August 2nd, 2010 - Day 3
It’s odd how something that is majestic and beautiful and capable of bringing such joy to you during the day can scare the shit out of you at night. I’d been to Colorado before, and was looking forward to riding in the mountains, my prior mountain experiences in Arkansas and the Appalachians were some of my favorite motorcycling memories. I wasn’t looking forward to Nebraska, the memories I have from when I’d been there when I was a Boy Scout are of a flat land and a horrible storm that caused us to pack up camp and sleep in the vans, but that’s a story for another time.
I woke up in the truckers’ motel in Kadoka, South Dakota on Monday August 2nd with minimal discomfort from the previous day’s ride, though I put on a few miles, the were mostly flat and straight. I’d successfully avoided riding on any interstates and was looking forward to a long windy ride through the mountains over the next couple of days, but I had to make it through Nebraska first.
As expected, most of Nebraska was flat and I could see to the horizon with no issues, while boring, this is also the safest way to travel on motorcycle - you can ride super defensively when you can see for miles. I was kind of upset I had to go through Nebraska twice - once through the northwest corner to get to Wyoming, and then again go get to the capital. Until I got to Carhenge. Carhenge is one of those places that defies belief - Neil Gaiman would likely call it out as a place of power in the vein of “American Gods.” Carhenge is exactly what the name implies - a Stonehenge replica, but made of cars. I was just riding along a back country road, highway 87/county 59 and then, out of no where, !bam! a sign that said, “Carhenge.” I had to stop. I previously posted pics of the wonderful creation of mankind, but it’s better seen in person. (If you’re interested in seeing it on Google Maps, it’s just a little north of Alliance, Nebraska a little to the north of where it’s labeled on the map.)
After the life changing splendor of Carhenge wore off Nebraska got boring again, until I hit Scottsbluff, then it started to get interesting. There was actual terrain, unfortunately most of it was accompanied by massive amounts of road construction. But, finally, I could tell I was headed up.
I’ve never been keen on Wyoming, I guess I had some latent dislike because it was the home state of Dick Cheney and it was recently exacerbated by me watching Ken Burns’ “National Parks” wherein I learned that the residents of Wyoming fought tooth and nail against the formation of the National Park system. When I pulled into Cheyenne, and my third capital of the trip, I still hadn’t lost the apprehension, the citizens drive entitled.
My routine at capitals for most of the trip would be: pull up, take picture, post to tumblr, check in on foursquare and then text friend(s) - then I ‘d go looking for post cards. During the trip I sent home a bunch of post cards, both to my parents to safe keep and to my best friend Eric and his fiance Jensen, so there would be a physical record of my actual presence in those places. More on the post cards another day.
After the standard capital process I headed to capital number 4, Denver. Back in 2008, my father and I took a trip down to New Orleans and up through the Appalachians, I’m not sure if I mentioned it yet, but there you have it. We didn’t make it more than 200 miles before we started getting hit with rain in Iowa. If you know anything about Iowa, you know it’s already miserable enough as it is, you add rain on top of that and you might as well start popping SSRIs to combat the depression. This is called a segue, whereby I bring up one thing and transition to another relevant or related thing. I only bring up my fondness of Iowa to highlight that I was blissfully free of rain up until now.
As most of you know, or have surmised, I’m a big guy - they don’t make most motorcycle apparel for guys of my stature. The rain set I ordered had pants that fit me but a jacket that was just too tight around my keg. I should also mention I have a bad habit of not trying on certain items because I’m to trusting, when something says “I fit over a size 12 boot” I try to give it the benefit of the doubt, I mean what am I going to do, call a company that has stayed in business by apparently sizing their products satisfactorily enough to maintain customers a liar? Of course not. There in lies a foible.
I was wearing a pair of steel toed Red Wing boots as my motorcycle boots, they weren’t the most water resistant pair, so I decided to get a pair of “overs” to put on my boots when the rain began - they were for size 12-13 - I wear size 12, I was good as gold… -plated shit. The clearly marked “fits over size 12-13” didn’t fit over size 12. So after a fair amount of cursing and fighting the lying “overs” I gave up and put on my pants. If you were driving along the highways south of Cheyenne and saw a big guy fighting with a pair of yellow and black pants while rolling around on the ground, trying to get his legs into size “12-13” holes - I’m sorry, bill me for the therapy. Apparently it’s easier to put on the pants while standing - an agonizing 10 minute process that was learned in the first virginal drops of a rainstorm that would last longer than I want to think about eventually became a 30 second process. What do you know, practice does make perfect - cold wet, annoying practice.
The ride from Cheyenne to Denver isn’t overly dramatic, because of the position of the mountains, most of Denver’s suburbs are a north/south line up interstate 25 and US highway 85. The view of the Rockies as you approach Denver though is amazing. Denver, besides the hellacious traffic, was uneventful. The Capitol is right across the street from a gay bar. I did the capital routine and started heading out of town, every intention was to hit a motel in the next town and call it a night. As it started to downpour and the gypsy beckoned me to follow the interstate I realized the next town that had amenities wasn’t down the road, it was over the mountains, in Winter Park. I have terrible visibility on my bike at night - it’s a single lamp, and face shields tend to fog up when there’s a significant amount of moisture in the air. As I rode on, taking every hair pin turn and switch back as safely as I could, I finally found respite at the Valley High Motel in Winter Park. It was 10 pm on a week night in a ski town during the summer, the only place open was a restaurant down the block and the only thing they were still preparing was pizza, good thing I like pizza, oh and beer, good beer - so if you’re ever in Winter Park, Deno’s Mountain Bistro wouldn’t be a bad bet.