(I’m in Denver at the Guest Suite at Vanya’s apartment building. The day was not without a few challenges, and I did not visit the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum, but instead got a new rear tire on the bike. I’ll finish this up tomorrow after a good night’s sleep.)
Breakfast at the motel was limited but good. They are still following Covid protocols - scrambled eggs and biscuits and gravy served from behind a counter. I suspect that also keeps guests from stuffing themselves and saves the motel money. In any case I had plenty and the coffee was good, so no complaints. I got delayed by a woman from Minnesota who was traveling with her husband and son on a quick trip around the west. They wanted to see as much as they could and were hitting all the tourist spots. She saw me looking at my maps and asked where I got them, because she’d tried to get maps at the Visitors’ Centers that are usually on the Interstate at the first exit on either side of the state, but at each one they’d stopped at there was no one at the desk and the maps weren’t available. She was very irate about this, but pleasant to talk to otherwise, but when I got back to the room I realized that I was going to leave later than I’d wanted to. Then I decided to remove the face shield from my new helmet to install the Pinlock inner shield that prevents the shield from fogging in cold or wet weather, which today was starting out to be. There is no universal mounting system for helmet shields and every model seems to be different, sometimes even within the range of the same manufacturer. I eventually got out the owner’s manual for the helmet and figured out how to remove the shield. Then the Pinlock didn’t want to attach to the mounting pins on the face shield, so I struggled with that for awhile before it finally snapped into place. All in all it took half an hour for what should be a five minute job, so I didn’t leave the motel until 8:45 into intermittent sprinkles and 60 degrees.
It was pleasant riding south on US 83 and in less than an hour I stopped at a truck stop in Oakley, KS near I-70 for gas and to make a few phone calls. In the morning when I wiped some of the rain off the bike I checked the rear tire and noticed that it was looking worn, and that the center part of the tread near the wear bars was showing just a little over 4mm. The recommendation is to replace a tire when it gets to 3mm, and the wear bars are at 2mm (about 1/16 of an inch) which is absolute limit for safety, and at that point I had almost two thousand miles to go to San Francisco. Of course in my younger days when I had no money I used to run the rear tires down to the wear bars and beyond, and I survived but then I survived a lot of foolish actions back then. I went back to the room and wrote down the phone numbers of the two BMW dealers that I would be near - one in Colorado Springs and one in Centennial south of Denver. The Colorado Springs dealer opened an hour earlier than the one near Denver, so I called them first, and they had a tire for the bike and promised to install it when I got there. Rather than waiting another 15 minutes for the Denver shop to open, I told Joey, the service writer, that I would be there in about four hours. I also thought that I might be able to squeeze in the visit to the Rocky Mountain Motorcycle Museum, which a couple of miles from the shop. (In the end I did not visit the museum - some other time.)
Back on the bike I went east on US 40 through Winona and Sharon Springs and crossed into Colorado. It began raining not far out of Oakley and there was truck traffic heading east - mostly large carriers with huge farm machinery on the back. The Pinlock was doing its job and the face shield wasn’t fogging up. It was about 60 degrees, but I was dry in my riding suit and comfortable enough and all it all it wasn’t unpleasant. I passed by a couple of cattle feed lots, and they are depressing places - the cows live their lives jammed together standing in dirt and cow poop, one of the reasons I rarely eat beef. Of course commercial pig farming is even worse, and I do like my bacon when I’m on road trips. Chicken farms are still worse, and I eat chicken all the time. It is tough being a soft-hearted carnivore.
Eastern Colorado is much like western Kansas - high mesa or prairie with slightly rolling hills. The rain stopped after about 45 minutes and the sky began to clear and it warmed up to 65 degrees. I stopped in Cheyenne Wells to top off the gas tank but mainly for a potty break, and then rode through Kit Carson and Wild Horse just before I went due east on CO 94, which goes straight for almost 90 miles to Colorado Springs. (US 40 joins US 287 and angles northwest to Limon and I-70 into Denver.) I’d been on CO 94 once before, and it is a truly deserted road. a few ranches, hay fields, the occasional small towns have no or very limited services, the road is rough and heavily patched in places, the shoulder is about six inches wide, and even though there are minimal curves I enjoyed the clearing day, the warming weather, and the beautiful sky with puffy clouds.
About 15 miles from Colorado Springs I began to hit the sprawl of that rapidly growing city and I followed the GPS to the address of the shop that I’d copied from the BMW Owners Anonymous book (2023 edition) that I’d entered in the Garmin. When I arrived I found a large, industrial looking building that may have once housed a motorcycle shop but now was a church. I double checked the entry, and then called the shop. The lady who answered gave me the correct address and said that I wasn’t the first person to do that. Their shop, Colorado Springs Powersports, had bought Pikes Peak Motorsports a couple of years ago (but kept the old phone number) and moved to the new location which was about eight miles back in the direction I had come. By now it had warmed up to 85 degrees so when I arrived at the shop at almost 1:30 I was hot and stressed and hungry, but I soon checked in and the service writer promised they would get the tire installed as soon as an opening came up. He also directed me to a Mexican restaurant (Rudy’s Little Hideaway) about a quarter mile away, so I walked over there and the Rancheros Special (grilled chicken over rice with peppers and onions and sauce) was very good, as was the coffee. Back at the shop they had just finished installing the tire and they were washing the bike. I should have asked Cameron (the service writer) to skip the wash, but didn’t, thinking that it would only take a couple of minutes. The guy did a very thorough job, so it wasn’t until after three that I left. I filled up the bike a couple of blocks away before getting in I-25 north and immediately hit Friday afternoon traffic. It is only 70 miles from Colorado Springs to Denver, but it took over two hours of creeping along, blasting up to 75 mph, stopping, creeping along, etc., etc. In fact not unlike the last time I’d been on I-25 but riding south from Fort Collins to Denver a few years ago. I finally arrived at Vanya’s a little after 5:30. The leasing office at the apartment building closes at 5, so Vanya left work early to get the apartment key and the garage pass. She came downstairs, I unloaded the bike and parked in her spot in the garage, and then she brought down Rocky, her lab-mix dog, who is about the same age as Walter and, like Walter, showing his age. Rocky greeted me enthusiastically. I showered, Vanya and I went to dinner, and we went back to the apartment and made plans for Saturday, which involve a couple of dad jobs in her apartment.
However, I did have my first piece of strawberry rhubarb pie this trip - at Zorba’s, the Greek restaurant near where Vanya lives where we had dinner. It different than what I’m used to, and OK, but I probably wouldn’t order it the next time we go there. (370 miles)
Saturday, July 22, 2023: Saturday was spent taking care of business in Denver. I started off with coffee and a scone at a coffee shop very near Vanya’s apartment. We went to a nearby Ace Hardware for supplies for the dresser leg repair, then had breakfast at Lucille’s, one of a small chain of New Orleans style restaurants in the Denver area. I can’t remember the name of the dish I had, but is was fried eggplant, grits, poached eggs, and a biscuit and it was very good, as was the coffee.
Vanya is looking at me like, “Are you sure you can eat all that?” I did. We ran an errand, then back to the apartment to get busy with the main work of the day - repairing the leg of a dresser she bought about a year ago (it came with a broken leg), hanging a couple of pictures in the living room, taking the old dresser down to the trash room in the apartment building, installing the legs on the dresser and moving it into the bedroom. It doesn’t sound like that much, but we were happy with the results. After a quick shower I went to Vanya’s apartment and loaded some clothes into her washing machine, and we walked to dinner at an Italian restaurant that is next door to Zorba’s (and near the Ace Hardware). We enjoyed dinner and back at the apartment I wanted to add a couple of pounds of air to the bike’s tires, which turned out to be more of a challenge than I had anticipated. I carry a small, portable air compressor that runs off the bike’s battery, but the connector to the bike’s valve stem has a tendency to leak of it isn’t held perfectly straight, and with the air compressor running you can’t tell if the connector is leaking so you start off with 40 pounds of air and 40 seconds later you end up with 38. I eventually got the tires to my satisfaction, and went back upstairs where my clothes were almost dry, then back to the guest suite to fold laundry, and pack up as much as I could so I could get an early start in the morning.
Sunday, July 23, 2023: I picked up coffee and a scone at the same excellent coffee shop nearby (Vanya really does live in a convenient location) and ate that while I finished packing, said goodbye to Vanya outside (she was going to get her car and move it to her parking space in the building’s garage which had been occupied by my bike for the last two days) and was on the road out of town by 8:45, not too bad. Unless I’m hearing wrong my Garmin occasionally says “right” when it means “left” and vice versa. The arrow on the screen is correct, but the voice instruction is wrong. This resulted in a couple of wrong turns getting out of town and I’ll pay more attention from now on and rely on the screen and not the voice.
Finally on I-70 heading west into the mountains it was a beautiful day but warming up fast. Traffic was minimal for a weekend in the middle of vacation season, and I soon climbed up to 11,158 feet and went through the Eisenhower tunnel and shortly thereafter stopped in Dillon at a Panera’s for breakfast, which was a bagel sandwich with egg, sausage, and cheese - very heathy, I’m sure. I would have liked to have stopped in Idaho Springs at a great place where I ate a couple of years ago, but that is one of the towns that gets very crowded in the summer, so I passed.
It was about 75 when I left Denver, then just under 60 degrees going through the tunnel, and it stayed around 65 at the very high elevations, but once I started descending the temperature went up to 75-80 degrees. I stopped in Glenwood Springs for gas, and then rode through Glenwood Canyon, which is full of curves along a river and scenic - one of the best Interstate sections. The mountain scenery was good and the sky was clear with puffy clouds scattered around. The temperature at this point was a pleasant 80-85. The mountain scenery gave way to high mesa and I was soon in Utah where it went from flat mesa to interesting rock formations. I’d forgotten that this part of I-70 in Utah has some high elevations - over 7500 feet in a couple of places.
The temperature also got very serious - it was over 95 for most of the rest of the day, with a high of 106.7 in a couple of places and a good part of the late afternoon was spent at over 100 degrees. I stopped for gas in Green River and riding through town remembered that I’d stayed there once on my way to Goblin Valley State Park to the south. The Robber’s Roost motel was still there and looked to be open for business. The gas station was also a market and Blimpy’s, so I had a smoothie and picked up a bottle of water - I’d drained my own water bottle at one of the scenic view areas. This part of Utah is very deserted with 100 miles between services in places.
The sky had become ominous, which was nice because the temperature dropped, but I only had a few drops of rain a couple of times until just before Salina, when there was a brief shower. Since I was staying in Salina it all worked out very well. Anytime a place calls itself an Inn I think that it is going to be upscale, but the Sundowner Inn isn’t exactly that. Nice enough, and better than a lot of places I’ve stayed over the years, but at the lower end of my lodging on this trip. To be fair the cost is also at the lower end. Dinner was at Mom’s Cafe, where I’ve had many breakfasts over the years, and Carol and I even had dinner there once on our way back from a trip. They officially close at 6, and I got there about a quarter of an hour before that, and just at 6 a very large group came in - I assume some sort of family reunion in the area (I also assume that Mom’s knew about his beforehand). I’ve never seen so many blond little kids in one place in my life. A woman came over and apologized for the large group and all the noise, but I assured her that I liked kids and was almost done anyway. I don’t even know if I should bother putting a map in the window on my tank bag tomorrow. I’ll be on US 50 most of the day and I’ve been on that route so many times over the years that I could probably go to sleep and the bike would just find its way home. (450 miles)
Monday, July 24, 2023. I need to correct my first impression of the Sundowner Inn. I slept well, the noisy air-conditioner wasn’t once I adjusted the controls, the room was large with plenty of light, new fixtures and switches, and a table with two chairs. No Kleenex and a slow sink drain, and the carpet was tired, but fix that and it would be two stars. Even as it is, I’d stay there again.
Today had a little of everything; disappointment, happiness, good roads, hot weather, cool weather, a little rain, and even Mormon Crickets.
The coffee shop next door to the motel is closed on Mondays, so I walked to Mom’s and had the breakfast scramble special, which is scrambled eggs with bacon and cheese and a side bowl of jalapeño peppers. I ate the whole thing. While I waited for the meal I walked around the restaurant and looked at the pictures and newspaper clippings on the wall. Mom’s opened in 1924 and was even featured in a 1966 issue of National Geographic (not the cover story - that is a cut and paste.
Breakfast over I waddled back to the motel, packed and was out of there at 8:45, heading west on US 50 AKA The Loneliest Road in America. Since it was still fairly early I wore my heavier gloves and had closed the vents on my jacket, but it quickly warmed up from 72 degrees to about 80 before I stopped in Delta 50 miles away at the Chevron station, which has been greatly improved over the many years I’ve been stopping there. Back on the road with vents open and lighter gloves it was a fairly boring 50 miles to the Nevada border, but then the road began climbing and I enjoyed a few sections of twisty roads before and after the Sacramento Pass (7162 feet) and Connor’s Pass (7749 feet) before descending into Ely where I stopped at a Chevron station on the east end of town and then stopped at the Taproot on the west end for coffee and a pastry only to find that the Taproot is closed on Monday. Back on the bike I rode 70 miles to Eureka. There are four passes between Ely and Eureka - Robinson Summit (7559 feet), Little Antelope Summit (7441 feet), Pancake Summit (6526 feet), and Pinto Summit (7392 feet). The road going up and over the passes was fun, but about 10 miles before Eureka I hit a little rain for about 10 minutes. I didn’t bother stopping because it had been warm and the cooling weather felt good. Fortunately the Eureka Depot coffee shop on Clark St. at Main was open (they are closed on Sunday). The Italian roast coffee was good as was the orange scone. They’ve been open two years now, and serve pastries, breakfast and lunch sandwiches, and a variety of coffee drinks and teas. There is also a large room for meetings and events and maybe live music.
Refreshed, I continued west on US 50 the 70 miles to Austin, and enjoyed most of the twisty ride up to the Hickison Summit (6591 feet) and Austin Summit (7490 feet) until the last few miles before Austin when I got stuck behind a Ford Escape that had passed me at about 80 mph earlier (I was moving close to the reasonable 70 mph limit). I’d already had a good day of riding and so wasn’t too put out. In Austin I noticed that the Toiyabe Cafe was still closed, and that Grandma’s didn’t seem to be open (it may have been). I stopped for gas at Champs and asked inside about the Toiyabe, and was told by an older gentleman that it closed about two years ago, but had been open before that for many years. I guess that every time I’ve been through Austin and not hungry it was open, and every time I wanted a place to eat it was closed. I was also told that the owner of Champs had purchased the cafe and that it should reopen next year, although I was told the same thing last year. It also seems that I’ve been pronouncing “Toiyabe” wrong all these years - I’d always thought it was TOY-uh-bee, but he pronounced it Toe-YAH-be, and since he looked as though he may have been there when Austin was founded in 1862 he is probably right.
Champs is an interesting establishment and there always seem to be interesting people there - it is the only open station in town, and Austin is really in the middle of nowhere, so many people stop there. I met Leslie (a fellow BMW rider) there about a decade ago. She was heading home to Baltimore and I was heading home to San Francisco. We talked for a half hour and went our separate ways. Three years later I met her again at a gas station in Rawlins, Wyoming and this time we exchanged email addresses and have kept in touch. When I first stopped at the station many years ago it wasn’t Champs. The driveway up to the pumps was gravel, and there was one island with four pumps. Now the driveway is paved, as is the large lot alongside the building where there are two more islands with eight pumps, and there are two islands in front. There is a food truck in the back lot, the building has grown and houses a small convenience store with a coffee machine and there are two modern restrooms. Today when I was there another BMW pulled up (more about him later), there was a Harley from North Dakota, and a dirt bike rider.
After about 15 miles on US 50 heading west I went over New Pass Summit (6335 feet) and then began the slow descent to Fallon. Near Cold Springs the temperature, which had been in the mid 80s most of the day, dropped below 70, the sky began to darken, and it began to rain. This time I stopped and switched to rain gloves and closed the vents in my jacket. The wind, which had been strong from the south all day, became stronger and I was leaning about 15 degrees into it. It never rained hard or for long, and when it stopped I enjoyed the scent of sage for the next hour - rain seems to bring it out.
The sky cleared and it warmed up again, and I stopped near the Fallon Range Training Complex to change gloves and open my jacket vents and shortly my bike’s thermometer showed 99 degrees.
In Fallon I discovered that I hadn’t booked the motel that I thought I had. There is a Comfort Inn on the right side of Williams St. (US 50) if you are heading west, and a Quality Inn on the right side of Williams if you are heading east. I’d stayed at the Comfort Inn before and the manager let me park my bike under the overhang in front of the office. Comfort and Quality Inns are owned by the same company, Choice Hotels, and I just got the places mixed up. The room is fine, but very small. It’s modern and everything works, and I’m on the first floor with the bike parked outside my window. At the registration desk I waited behind the guy on the BMW whom I saw in Fallon. I’d also seen him go by in Ely, and then later on the edge of town parked by the road. I saw him ride by in Eureka when I came out of the Eureka Depot, and again in Austin at Champs. He was strangely outfitted in shorts, a Hi-Viz yellow vest, a black beanie helmet, and wore a black leather mask over the lower half of his face - an odd combination of some safety gear and also disregard for gear that might help in the event of a crash. It turns out he is a retired purchasing manager who worked for a large company and he lives in Oahu (Hawaii) and also has a house in Bellingham, Washington where he keeps his bike. He flies over several times a year and takes long motorcycle trips.
Dinner was at the nearby Depot (there is an old train depot nearby) Casino and Cafe. You walk through the casino portion to get to the cafe and since there is no dividing wall there is the smell of stale cigarette smoke from the casino, though since I used to smoke I shouldn’t complain. I had blackened catfish, which was OK. Most people there seemed to know each other, including the wait staff. There was a table with three generations and a couple of small kids, and the adults seemed sun and life worn, the men with full beards, and everyone had tattoos (except the kids - that would come later). The guy at the table across from me had large dog who was down under the table with his head on his paws. When I first rode through Nevada back in 1972 I thought that it was the kind of place where you could do what you wanted but you were on your own if you made bad choices. I felt the same way when I first went to Alaska - this is wild and remote country, and if you get into trouble you have to look out for yourself because there won’t be anyone around to help. Nevada has grown and become more civilized, but there is still some of that spirit. Everyone, however is very friendly, and the few people I passed on my walk all said hello. Fallon was a mining town for many years (it may still be to some extent), there is a Naval Air Station outside of town, and a Tesla Gigafactory not far away, so the city is booming to some extent with a lot of younger working guys in pickups.
After dinner I walked a half mile to Ava’s Cafe (“Where friends and family gather to meet and eat”) and was sad to discover that it was permanently closed with a For Sale sign out front. I had a good breakfast there last year (or maybe the year before?) after I’d spent the night at the Pony Mountain Motel in Austin and one of the guests recommended it and the Court House Cafe where I usually eat in Fallon was closed. Everything in Fallon is along US 50 effectively making that road one large strip mall. Ava’s is (was) on a side street not visible from US 50 so probably only the locals knew about it.
Finally, a word about Mormon Crickets, which are a type of Katydid that appear in the millions every few years - from one to eleven years. They are large (two inches), flightless, and eat everything in their path and their bodies contaminate hay bales. When they get squished on the road their dead bodies stink, and the oil is very slippery and causes car (and probably motorcycle as well) crashes. Andrew and I drove on US 50 years ago and highway crews were cleaning the dead insects with sweepers and flame throwers. This year they came out late, in early June, and by now there aren’t many left, but I’d seen individual insects and small groups scurrying across US 50 all day. The guy below was near one of the pump islands at Champs in Austin.
It was a good day’s ride with a variety of weather, scenery, and dining, and tomorrow I’ll be home. (480 miles)
Tuesday, July 25, 2023 - the last day of the trip. Doug, the guy on the BMW I met yesterday, was in the small motel breakfast room when I went down and I joined him and we talked about our travels. He is an interesting guy and had a variety of occupations before his role as a purchasing manager, including owning two bars in a small town in Oregon (he doesn't recommend it). He is also aware that his choice of attire (a combination of safety awareness and disregard for best practices) is strange, but he figures that sometimes comfort in extreme conditions (high heat) wins out over the safest choices. He also camps a lot and all of his camping gear is in one, large dry bag the he straps to the seat. He stayed in the motel in Fallon because it was too hot for him to camp comfortably. He was about 10 minutes ahead of me from Austin to Fallon yesterday and he mentioned that he hit hail in the little storm.
Anxious to get home I chose the shortest and quickest route home - US 50 from Fallon for 50 miles to Fernley and I-80 west which I followed all the way to Vallejo where I took Highway 37 across he marshes to Novato and US 101 south, across the Golden Gate Bridge to 19th Ave. and then home at a little after 2 where Walter (and Carol and Andrew) greeted me enthusiastically.
On the way home I stopped for gas in Reno, and then 150 miles later (that is about as long as I want to be in the saddle at one time) for gas and a coffee and scone at a nearby Starbucks. It wasn't as hot as I thought it might be - about 92 in Auburn, but 85-90 in the Sacramento Valley. Traffic was minimal, even on the sections where there is always traffic - Vacaville, Fairfield. I think that like Monday light and Friday light, there is such a thing as vacation light traffic.
The last day of the trip was 296 miles and the trip total was 4746 miles.
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