Go Big And Go Home - Day 19 - One Day, Three States

Today looked like it was going to be a repeat of yesterday and the day before, at least weather wise.  It started out that way as we headed on the 81 North.

Temperatures were 22C when we left Scott City at 8:30 a.m.  There was a strange cloud cover that was circular…almost perfectly circular with a few clouds trapped beneath it.  One that looked like it had a bit of rain.  The wind started out not as bad as the previous days but as the temperatures rose, so did the wind.  Again because we were headed north, the wind was mostly at our back, at least for a little while as we crossed into Nebraska….a new state for both Larry and I to add to our list of places we have ridden through.  Here we got a little bit of rain…maybe a couple of drops but not even enough to wet your whistle.

Before we left Kansas we saw more of the rolling hills that many of the folks from this state have been telling us about.  Still lots of open pastures and agricultural fields but definitely not as flat as we originally thought, but most definitely as windy as we thought.

Nebraska was very interesting although we didn’t stay long here….we were just passing through on our way to Missouri.

Now we have seen a lot of wind and solar farms along our travel but Nebraska, you could see windmills as far as the eye could travel….over every hill or turn (and yes we finally got some really nice ones), it seemed as though every farm was a windmill farm…it even seemed as though we were riding between the rows of them, there were that many.  As we were now headed east you must know by now that, yes we were riding sideways in the wind….I understand why so many windmills.

We entered Missouri at noon by crossing the bridge over the Missouri River.  The actual state line is halfway across the bridge but fortunately for us, the welcome sign was on the other side and we were able to take a quick photo.  The good news is the wind died down some.  The bad news was the heat didn’t.  By 11:30 am just before crossing into Missouri, the temperatures were now at 33/34C.  In three hours it had risen 11C and frankly the temps reached 32 long before 11:30 am.

The heat was so intense we actually stopped more than a few times to hydrate and just get some relief…there were not many bathroom breaks as we were obviously “pisspiring” taking care of two body functions at the same time.  We finally arrived at the hotel in Bethany at 2:30 pm, checked in, unloaded the bikes, dropped our stuff in the room, got on our bathing suits and headed for the pool…..this is what we do when we need to get the core body temperature down to a more comfortable situation.

Tonight we rest, tomorrow is a shorter ride so we are hoping to have more time at the other end to further plan our next routes.  We are getting closer to home.  Most of the roads we will soon encounter will be familiar to us as we have travelled the east coast and New England states a fair bit….there are a couple of things that we haven’t done along that way, so we may look to include them on this trip through.  By the looks of it all we should be back home by mid October as we planned.  Hoping the great weather they are getting now holds up until we get there.

Go Big And Go Home - Day 18 - Cue “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas

So before reading this blog page, go to whatever music platform you have and start to play the above song….it is a must for today’s read. [Edit - pls put on repeat as this may be longer than originally thought]

Ready?

So I will start with some of the interesting stuff we learned and saw today, so that you can get ready for the other.

Firstly the people here are friendly and generous and just so warm (nothing to do with the 36 C temps).  They have been engaging and interested in our journey.  

Secondly, Kansas, which I didn’t know, is pretty rich in oil.  We saw many derricks along the way, most of them still working even if they looked like something out of the 50’s.  There were also a lot of farms with the old style windmills, which are apparently used to pump water, which appears to be more valuable than oil.  

Thirdly, two main crops in Kansas, both of which we saw lots of although one we were unable to identify until we ran into a lovely Kansas lady in Beloit who helped me sort out what the wine coloured crop was.  Wheat we knew and could identify.  Milo, which is commonly called sorghum or great millet was the other.  It is a grain used for food for humans, animal feed and ethanol production.  Beautiful coloured fields where we saw this.

Fourth thing we noticed was the limestone.  Very common in Kansas, it was used as fence posts in a lot of fields.  Some fields still have the limestone although others have a mix which would indicate the repairs with more modern materials have happened.

Fifth thing, and one that everyone we stopped to talk to made sure that we were aware of and that is Kansas is not as flat as everyone thinks…and they are right.  While most of yesterday and early day today was pretty flat as noted in this early morning shot to the left, we did run into some very pretty rolling hills.  It is at this point that we also started to see more trees and larger communities.

The rolling hills and the winding roads (not a lot of winding but some) were a welcome relief from……….the wind.

Now, this is where the choice of music gets really important!

OMG - you will remember yesterday when I noted that the last 45 minutes of the ride we were literally riding like we were in a turn….a right hand turn given that we were riding east and the winds were coming from the south.  Well today started out similarly only the winds at 8:30 am were not too bad….at 19C.  By 9 a.m. the winds had picked up so much as the temperature rose to 21C that we started to ride “sideways” again.  At 9:30 a.m.  the temperature was at 28 C and the winds at about 30-40 km/hr with gusts around the 50 km/hr mark…….so strong that not only were we riding sideways but my tank bag blew clear off my bike and I watched it hurdle in the wind, across the highway, bouncing 3 feet in the air, right across and into the ditch…..4 feet off in the ditch where it hit tall grass and probably the only thing that stopped it.  Holy Hannah!  Once we retrieved it I put my drivers’ license and credit cards in my pants pocket…if it blew me off the bike at least I knew where they were.

So the whole first half of the day we travelled mostly east, and then north.  The winds, as I mentioned were coming out of the south so this meant that while we were riding east, we were sideways.  The up side of this is that the bikes were getting air through the engines, which is a good thing as they are water cooled so having air in and around the radiator helps to keep the engine cool without engaging the fan too much.  Even though the temps climbed to the 34-36C range, as long as we rode sideways, the engines ran cool.  When we headed in a northerly direction, the wind was then at our back.  It was great to have a reprieve from riding sideways however this meant you didn’t get the cooling effect of the wind, nor did the bikes.  Which means the fans kept kicking in and blasting our legs with heat, so we were getting heat from two sources…..except for me, I had 3 given that a hot flash or two may also have happened.  The best part of the afternoon is when we had a couple of direction changes from East to North…at least we didn’t have to contend with one or the other for too long.

Now for the really interesting part, and probably one of my few regrets on this trip.  I didn’t take a picture…because of the damn wind.  We were riding through a rolling hills area, travelling in an easterly direction (yup you guessed it, riding sideways)…and up ahead we could see a great deal of dust that seemed to be stirred up.  We suspected it was a farmer in one of the fields plowing.  It wasn’t….it was actually a wall of dust about a km or more long and about 30-40 feet high.  It wasn’t until we were in it that we realized this otherwise it would have made a fabulous picture.  When we got out the other side it was too disorganized and didn’t look the same at all.  It was an amazing visual though.

One other really interesting spot that we passed today was Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Refuge near Great Bend, KS.  This is a migratory “rest stop” for all North American shorebirds. In fact Cheyenne Bottoms and the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge can be seen in one drive by taking the 76 mile Wetlands and Wildlife National Scenic Byway for all you birders out there (JIM).

All in all a great day…..we arrived in Concordia by 3:30 pm, cooled our jets in our air conditioned room.  Larry ran out to get a bottle of wine (white because it is cold) and supper for tonight.  We don’t have our route planned yet for tomorrow but generally we are heading to Nebraska (north) with a quick turn (east) to Missouri……here’s hoping the winds are diminished tomorrow!

Damn ET and Teddy got into the wine already!

 

Go Big And Go Home - Day 17 - Entertaining Migration……

Well today marked another huge change of scenery from yesterday and the day before.

We hit the road early as it was expected to be a very hot day in Kansas.  Colorado had a very nice cool evening and morning so it made for a fresh and very comfortable start to the day.  Sunshine, blue skies, calm winds.  I had been a little stiff yesterday riding and had some discomfort in my shoulders and back, but the stretching I did the night before and this morning before we left did wonders.

As we headed out we bid adieu to the Rocky Mountains in our mirrors…..we had ridden quite a ways from the Rockies yesterday but we could still see them, or at least until we started out on Hwy 10….as they started to fade into the distance I took the opportunity for one last photo.  It was also a good opportunity to get a photo of all the windmills.  Wasn’t hard to pick them out as this area of Colorado, heading into Kansas, is nothing but miles and miles of Prairie range and poker straight roads.

So one might ask….what do you do to entertain yourself on a road that is, for all intent and purposes, straight as a school ruler for 100s of kms.

Well….first you pick out what looks like a “town” in the horizon, mark your odometer and then watch it as you hurl yourself towards said “town”  at 110 kms/hr.  Now I use the term “said towns” because often times there is not even a town, just a grain elevator posing as such….today we hit 12 kms from where we had seen it in the horizon until we were in front of it. 

The other way to entertain yourself, is to celebrate certain odometer “milestones”, like Mr. J!…..today old Blue hit 150,000 kms somewhere out in the Colorado prairie before getting to Kansas.

Sometimes, Mother Nature can provide you with entertainment or challenge your senses….like today for example.  As we rode along Hwy 10, I was the first to notice a huge tarantula on the road…at first I wasn’t sure if it was the hairy spider or a scorpion maybe……the second sighting confirmed it was a hairy tarantula….and if I wasn’t certain then, the next 50 or so we saw crossing the road, left no doubt in our minds….so apparently, according to locals who were not surprised at our sightings at all, this is the time of year that they migrate…finding one article about this informed us it is actually a mate-gration, which means the male tarantula will travel to find a den of the female to mate with.  Many cross the roads to get to the other “playing field” which is quite remarkable when you think of it.  Especially since once they mate, they die….or in this case die trying.  We did our best to avoid them, for many reasons but mostly because we didn’t want to kill them.  Thought I had seen all kinds of wildlife crossing the road in my day, including turtles earlier this summer, but this one caught me right in the web (tarantulas don’t spin webs just for the record).  So just like us, the male tarantula is both migrating and entertaining albeit in a much different fashion.

About an hour outside of our intended stop for the night in Scott City, KS, we crossed the state line into Kansas.  The picture to the left is the sign welcoming us to Kansas (hard to read in this pic but that is what it says), with a little bit of Kansas scenery to share as well…..The next 15 minutes brought us to lunch for a quick snack then back on the road again.  For the next 45 minutes it was prairie wind coming from the SW at a sustained speed of 55 km/hr with additional wind gusts.  The wind was essentially coming right at us on our right side, which meant for the next 45 minutes we rode like we were rounding a right corner, leaned over and steady on the right handle bar….not an easy ride for that length of time.  The bonus was getting into the hotel early, and since we lost an hour crossing the state line, arriving at 3 p.m. KS time was really like arriving at 2 p.m. CO time…either way it was just in time…the temps had increased to 35 C and the winds made us feel like we were in a convection oven.

A shower, some rest, more planning, and a few other things taken care of we headed to Pizza Hut (because we thought they would have wine and knew Wendy’s would not) for supper.  Lucky us we at least got a good walk in as Pizza Hut was further away, but no wine there either…three beers to chose from…Bud, Bud Light and Michelob…..we shared a Bud!

Tomorrow we are heading north to Concordia KS.  This should put us on track to head in a more easterly direction through Nebraska (a new state to cross) and then to Missouri and beyond.

Flat

Flat

Flatter

 

Go Big And Go Home - Day 16 - Rocky Mountain High

Well yesterday and today could not have been more different.  We rode into Colorado yesterday so we started our morning on the 160 E.  The easy part of this day is that it was the only highway we took.  We rode 441km to our destination at Walsenburg, CO, close to Kansas State Line.

So today we rode towards the Rockies.  It didn’t take long to catch sight of them.  As we were riding towards the mountains, there was also a sign asking people NOT to call 911 due to smoke in the valley as wildfire had already been reported.  On our next stop we checked to see where the wildfire was, and our app showed that it was in Quartz Creek not far from Pagosa Springs.  The information also indicated that it was a controlled burn so the only thing we needed to be aware of was smoke…luckily we didn’t have any of that either.  Fortunately that was the only real concern for the day.

So…..we were about 50 km away from Cortez when we started to see the mountains and start our ascent.  The Rockies started out with little peaks and snippets but didn’t take long for us to be up to 8000 ft elevation.  This was a huge change from yesterday…like a complete change……yesterday we say desert with sage and cactus…today we say gold meadows and green pines and trees starting to show their fall colour…..yesterday we saw red rock in formations that almost looked carved, today we saw grey mountain peaks with some showing a small bit of snow at the top…….yesterday was fairly flat, today was an elevation of 10, 857 feet (our highest to date)……yesterday was hot (30C), and today was fairly cool (14-22C)…yesterday the air was extremely dry, today it was cool and moist……..two completely different experiences in a very short distance.

Along the route we got our first look at one of the unique sites along Colorado 160.  That is Chimney Rock….had a hard time figuring out why it got that name lol….this formation is at 11,781 feet elevation but stands out in the distance because of its height and of course because it looks like a damn chimney!

This is apparently one of the bigger attractions along the route but we were not far into the Rockies when we found ourselves in a valley, surrounded by the mountains.

The day was sunny, the sky a beautiful colour of blue and the mountains were amazing.

Just as we got past Pagosi Springs it wasn’t long before we were making a real climb up the mountain.  This climb took us around at least one “hairpin” turn, which strangely had a look out right on the corner….poor planning I would say.  As we came to the top of the pass we pulled over at one of the scenic areas which, come to find out, was the Wolf Creek Valley Overlook, and also the Continental Divide.  I won’t bore you with Continental Divide info as you can read if you want on the below photos…what I will tell you is that it also divides Rio Grande National Forest to the east and the San Juan National Forest to the West…..funny note is that this is the second time in two months that I have stood on the Divide, once in Canada and now in the US…..wasn’t even planned.  This is also where we hit our highest elevation to date!

It was a beautiful ride, through a lot of towns/villages but also with a lot of viewing pleasure….here are a few more photos in larger format for you!

Go Big And Go Home - Day 15 - Monumental

Today was epic..Where do I start…We left Arizona and entered into Utah again on our way to Monument Valley.  This has been the Must See destination on our trip.  Larry was here in the 1970’s, but this would be a first for me.  The ride out was just as beautiful as a lot of the Arizona travel was yesterday…scenic…but oh I was not ready for this………..

The first monumental thing about this stop is that I got to this with Larry.  He has inspired the adventurer and supported me in my riding.  This was a big day for both of us for same and different reasons.

The other monumental thing about today is that I turned 110,000 km just as we were leaving the viewing area at Monument Valley.

The other wonderful thing are the people…..they are amazing!

Our next stop was 4 Corners where the boundaries of four states come together.  This wasn’t far from Monument Valley however we did cross into Arizona and then New Mexico to get there.    One we left there we passed into Colorado.  We rode through all 4 states that are represented at the 4 corners.  I really liked what one gentleman at 4 Corners said…He noted that everyone who were having photos taken were actually in 5 states, Colorado, Arizona, Utah, New Mexico and Happiness….he wasn’t wrong.  

We stopped in Cortez, CO for the night to plan our next route.  Here are more pics from today…it was monumental….Epically monumental.

Go Big And Go Home - Day 14 - Arizona Colors

This morning we sadly left Saint George, Utah.  We had a fabulous time with Todd and James and got our puppy time in as well with Moby and Maddie …..apparently they miss us as much as we miss them!

I also forgot to mention that Teddy now has a travel companion as well.  We picked him up on the Extraterrestial Highway.  We refer to him as ET, ExtraTerry.  This was in honour of our friend Terry Love who we lost in 2020.  He was a huge fan of SciFi and somehow I think he would have had a great deal of fun during that part of the trip.  I believe he is travelling with us in spirit

ET
You can see the road in the valley that we rode on once we came down off this mountain…look for the beige line on the green.

We headed out on Highway 15 taking exit 16 to Hurricane and then 59S.  This part of the route is where we entered Arizona for the second time this trip!  At Fredonia we took Route 89A S to Marble Canyon where we had lunch.

The morning ride took us through some beautiful canyons and open valleys.  At times when we stood at the top of a summit we could see the road we would be taking miles below us.  The elevation on the ride went from 3500 to 7000 ft.  

We stopped to take pictures overlooking the Grand Staircase.  The Grand Staircase is a sequence of rock layers that go from Bryce Canyon National Park through Zion National Park and into the Grand Canyon.

As we continued along this route we found ourselves riding along the Vermillion Cliffs which were a deep red in the sun.  They remained at a distance until we rounded one hill and found ourselves at the base of these cliffs.  The next thing we know we are climbing up around and through another set of cliffs/mountains.  

We stopped in Marble Canyon for lunch at the Marble Canyon Trading Post.

Larry had a grilled cheese worthy of mention in the blog….2 types of cheese, green chili relish between two slices of homemade sourdough bread.  He allowed me a couple of bites while I chomped down on a salad (which was equally worthy of mention).  This stop also had some jewelry and I was able to purchase a pair of earrings to go with my tour turquoise pendant that I bought back in 2016.

After lunch we headed along the cliffs again and it was one of those times that we could see the road turn up ahead and we knew what it meant….the climb!  As we rode back and forth climbing up the red rocks, we came to a turn out where we could look back on the road in the valley that took us from Marble Canyon to here.  We could see for miles, and we could see the canyons that seem to be the baby “Grand Canyons”.  There were some vendors here as well so I got myself a silver ring.  There is meaning attached to this particular ring and it involves a life journey, which seemed appropriate for now and for years to come.

It is hard to describe all that we have seen today other than the landscape was always changing but the colors of the mountain rock also changed….red to white, red to the left of us and white to the right, at one point there was even black mountains.  And then there were trees, and the sage.  It is really hard to capture and we made a conscience decision to be as much in the moment as possible.   Many of these changes were found along 89N to 98E and then to 160E as we move closer and closer to Monument Valley.  As we arrived in Kayenta, AZ for the night, we could see a small snapshot of what is to come.  

Monument Valley is a bucket list for me and I am looking forward to checking it out.  We missed our opportunity to see it when we flew to Arizona and rented bikes many years ago.  It was March.  Snow and cold were the deciding factor but we had always planned to come back.  Tomorrow we ride back into Utah again but only for a short distance….Looking forward to seeing the Monuments.

Go Big And Go Home - Day 13 - Temple

Today we started putting together our belongings getting ready to head out tomorrow morning.  Out for lunch we took a tour past the St. George Temple.  This is the first LDS temple built in Utah in 1877.  It is the oldest temple still actively used by the church.  It is the center of Saint George by which all street addresses are assigned.  Beautiful building, pics below.

We are sad to leave.  It is beautiful here, Todd and James have been wonderful hosts and a great bunch of fun.  We have promised to come back to visit and hope they come to visit us as well.

Tomorrow we are off to Kayenta, AZ..this puts us in place to see Monument Valley and 4 Corners.  I hear there is a beautiful Marble Canyon to see on our next leg.

Go Big And Go Home - Day 12 - Zion

There are no words, or at least any that would adequately describe driving through Zion National Park.  Seriously, Utah and the parks here need to be seen.  I can tell you that we took a zillion pictures today, and none will come close to being here in the moment….in fact we had to remind ourselves at times to do exactly that.  Be in the moment and enjoy!

This is the inside wall of the small tunnel