thunder announced the arrival of a squall, and off we went in the rain. This lasted the remainder of the day, occasionally heavy but mostly light rain. As we skirted around St.Louis on an interstate bypass there was an unusual view of the downtown skyline and the great arch, all dark gray and silhouetted against a starkly contrasting sky of white overcast and black rainsqualls. We crossed the Mississippi on US 255/50 south of the city in East St Louis, entering Missouri for our third state of the day.

We had hopes of continuing, perhaps to Jefferson City, but found ourselves drifting along at 2 to 5 mph in an enormous traffic jam, mostly huge trucks, for mile after mile toward the point where US 50 departs from the interstate and once again takes its own course westward across Missouri. The bottleneck involved broken crash barriers along the side of the highway and a lot of HAZMAT cleanup crews and equipment. We didn't know what the HAZMAT issue was, and didn't want to hang around to find out. Stopping for gas, we started trying to call for a motel room someplace between where we were and Jefferson City 130 miles away. Finding no available rooms in between, we went 200 feet and checked into a Comfort Inn in Pacific, MO. After draping the room with clothing and gear in various states of dampness, we repaired to the only nearby eatery for not actually bad road food of the Waffle House variety and hopes of  more miles tomorrow.