Fat Ass and Sangria Bitch

The insanity of the night before had at least served the purpose of shortening my drive to Kyle the next day. I slept until 8 (it counts as sleeping in when you've been getting up at dawn) and headed off on 87. I got lunch at a passable Italian restaurant in Brady, removed my jacket shortly thereafter as the Texas heat was starting to make itself known, and then stopped in Fredricksburg at a winery. I did a tasting, picked up a bottle for Tami, and then moved on.

The road east out of Fredricksburg has more wineries than I've ever seen in one place - those and peach orchards. I'd love to come back and see them all, but with sixty miles left to go on two wheels, yesterday was not the time. When I saw this one, however, I actually pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road and went back.

They were doing a tasting of their seasonal peach wine. A shot of wine came with a shot glass, so you know what's tucked in my tank bag now.

At a gas station in Kyle, I pulled out the old flip phone and tried to get its GPS working, but it said no. So I went inside and asked around. Nobody had heard of the street I was looking for, but one employee was kind enough to pull out his GPS and write down the directions for me. I found Tami's house without trouble, and was happy to end the day's riding with a hug from an old friend.

We spent a while catching up, then went to Black's for some good ol' Texas BBQ. It was as good as promised ("meat" jokes welcome). Then we went to Gruene (pronounced "green") Hall for a concert featuring Holly Williams, granddaughter of Hank Williams, and Hayes Carll.

Tami and I found spaces near the front, and were enjoying the music and dancing when a very tan girl with an ancient bleach job, too much perfume, and an enormous leather purse squeezed in front of us. She danced in front of Tami for a few minutes, then scooted in front of me. I stuck out my thumb and let her poke herself several times, but she didn't seem to notice or care. Then she stepped back and caused me to spill half of my sangria on my own feet. She didn't notice that either.

When the guy next to us eventually tapped her on the shoulder and asked her to please stop hitting Tami with her purse, she gave us a big fake smile and an "Oh, sorreeeee!" When she turned around again, I dumped the rest of my sangria in her giant purse.

Lubbock and Sterling City: the Endless Drive

First order of business after checking out of the Inn was getting oil. I found an auto parts store and bought three quarts. She didn't take a whole one, so I had to find places in my luggage for three quart-size containers. As the miles went on, she still didn't want much more in the way of oil, and I wished I had bought less of it.

I stopped at a roadside stand for peaches, and upon telling the vendor about my trip and asking if I could buy just one peach instead of a whole basket, he gave me two peaches and a whole bag of pluots on the house. (That reminds me, I should remove those from my saddlebag before they become peach wine...)

Lubbock, TX appeared in the early afternoon, and I drove in several circles trying to find McKenzie Park and its Prairie Dog Town. It wasn't exactly impressive - the website does a good job of talking up a field with some signage. The animals were cute, at least.

Lubbock promised nothing further for diversions, so with some hours of sunlight left, I passed up Buffalo Creek camping as too close to the city and headed south to find Lake Allen Henry.

In Justiceburg, a brown sign pointed down a side road to the lake. I followed it and found lots of RV parks and a closed gas station. Having gone farther than the sign advertised by several miles, and sensing that I was headed away from civilization (read: gas) instead of toward it, I turned around. I attempted camp at the RV park closest to route 84, but when I realized I could hear the traffic roaring by even with my earplugs in, I again decided to move on. I couldn't remember if there was a gas station in Justiceburg - a lot of towns out here are drive-through towns, with no services.

A road sign told me that the next city was 29 miles away, and I estimated that I had 30 miles left in the tank. I thought hard for a second and came to the conclusion that if I turned around and found no gas in Justiceburg, I'd be really screwed, having 28 miles or less to make a 29-mile journey. South I went.

I shifted into 6th gear, dropped my speed to 60, and leaned over my tank bag to minimize wind resistance. My shoulders were aching and I was pretty convinced I'd be walking the bike to the next gas pump, but we made it, rolling in with 106 miles in a 100-mile-capacity tank. The sun was on the horizon as I rechecked my map and confirmed that there was a campsite at Lake Colorado City to the south.

South of Colorado City, I had just given up on the finding the lake when suddenly a road sign appeared. I slammed on the brakes and just barely made the turn toward the state park. When I reached the entrance, however, it was closed and locked. So much for camping. I turned around again.

Sterling City was 45 miles in the future and the sun had gone down. After several miles in the dark, I turned down a county road, thinking I could just pitch my tent on the edge of some ranch land. But the road was rocky, with big drainage ditches to either side, and the mix of grass and cacti made me not want to try lying down anywhere. Having wasted another 15 minutes, I got back on 163.

When I saw a flashing yellow light ahead, I slowed down, assuming it was an intersection. Then it disappeared. I sped up. Over the next hill, it reappeared. Then disappeared again. I started to see bright white lights that I assumed were the city, and blinking red lights mounted on radio towers. The red lights were the strangest of all - hundreds of them, in three separate formations, all blinking in unison like the eyes of some giant alien beast. I wondered what the hell Sterling City even was.

The orange light appeared again about four miles later, and it was in the fact the crossing of routes 163 and 87. The white lights had turned out to be some kind of industrial complex several miles north of the city, and the city itself was a small-population truck-stop town. I was standing at the desk of the Sterling Motel, waiting to be checked in, when I felt something crawling up my chin. I flicked it off and realized with some horror that it was a giant wasp. Fortunately he seemed as stunned as I was, allowing me to pick him up by the wings for close inspection before getting rid of him.

My previous record, driving from the Catskills to Pittsburgh, had been 428 miles, and I kept saying I didn't want to do another day that long. So what did I do, from Las Vegas to Lubbock to Sterling City? Six hundred and twenty. I don't ever want to do that again.

Santa Fe

The air got warmer as I rode southeast, until I was back to wearing a t-shirt and jeans in Santa Fe. I got frustrated driving in circles looking for the Plaza, having been told there "signs everywhere" and I "couldn't miss it." Well, I could. And the gas station had maps of everything but New Mexico. Then my left side mirror came loose and turned to face me, I stopped to fix it, the bike stalled, I moved on, and it came loose again.

At long last I stumbled on the public library, parked next to another motorcycle, and went inside for some blogging. Then I wandered into the Plaza and had a look around.

The Governor's Palace has been turned into a museum, and although I didn't buy a ticket for the interior exhibits, the entrance hall had a little bit of information.

The aforementioned market was in progress.

Santa Fe was lovely, with classic adobe architecture, beautiful weather, and a friendly old man in the park who talked at me for an hour about his life and travels, and highly recommended that I visit Peru.

From Santa Fe, I got on I25 north (which actually leads south near the city) and realized that, with two hours of sunlight still to go, the air was already getting cold. Not wanting to spend another night freezing, I went looking for a motel. The first one said "no nightly rates" (what?) and in the second one, the woman asked me if I really wanted a room so many times that I finally asked her where the Comfort Inn was, and she told me, without ever getting off her couch. I ended up at the Days Inn in Las Vegas, NM.

Great Sand Dunes and the Freaking Cold Desert

I pulled into Great Sand Dunes around 5pm. After a wander around the visitors' center and a walk around the Great Sand Sheet Loop Trail, I headed into the actual sand. I didn't bother going past the streams at the bottom, since I didn't want to get my boots and pants wet and it was going to be dark soon.

I tried to eat some prickly pear and mostly just ended up with spines in my fingers.

Playing in the water was strangely satisfying. It was cool without being freezing cold, and when I dug my fingers into the red sand, black sand came up from underneath and formed artsy patterns in the flowing water.

When I could tear myself away, I moved on to Alamosa, down 285 through La Jara, and west on 17 through Mogote until I found a campsite. It was an RV park, and the sign on the door of the closed office announced that sites were $35 and showers were $8. I made my camp as the sun went down and ate my soup with the company of a lovely crescent moon. (Actually about six of them...I think I need contact lenses.)

The wide-open land let the wind roam through the campsite, flapping the tarp on the bike and rustling around my tent like a small animal trying to burrow underneath. I didn't sleep well. When there was finally enough light to justify getting up, the sun was still below the horizon. I was cold until I got out of the tent - and then I was colder. I packed my things with clumsy, numb fingers, washed my mess kit in unheated water that was warmer than the air, put on all the layers I could find, encouraged Hades to start with some extra throttle, and snuck out before the office had opened again.

Antonito provided gas and truly awful coffee that I drank in desperation. Some thirty miles to the south, Las Piedras provided a much better scene at the Chile Line cafe, and the knowledge that the ambient temperature of the night before had been 34 degrees. The coffee was worth drinking, the locals were very friendly, and the green-chile breakfast enchilada was exactly what I wanted. A blonde woman in skin-tight lycra capris had grown up in New Hampshire, and when questioned about her reasons for coming here, told me, "For the skiing, and to save the Indians. But they've got all these casinos now. I'm just trying to save myself. Ha, like that's ever gonna happen!"

No landscape photos were taken this morning, as the cold demanded the large winter gloves, which make operating the camera harder than it's worth. With my fuzzy layer, protective layer, rain suit, and winter gear, I looked like I was off to find the Abominable Snowman. But I was remarkably comfortable, so I'm not complaining.

South Park

I discovered to my dismay upon leaving town that Hades is now eating oil at the rate of a quart per 100 miles. I can't afford to feed that habit, but rumor has it this may be an effect of the altitude, in which case it should stop soon. Until then, this is my newest addition to my now over-packed bike.

Route 285 took me through the mountain passes into South Park (yes, that one). Steve showed me his old atlas, in which he had written in 1979 along the line that indicated 285, "vistas wow." I set off to see the Vistas Wow and was appropriately impressed, enough that I figured out how to use the panoramic feature on my new camera.

The wind down here was also impressive, cold and steady and insistent. I leaned into it until I was riding at a funny angle to the road. By the time I found gas in South Park, I was chilled enough to get a cup of coffee and stand in the gift shop to drink it. I chatted with a woman from a biking family while I warmed up. The people in the shop recommended I see the South Park City museum, so I went.

The museum is a recreation of an old Western mining town, complete with a "mine," mining equipment, and a train. I took far too many pictures to post, so here are a few highlights.

I don't think this guy is a genuine vintage artifact.

After the museum, I walked until I found a bar that advertised food, and happened to have a small group of bikers hanging around out front. They were old friends on a bar-hopping tour, and they were polite enough not to beat me up for riding something that's not new, polished, or Harley, although I did have to correct their assumption that a Suzuki meant I was riding a crotch rocket.

The bar provided an excellent buffalo burger and sweet potato fries, although it was lacking on the chatty company once the bikers went on their way.

Headed south again, the land flattened out to a Nebraska-like surface, not counting the mountains lined up to my left. The road headed in an endless straight line that eventually melted into a mirage, giving me the impression I was driving down a boat ramp into a constantly receding lake.

When I saw a sign for Great Sand Dunes National Park, I knew I didn't have the time, but I turned anyway. How could I miss a National Park that was right there?

More Rocky Park

While I was in the Alpine Center, the clouds suddenly came rolling in.

I took a few more pictures, then rolled out before I had to ride down in a blinding fog. On the way down, I stopped at the some of the pull-offs for more photos.

In Rainbow Curve, the cloud had come to the edge of the road/

So had the chipmunks, and a bird that Ann identified later as a Grey Jay.

I've been told I came at the wrong time of year to see the larger wildlife I was hoping for, such as elk and sheep. At least I'm at a lower risk of hitting them while they're hanging out in the high peaks.

I couldn't resist a family photo moment before I left. This is obviously a classic for the ages, to be framed and put on someone's wall.

Nederlands and Rocky Mountain National Park

I waited until Monday to do Rocky Mountain National Park, having been warned that the crowds on weekends can make the experience a frustrating one. Steve recommended I take the Peak to Peak Highway to the park instead of fighting commuter traffic through Denver and Boulder, so I headed west and then north into the mountains.

The first town I came to was Central City, a cheesy casino town with an overly-perfect downtown area that begged for touristy photos.

I put on my rain jacket for warmth, having failed to realize before I left the house that the mountains are much colder than the valleys. On the way out of town, I stopped again to see this train.

The ride up 119 provided plenty of these signs, and even better ones that look like a sideways S and say 25mph or even 15mph. Those, however, tend to be in places that are too dangerous to stop for photos.

Three miles out of Nederlands the altitude started to get to me, so I stopped in town and took a stroll to clear my head.

The mining museum was closed but had lots of equipment on display outside. Rogue, ask me for the full set of these photos later - I took them with you in mind.

I spotted this adorable little guy in a gift shop, and if he hadn't been so large and potentially breakable, he would've come home with me

As I got farther north, the views got more and more interesting...

Somewhere along the way I took a spontaneous turn toward the river, just to see what was down there.

Back on 119, now looking for lunch, I spotted some beautiful architecture.

After lunch and gas in Estes Park, I found the National Park. The initial view from the bottom is no better than those from the highway.

But as you go up Trail Ridge Road, it gets better...

...and better.

It also gets snowy, which is startling when it's August and your home is at sea level. The fat flakes splashing and melting on my visor made me take another look at the road, but I could tell that it wasn't really that cold. The water on the road stayed liquid.

As I came up into the area where the mountain drops away and the shoulder falls off to apparent infinity on either side of the road, the wind whipped up and started shoving me around. I cheated into the center of my lane so that a sudden gust wouldn't blow me into oncoming traffic. The wind seared right up my sinuses and into the back of my brain until I had an ice cream headache.

Eventually I made it to the Alpine Visitors' Center. The road's highest point is over 12,000 feet, and as I pulled into the Center parking lot, Hades stalled out. Some extra throttle got her to start again, and for the rest of the way around the parking lot and back down the mountain, I acted like one of those obnoxious Shiny riders who rev their engines at stoplights to point out that they're riding a motorcycle. You know, for the blind drivers in the area.