100 Days 48 States - The Journey

"He who hesitates is not only lost, but miles from the next exit."
- Unknown

TODAY’S ROUTE:
Denver, CO to Steamboat Springs, CO: US-40 West to I-70 West to SR-470 East to SR-8 to Red Rocks Park to SR-26 North to US-40/I-70 West to SR-119 North through Central City to Nederland to SR-72 North to Raymond to SR-7 to Estes Park to US-36 West to US-34 West over Milner Pass to Grand Lake to US-40 West through Kremmling to Steamboat Springs. (MAP)

THE DETAILS:
We’re on the road late, and it’s all my fault. My e-mail was acting up, having trouble sending out the journal. Then it takes me forever to get packed and downstairs. We start heading out of Denver and I’m just making one bad turn after the next. Before I know it we’re headed completely the wrong way, east on route 470. This is the road to Colorado Springs, NOT STEAMBOAT SPRINGS. And I feel like an idiot. I know exactly where I am and I know it’s exactly wrong. And I can’t turn around. The next exit is 2 miles away. I turn, Chuck follows, and then, there we are. Red Rocks State Park. I planned this all along. YEAH, RIGHT!

Red Rocks is a striking example of how wonderfully beautiful Mother Nature can be. Giant slabs and deep red color, crash out of the ground at exaggerated angles. There is an amphitheater here which has hosted some very memorable rock concerts. I’ve seen the video of that famous U2 performance a million times. Chuck has actually been here before. He saw a Jethro Tull concert, years ago. COOL!

A few better turns later and I’ve got us back on track. Before we know it we’re heading up the Peak to Peak Scenic Byway, traversing the eastern front of Colorado’s Front Range. The road is very twisty and I’m taking it easy. I’ve got new rubber on the rear wheel, and it needs to be broken in for about a hundred miles. A quick lunch at Annie’s Café in Nederland, and an hour later we’re in Estes Park, the eastern entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park.

We cruise up the spiraling Trail Ridge Road, ascending to 12,183 feet. This park is enormous with more than one third of the land above the tree line. The surrounding tundra makes me feel like I’m in the Arctic, except there isn’t much snow right now. The road drops off thousands of feet on either side, and you can’t even see the valley floor below. Towering wooden poles, at least 20 feet high, line the road for the snowplows. Come spring, one false move for those brave souls and it’s a very long trip down.

We reach the Alpine Visitor Center (11,796 feet) about 10 minutes before they close and get our passports stamped. I thought the stamp up here would be something special, or at least say Alpine on it. But it’s just the same one they have at the other visitors' centers. The building has gigantic timbers attached to the roof to keep the snow from collapsing the structure. In a few months there will be nothing here but fields of snow.

A few minutes later and we’re at Milner Pass where you can plant a foot on either side of the Continental Divide. I’ve crisscrossed the divide so many times in the past couple of weeks that I’ve lost count. But this is the last time I’ll traverse it until I head back east at the end of October. We stop the bikes, park them on either side of the marker and take some photos.

As we head down the other side towards the Pacific, I notice the changing Aspens. I’ve almost forgotten it’s fall, but the colorful leaves remind me that it is the middle of September. It’s easy to lose track of time on a journey like this. All I know is it's day 31. I’m not even sure what day of the week it is. Every day is filled with so much experience that days feel like weeks and weeks feel like months. Something I did last month feels like a lifetime ago. Back in New York, every day seemed the same. But here, on the road, every moment is different.

We make a quick stop at Grand Lake, a jewel tucked between the mountains, and Colorado’s largest natural lake. The Colorado River starts here, the waters making their way towards the Grand Canyon. By the time we arrive in Steamboat Springs, at the home of Carole and Burton Cohen, the sun has set. The Cohens, although no relation to me, are great family friends from Poughkeepsie. Burton is an Obstetrician and Gynecologist just like my father. He and Carole moved to Poughkeepsie in 1968, a couple of years after my parents arrived. When Burton retired, they moved out here to Colorado. I don’t think they’re missing old Po-Town one bit.

THE DAILY TAKE:
Miles Today: 251.1
Total Miles: 9,782
Time on Motorcycle: 5 Hours 23 Minutes
Average Speed: 46.6 MPH
States Visited today: 1 (CO)
Total States Visited: 24
National Park Service Passport Stamps: 1
NPS Stamp totals: 72 Stamps, 21 States
Weather: Partly Cloudy, 20% chance of seeing forever
Miles of hiking trails in Rocky Mountain National Park: 360

SEEN ON THE ROAD:
"JESUS IS COMING. Look Busy" – bumper sticker on Toyota Pickup, Colorado Plates, heading west on US-40 near Kremmling.

RANDOM PASSINGS:
I’ve seen a lot of road construction on my journey, sometimes more than once a day. There are a lot of roads in this country and they need a lot of work. Usually it’s not a major delay, but in some places I’ve had to wait 20 minutes to pass. In Yellowstone, road closures due to construction completely altered my route. But generally, I respect these workers. They are doing a dangerous job. I just wish they would do a better job of re-building the road. In Europe, the highways are generally much better because of the way they build them. A trench, dug many feet, is coated with gravel, filled with concrete, and then covered with a road surface. In America, we generally just lay down some blacktop and fill in the holes. In a few years it needs to be done again.

Construction sites are a minefield for motorcycles, filled with potential disasters. Obstacles that are nothing in an automobile, are big deals on a bike. Tar, oil, gravel, dirt, and mud are all things no road faring biker wants to encounter. One false move and you could go down.

Coming up route 119 on the Peak to Peak, Chuck and I had a horrible road construction experience. I’m in the lead when I crest a hill and there, in the middle of the road, is a Signalman with a STOP sign in his hand. There is no warning, no "road work ahead" signs, no nothing. Just this guy waiting to get hit by a truck streaming over this hill. I have no problem stopping and the guy sends me along. But when I round the turn I run right into a hill of freshly laid asphalt, about 6 inches high. I can see the workers 200 yards down the road, but there is nothing telling me which way to go around this mess. It’s right in the middle of the road and I can hear the bits of wet asphalt being kicked up by my wheels and coating my motorcycle. At least they could have put some cones down.

I get near the workers and yell to them that their signage sucks. They tell me to screw off. I tell them to go F@&! themselves. One of them takes a swing at me with his shovel as I ride by! I consider stopping the bike, but there are about six of them. I would have had a great lawsuit against the State of Colorado though! Chuck makes it through around the other side of them and we continue on our way. Suddenly, I’ve lost that respect I had for those road workers.