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On our way into Steamboat Springs we were stopped in traffic at a signal when a guy in an old beat up pickup next to us leaned out of his window and hollered, “Saw your plates. I drove my bike up the Alaska Highway the summer I got out of school. Glad I did and I’m taking my daughter the next time I go!”
Every day on the trip we met someone who had been to AK, had a relative stationed here in the military or just assigned to go or were planning their next trip to be to Alaska. It was heart warming in a way to be greeted with this openness, this pair of motorcycle bums a long way from home.
After stuffing ourselves in Steamboat we continued on down state 40 until we intersected state road 125. That was a beautiful ride through the aspen covered hills and valleys. Went south on 125 for a couple of miles to Granby where we stopped for gas and a snack. As we were eating our goodies a man and his son pulled into the same place we were and climbed off their XJ1100. The boy, about 14 and wearing just jeans and a windbreaker, was shivering as if he’d spent all day in a beer cooler. They had just come down from the park. We got to looking at the map and found that we could go north on state 34 and travel right over the top of the mountains through the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was somewhere in the mid 80’s F when we started up the grade into the park but slowly cooled off the higher we climbed.
When we got to the park entrance, we paid the user fee and it had cooled down to the low 70’s by the thermometer that I had mounted on the fairing. The park is very pretty and pristine and the road is a very nice 2 lane with a lot of pullouts for viewing and picture taking. As we neared the top it started to get pretty chilly but it was a very nice change from the valley we had just left. When we pulled into the Visitors Center on the top of the mountain there was a Hoary Marmot lying by the corner of one of the out buildings at the complex. This guy was about the size of a wolverine! He was just lying there by his hole under the building watching all the tourists coming and going. We walked towards him to get a picture but I guess he didn’t like company as he turned and disappeared down his tunnel. Went inside and checked the temperature at the weather station set up inside the Center and found that it was 30 deg F with winds from all directions at about 20 mph gusting to 40 mph.
When leaving the Center we decided that it might be a good idea to put on a sweater under the leathers because we weren’t actually at the highest point on the drive. Got bundled up and pulled out into the motor home parade heading over the top. I hadn’t realized that my lady had a very strong fear of extremely high places until we got about ½ a mile down the road and she tells me over our intercom to slow down and get away from the edge. We were actually in the middle of the lane but it was bothering anyway. Well, we worked out a plan. When the drop off was on the right I would tell her to look up the hill to the left. A drop to the left was, “Look right”. This went on for a couple of miles, “Look right”, “Look left” etc. until we got to a spot where we were literally riding the ridge. I had plenty of warning because it was fairly straight section of the road so I told her, “OK, close your eyes!” Luckily this only lasted for about 200 to 300 feet or think she may have gotten off and walked. The ridge top was just about the end of the cliff hanger area and when we finally cleared I got a very stern lecture about how we were to “never again” go across any roads that had this type of terrain. Oh well, I didn’t know! But I definitely do now!
This rest of that afternoon was a very pleasant ride. We got on down off the high mountains and stopped at Estes Park for a bit of food. While eating we decided to continue on due south through the cooler hills via routes 7 and 72 to Nederland where we would turn left and drop into Boulder and then on over to Longmont to visit with an old high school friend.
When we got into Nederland I had my first encounter with a traffic circle. Went around the damn thing about 3 times before my navigator told me how to get out of it. Stopped at a quick stop for a soft drink and encountered a bunch of lost hippies straight out of the sixties.
“Hey, you guys ride all the way from Alaska?” one of them asked.
“No, we stole the plates!” I responded.
“Ha ha ha ha”, we all laughed and stood around and b.s.’ed for a few minutes.
It turns out one of them had been to AK and fished out of Cordova one summer.
We got back onto the road and ran on down route 119, a very twisty turny down hill grade along a small river right into Boulder. Stopped at a pull out about halfway down the grade and took a few pictures of the canyon and river. There was a small squirrel of some sort running back and forth across the road stealing stuff from a trashcan and running back across the road to the riverside and stashing his haul in the rocks. Got a couple of pics of the little critter scolding us for watching.
Got into Boulder right at 4 PM and the start of rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon. Pulled into a parking lot and tried to figure out just where we were. Checked the map and found a K.O.A. about 10 mile from where we were so we decided to give them a try, we’d had good luck with the one the night before back in Craig.
I found a route around Boulder that got us over to the campground in about 15 minutes. When we got there the wind had picked up again to about 30 mph and gusting. Went into the office at the K.O.A. and checked on a place to pitch our tent. It turns out that the sheltered spots are for the big motorhomes and tent camping is restricted to the wide open areas (read no trees or wind breaks)! Screw this, my lady says and gets on the phone to see if we can find a room somewhere out of the wind. In about 3 minutes she locates a motel that has one room left and they will hold it for us for 15 minutes. Well, we got on the scooter and hauled a**!!!
The motel was on the north edge of Denver and about 12 miles from where we had called. We got there in a little over 9 minutes through rush hour traffic on I-25. That was a very exhilarating run, but I never want to do that again. The check in person, who my spouse had talked to, was totally amazed that we made the run to their establishment in under 20 minutes. She knew where we were when we called for the room. There was still an opening and we took it for the night. We got hold of our high school friend and spent about a week lounging at her place in Longmont.
One day, while we were in Longmont, a friend of our hosts drops by to shoot the breeze and the talk gets around to our ride down from AK. While relating some of the stuff that had happened, we mentioned the headlight failure. It turns out this guy is an electronics tech and trouble shooter over at the Celestial Seasonings packaging plant and thinks that he may be able to help with the problem. I pull the bike around the back and we proceed to tear into the problem. Switch on the handlebar is OK, the alternator is putting out to specs, both of the filaments in the lamp have continuity but there is no power to the lamp socket. We start tracing the wiring and find that the previous owner had left out the plastic ring at the back of the headlamp bucket and the wire had chafed and one of the hot leads was shorted and the ground lead was cut completely through. This particular model of Yamaha has a Reserve Lighting System that will run the headlight on the other filament if the first one burns out (loose low beam and you have high beam at half bright, loose high beam and you have low beam at full intensity). This was defeated, but not damaged, by the ground lead being broken.
FINALLY, WE HAVE LIGHTS!!!!
We went exploring in the area over the next few days and found that you guys and gals living in this area have some of the neatest roads to ride. One day we decided to run down to Golden and visit the brewery. Got there and there was a mob and figured we didn’t want anything to do with that and went for a ride. We drove west on route 6 towards Idaho Springs but figured out that we didn’t want to ride the interstate and turned north on 119 and went back to Nederland up through the hills and valleys. It was a beautiful ride and a wonderful way to waste a day.
After about a week in Longmont we decided that we had better get back on the road if we were ever going to make it to Florida. We left our friends place a around noon and headed south on the interstate, I-25. Got into Boulder when there was just mobs of traffic and high-fived every bike we saw going the other way. Right in the middle of an interchange I wave to another scooter and it turned out to be a local gendarme. He did a double take and then waved right back. They can be friendly sometimes.
We got down to Colorado Springs early in the evening an couldn’t find an open camp area so we went west on route 24 to Manitou Springs and found a really nice motel just off the highway and had a very relaxing evening. Got up the next morning and drove by the local Post Office to mail a card to my better halfs mother letting her know where we were and that we were “OK”. While at the P.O. we met a lady driving a pickup that grilled us for twenty minutes about where we were from and how was the trip and did the bike run good, etc. It turns out that she and her first husband had ridden from somewhere back east right at the end of WWII to California on a couple Indian Chiefs and had a ball. Dirt roads, lots of breakdowns and detours but had made the trip in about 3 weeks. Said if she were 10 years younger she’d get a new bike and try something like it again.
We left the P.O. and went over to the Cave of the Winds and took the tour. This is a really neat place for all of you flower sniffers if you want to see some really neat stuff and get out of the heat for an hour or so. Leaving the Caves we got back on I-25 and headed south again. Stopped at a couple of places on the highway as it was getting real hot out and had something to drink. We got to Pueblo, CO at about 5 in the evening and it was reading 105 deg F in the shade so we found an Applebee’s to sit in and wait for the sun to set. It didn’t cool off much after dusk but at least the sun wasn’t beating down on us… You see, this ride was right at the tail end of that killer heat wave that ran through the West and Midwest in ‘95.
The sun was going down as we headed south again on the interstate. Ran on down the road to the little town of Walsenburg about 100 miles from the New Mexico border. Drove all the way through the town and only saw one place open to rent a room and that was right back near where we had turned off the interstate. It turns out that there was a larger BMW ride headed for Four Corners that week and everything else in the area was booked solid. We were real lucky to get that room.
The next morning we loaded back up and decided to run on down the road a ways before breakfast. Stopped in Raton, NM just across the border and got the worst service that we have ever received. I guess that the BMW’ers on their 4 Corners Run and the U S Military, that were on maneuvers in the area, had just swamped the place and they were burnt out on serving people. Took us over an hour and 1/2 to get through with our meal!
Left the restaurant, gassed up and headed east out of Raton on state route 64. This was a peaceful drive off through some ranch land and a real nice road. We had gone on for a while when I noticed something standing up on a ridge to my left. It was Prong Horn Antelope. I had never seen any before in the wild and wanted to get some pictures but they were to far away. About half an hour later we got into some rolling hills and small valleys. Just as we dropped into one of these valleys I looked to my left and told my missus, “Look at that!”.
About 300 feet up the valley was a small pond. Standing around the pond was a small group of cattle. Right up next to the pond was a very young steer and a full grown antelope butting heads. It’s as if they were fighting for possession of the water.
The rest of the ride that day was through a lot of ranch country and wide open plains until we got to Armadillo. OH, excuse me, that is Amarillo, TX. Via state route 87 t0 US 287. Had dinner at the Big Texan Steak Ranch and pigged out, then we spent the night at a truckers lodge on the edge of I-40.
Next edition.......... Diamonds, rain and a hurricane!
Steve
Every day on the trip we met someone who had been to AK, had a relative stationed here in the military or just assigned to go or were planning their next trip to be to Alaska. It was heart warming in a way to be greeted with this openness, this pair of motorcycle bums a long way from home.
After stuffing ourselves in Steamboat we continued on down state 40 until we intersected state road 125. That was a beautiful ride through the aspen covered hills and valleys. Went south on 125 for a couple of miles to Granby where we stopped for gas and a snack. As we were eating our goodies a man and his son pulled into the same place we were and climbed off their XJ1100. The boy, about 14 and wearing just jeans and a windbreaker, was shivering as if he’d spent all day in a beer cooler. They had just come down from the park. We got to looking at the map and found that we could go north on state 34 and travel right over the top of the mountains through the Rocky Mountain National Park. It was somewhere in the mid 80’s F when we started up the grade into the park but slowly cooled off the higher we climbed.
When we got to the park entrance, we paid the user fee and it had cooled down to the low 70’s by the thermometer that I had mounted on the fairing. The park is very pretty and pristine and the road is a very nice 2 lane with a lot of pullouts for viewing and picture taking. As we neared the top it started to get pretty chilly but it was a very nice change from the valley we had just left. When we pulled into the Visitors Center on the top of the mountain there was a Hoary Marmot lying by the corner of one of the out buildings at the complex. This guy was about the size of a wolverine! He was just lying there by his hole under the building watching all the tourists coming and going. We walked towards him to get a picture but I guess he didn’t like company as he turned and disappeared down his tunnel. Went inside and checked the temperature at the weather station set up inside the Center and found that it was 30 deg F with winds from all directions at about 20 mph gusting to 40 mph.
When leaving the Center we decided that it might be a good idea to put on a sweater under the leathers because we weren’t actually at the highest point on the drive. Got bundled up and pulled out into the motor home parade heading over the top. I hadn’t realized that my lady had a very strong fear of extremely high places until we got about ½ a mile down the road and she tells me over our intercom to slow down and get away from the edge. We were actually in the middle of the lane but it was bothering anyway. Well, we worked out a plan. When the drop off was on the right I would tell her to look up the hill to the left. A drop to the left was, “Look right”. This went on for a couple of miles, “Look right”, “Look left” etc. until we got to a spot where we were literally riding the ridge. I had plenty of warning because it was fairly straight section of the road so I told her, “OK, close your eyes!” Luckily this only lasted for about 200 to 300 feet or think she may have gotten off and walked. The ridge top was just about the end of the cliff hanger area and when we finally cleared I got a very stern lecture about how we were to “never again” go across any roads that had this type of terrain. Oh well, I didn’t know! But I definitely do now!
This rest of that afternoon was a very pleasant ride. We got on down off the high mountains and stopped at Estes Park for a bit of food. While eating we decided to continue on due south through the cooler hills via routes 7 and 72 to Nederland where we would turn left and drop into Boulder and then on over to Longmont to visit with an old high school friend.
When we got into Nederland I had my first encounter with a traffic circle. Went around the damn thing about 3 times before my navigator told me how to get out of it. Stopped at a quick stop for a soft drink and encountered a bunch of lost hippies straight out of the sixties.
“Hey, you guys ride all the way from Alaska?” one of them asked.
“No, we stole the plates!” I responded.
“Ha ha ha ha”, we all laughed and stood around and b.s.’ed for a few minutes.
It turns out one of them had been to AK and fished out of Cordova one summer.
We got back onto the road and ran on down route 119, a very twisty turny down hill grade along a small river right into Boulder. Stopped at a pull out about halfway down the grade and took a few pictures of the canyon and river. There was a small squirrel of some sort running back and forth across the road stealing stuff from a trashcan and running back across the road to the riverside and stashing his haul in the rocks. Got a couple of pics of the little critter scolding us for watching.
Got into Boulder right at 4 PM and the start of rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon. Pulled into a parking lot and tried to figure out just where we were. Checked the map and found a K.O.A. about 10 mile from where we were so we decided to give them a try, we’d had good luck with the one the night before back in Craig.
I found a route around Boulder that got us over to the campground in about 15 minutes. When we got there the wind had picked up again to about 30 mph and gusting. Went into the office at the K.O.A. and checked on a place to pitch our tent. It turns out that the sheltered spots are for the big motorhomes and tent camping is restricted to the wide open areas (read no trees or wind breaks)! Screw this, my lady says and gets on the phone to see if we can find a room somewhere out of the wind. In about 3 minutes she locates a motel that has one room left and they will hold it for us for 15 minutes. Well, we got on the scooter and hauled a**!!!
The motel was on the north edge of Denver and about 12 miles from where we had called. We got there in a little over 9 minutes through rush hour traffic on I-25. That was a very exhilarating run, but I never want to do that again. The check in person, who my spouse had talked to, was totally amazed that we made the run to their establishment in under 20 minutes. She knew where we were when we called for the room. There was still an opening and we took it for the night. We got hold of our high school friend and spent about a week lounging at her place in Longmont.
One day, while we were in Longmont, a friend of our hosts drops by to shoot the breeze and the talk gets around to our ride down from AK. While relating some of the stuff that had happened, we mentioned the headlight failure. It turns out this guy is an electronics tech and trouble shooter over at the Celestial Seasonings packaging plant and thinks that he may be able to help with the problem. I pull the bike around the back and we proceed to tear into the problem. Switch on the handlebar is OK, the alternator is putting out to specs, both of the filaments in the lamp have continuity but there is no power to the lamp socket. We start tracing the wiring and find that the previous owner had left out the plastic ring at the back of the headlamp bucket and the wire had chafed and one of the hot leads was shorted and the ground lead was cut completely through. This particular model of Yamaha has a Reserve Lighting System that will run the headlight on the other filament if the first one burns out (loose low beam and you have high beam at half bright, loose high beam and you have low beam at full intensity). This was defeated, but not damaged, by the ground lead being broken.
FINALLY, WE HAVE LIGHTS!!!!
We went exploring in the area over the next few days and found that you guys and gals living in this area have some of the neatest roads to ride. One day we decided to run down to Golden and visit the brewery. Got there and there was a mob and figured we didn’t want anything to do with that and went for a ride. We drove west on route 6 towards Idaho Springs but figured out that we didn’t want to ride the interstate and turned north on 119 and went back to Nederland up through the hills and valleys. It was a beautiful ride and a wonderful way to waste a day.
After about a week in Longmont we decided that we had better get back on the road if we were ever going to make it to Florida. We left our friends place a around noon and headed south on the interstate, I-25. Got into Boulder when there was just mobs of traffic and high-fived every bike we saw going the other way. Right in the middle of an interchange I wave to another scooter and it turned out to be a local gendarme. He did a double take and then waved right back. They can be friendly sometimes.
We got down to Colorado Springs early in the evening an couldn’t find an open camp area so we went west on route 24 to Manitou Springs and found a really nice motel just off the highway and had a very relaxing evening. Got up the next morning and drove by the local Post Office to mail a card to my better halfs mother letting her know where we were and that we were “OK”. While at the P.O. we met a lady driving a pickup that grilled us for twenty minutes about where we were from and how was the trip and did the bike run good, etc. It turns out that she and her first husband had ridden from somewhere back east right at the end of WWII to California on a couple Indian Chiefs and had a ball. Dirt roads, lots of breakdowns and detours but had made the trip in about 3 weeks. Said if she were 10 years younger she’d get a new bike and try something like it again.
We left the P.O. and went over to the Cave of the Winds and took the tour. This is a really neat place for all of you flower sniffers if you want to see some really neat stuff and get out of the heat for an hour or so. Leaving the Caves we got back on I-25 and headed south again. Stopped at a couple of places on the highway as it was getting real hot out and had something to drink. We got to Pueblo, CO at about 5 in the evening and it was reading 105 deg F in the shade so we found an Applebee’s to sit in and wait for the sun to set. It didn’t cool off much after dusk but at least the sun wasn’t beating down on us… You see, this ride was right at the tail end of that killer heat wave that ran through the West and Midwest in ‘95.
The sun was going down as we headed south again on the interstate. Ran on down the road to the little town of Walsenburg about 100 miles from the New Mexico border. Drove all the way through the town and only saw one place open to rent a room and that was right back near where we had turned off the interstate. It turns out that there was a larger BMW ride headed for Four Corners that week and everything else in the area was booked solid. We were real lucky to get that room.
The next morning we loaded back up and decided to run on down the road a ways before breakfast. Stopped in Raton, NM just across the border and got the worst service that we have ever received. I guess that the BMW’ers on their 4 Corners Run and the U S Military, that were on maneuvers in the area, had just swamped the place and they were burnt out on serving people. Took us over an hour and 1/2 to get through with our meal!
Left the restaurant, gassed up and headed east out of Raton on state route 64. This was a peaceful drive off through some ranch land and a real nice road. We had gone on for a while when I noticed something standing up on a ridge to my left. It was Prong Horn Antelope. I had never seen any before in the wild and wanted to get some pictures but they were to far away. About half an hour later we got into some rolling hills and small valleys. Just as we dropped into one of these valleys I looked to my left and told my missus, “Look at that!”.
About 300 feet up the valley was a small pond. Standing around the pond was a small group of cattle. Right up next to the pond was a very young steer and a full grown antelope butting heads. It’s as if they were fighting for possession of the water.
The rest of the ride that day was through a lot of ranch country and wide open plains until we got to Armadillo. OH, excuse me, that is Amarillo, TX. Via state route 87 t0 US 287. Had dinner at the Big Texan Steak Ranch and pigged out, then we spent the night at a truckers lodge on the edge of I-40.
Next edition.......... Diamonds, rain and a hurricane!
Steve
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