I guess I should explain that title before I get in trouble with the wife, you think? On today’s run around the state of Colorado, the Valkyrie’s odometer rolled over 80,000 miles since I bought her new 12 years ago. It has been a very reliable bike that I would recommend over and over again to anyone. So far, the bike has never let me down. Mark, on the other hand has let her down a few times and last time was just the other day. I pulled into the parking lot after changing the oil, hit the kill switch that I never use, started leaning the bike over to ease it onto the kickstand, and forgot to put the stand down. Doh! I laid her right on the crashbars just as softly as a feather hitting the ground, but I laid her down. I had to laugh because that was a first for me, ever! It was embarrassing, but the first thing I did when I walked into the hotel room was to tell Lori what I did. She just shook her head and gave me that your such a little boy look that mothers do. Anyway, the Honda has been a very dependable machine to date.
Today prove to me that of all states that I have been to, Colorado is a very diverse state. The only thing that I can think that it lacks is a border to the ocean. Flat lands that are green and good for farming and ranching. Then the mountains shoot up to over 14,000 feet giving a different climate all year long and providing water for life. Then today I felt at times I was riding through the desert south west of Pueblo. There is so much to offer everyone here from small town to large towns, and then you can almost choose your climate which to me makes this a very diverse state. I can see why people love it.
When we pulled out of Estes Park this morning the first thing on the list was to stop and take a picture of a church that Lori and I saw from the day before. You have to click the full size picture to see the details but this church was built on top of boulders. The stone work is incredible to see in person and is a very unique structure.
I can tell you point blank the rest of this day is going to bore the average reader, but the route laid out was from Road Runner Magazine and there wasn’t much to see or take pictures of, but the roads were great. I spent most of the 360 miles leaning on one side of the tires or the other. The only thing that bothers me is the speed limits in this state. The people of Colorado must really have a hard time making a corner at speed, because they change speed limits here in almost every corner of the road as your driving. The must spend a fortune in speed limit signs. Lori and I did stop once today at an overlook, not to take pictures but to get a quick snack and drink because we were between cities in no mans land. Through the hills you could hear several motorcycles coming and coming fast. It was about 6 or 7 sport bike riders and let’s just say they were flying. Why is this important? Well I got a lecture from Wife that I ever thought about riding and driving like that, she was tripling my life insurance and she was no longer riding with me. So I get in trouble and it wasn’t even me driving!!! Dang!! No worries, I gave up the sport bike thing because they should not be driven by men just for the reason we saw today, if the power is there, we will use it.
Today as predicted we went from 45 degrees in Estes park to 91 degrees in Pueblo. It wasn’t all that bad and I would much rather ride in the heat than the cold below 45. One last thing that I want to talk about is forest fires. We all see it TV in California and what is happening now in Arizona but you just cannot visualize it until you see it first hand. First the current fire in Arizona, I do not know the exact mileage we are from that fire but it is more than 500 miles, but the smoke in the air here is unbelievable think. We crested a mountain range was descending into a valley and visibility was cut from way over 20 miles to 3 at best. The fire itself is not even close to us, but it affects you. Today we also road through a past fire event that was likely a year old, maybe more, and it was devastating. You could not see all the damage because all the mountains and hills but it was a tremendous amount of acreage. I would estimate close to 200,000 to 300,000 acres. We road about 40-50 miles in one direction before the fire damage finally stopped. Nothing but blacken tree trunks laying down and some still standing soon to buckle over. It was ugly.
Tomorrow begins our three day blast back to Virginia and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to this part of the trip. I hate riding a motorcycle on the Interstates because it is just out right boring. You see almost nothing and you really have to be careful not to let your guard down because it’s boring. We will make almost a straight line blast from Pueblo to Topeka, Ks., or 554 miles according to the GPS software. It also looks like if you look at the weather map for the nation, we will be riding in the hot zone. A true butt burner!!
Todays run was 360 miles, and our total is now 8736.
Click here for todays pictures:
Tomorrows route is pictured below:
The Picture below shows what we have completed and what we have left. The Red is complete and the Green is what is left.
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