July 1, 2009 Salida Colorado to Chama New Mexico

From Salida Colorado we head out south on 285 and get to Marshall Pass Rd....

Not too far into the hills we came to O'Haver Lake. Really pretty place...

Then upward to Marshall Pass. Beautiful spot. Here's a KLR rider. Look at the Red BMW logo... it says KLR on it... This fellow is from California and is going on the Continental Divide South to North, while we are North to South...
This is the View from the top of Marshall Pass.... Altitude 10,800 feet.

Checkin' out the flowers allong the way.... Nice....

These flowers are 50 feet away from the lovely purple ones... lovely valley, great ride.

We ate lunch at Del Norte and invited these folks to share our table cuz the restaurant filled up while we sat there.

Up in the high country, there's a storm brewin'

This is me, on a great road in Colorado, wonderin' about the storm behind me.

This is my bike. Apparently it got tired and just layed down to take a nap in the middle of the day. What's up with that?

The top of a Radio Tower installment, short road to the top, great reward, exquisite views.

Summitville Colorado, this area was mined in late 1800's and has left some environmental 'sins' that are still being cleaned up today...

We got lost for a while, and wandered while the storm caught up to us and gave us some grattitude for the sunshine...... It snowed....

Platoro, Colorado = Chicken Fried Steak, Dr. Pepper, warm fire.... nothin' but goodness. Nice cabin or what?

Juan, the train guy in Chama New Mexico.... Narrow gage, steam rail, up the mountains, hmmmm .... Nice...

This is Chama, New Mexico, the steam train place, and home for the night.
Great day... tons of miles... safe and warm by the end of the day...

June 30, 2009 Steamboat Springs to Salida Colorado

Although this entire day was invested in Colorado it was still a big ride day....We left Steamboat and headed into the high country... We traveled the best gravel roads that I have ever been on. They were as good as a freeway, cept no lines. Greg and I were super impressed.

This is Silverthorn Co... at an Irish pub for lunch.... Fish and Chips.... mmmmm good!!!!

Into the high country near Brekenridge and on to more exploring, this pass is around 12,000 ft.

I think this place is called Como a small town MON (middle of nowhere) There is an old RR round house here. Loads of history. This is a place that would be a great place to invest some time to understand it's place in the history books.

This is up in the high country North of Salida Co. I believe the area is called Whitehorn. This looks to be an old Ranchers summer Cabin. We continued through the mountains to Salida and called it a day... A Good Day.

June 29, 2009 MON (middle of nowhere) Wyoming to Steamboat Springs.... Mmmmmm. great day!

This was a great day.... cept fer my motor cikle wouldn't start.... i think it said no cuz it was cccold out ..... So as per the Arctic trip.... we used a short rope and Greggy pulled me to start, cept Greggy fell over and I stalled the first start, Second pull is a charm.... No start issues from then on....

This is the place we spent the night at.... Behind the "Store" and down a level we had a great comffy room...

This gal is from Arizona and comes here to work every summer for the past many summers. She's here cuz she loves it.... It's a very simple place to be, no traffic lights, not even a stop sign.

High Alpine plateau in Wyoming... Over 10,000 ft, still some snow left, mountain flowers abound allong with Elk, Deer, and Antelope.... Look close in the far background... the snow covered Mountains around Jackson Hole... Really Beautiful spot.

This is south and east of Pinedale and Boulder Wyoming.... This ridge IS the Continental Divide. Left side (east) water will flow to the Atlantic.... Right side (west) water will flow to the Pacific.... We follow this ridge for many miles.... How cool is that?

See the gravel road in the background? That's where we came from... No trees for 4 hours of 75 miles an hour.... Amazing place. This is the high plateau of Wyoming....

Yep! Atlantic City (Wyoming that is) This is a very cool 'boom and bust' mining town, we stopped for a pop.... mmmmmmm!

More of the Wyoming high plateau... Cool or what?

This is the Sweetwater River... This is the region of the 'Pony Express', 'Oregon Trail' and the 'Mormon Pioneers'.... Both Greg and I have extreme respect for how Tough those folk must have been... This is not really friendly terrain for travel, yet alone pulling a hand cart. Wow!

This continues to be 'MoFN' (middle of nowhere) Wyoming...

You can see the curvature of the earth from here.... MoFN..... I kinda like it. Can't even imagine breaking down out here... we are still 2 hours away from a tree or a gas station.

We finally found trees. Like em? We did.

This is barely in Colorado on the border of Wyoming, the driveway is about 1/2 mile long, the grass is manicured, and it came out of the clear blue. We later find out that it is called 3 Valley Ranch. Ranch? Wow... It's at least 2 hours to the grocery store from here. We pushed to Steamboat Springs and found a place to sleep... Hmmmmmmm Sleep.

Lincoln Montana to Big Wind River Wyoming

The day started in Lincoln... Wonderful back roads up and over to Helena... In Helena we meet Darren the manager of the Stapels store... Here's the problem... I thought the still camera had a full charge when we left. But that was not the case... So last night in an attempt to charge it I found out that I didn't have the usb charge cord... "Pooched"... so just wanna buy an Olympus cord... No nada, not happening. So Darren let us charge the camera using his camera display stand. We went to Costco and got a Hot Dog, watched an air show and came back to a charged camera... Cool.

Darren ....... You Rock.... Thanks....

Twinn Bridges Montana... Meet a family from France... They don't know much english so I get to butcher the French language with the remainder of my 33 years ago fluent Quebec French... It was fun... Super nice folks...

Headed straight to the mountains again... This is Montana, we are headed east and south to Henery's Lake in Island Park Idaho...

This is a fuel stop in Island Park... Tried to mail the package in Jack's hand but couldn't... Talked to Jack a business guy from Jackson Hole Wyoming, (Jack just sold his business) I asked Jack if he would send the package to Bart in Rigby Idaho. Jack said yes, so .... Hope ya got it Bart...

Westbound on Ashton-Flagg Ranch Road on our way to Wyoming.

Too opportune...... Ya can never pass up a photo opp like this!

Middle of nowhere Wyoming...

Looking west to the Grand Tetons.... Buffalo Valley Ranch Wyoming.

Tough Guy Greggy....

Just had a Buffalo Burger.... Mmmmmmmmmm

Buffalo Valley Ranch.... Nice...

Sundown on Day 2... Hwy 26 Wyoming, Big Wind River area

Great Day.... gotta find a place to sleep....

So the day was a good one... we end up in a small cabin / motel at the side of Hwy 26, we are up around 9,000 ft. Ready to sleep and get at it in the AM....

June 27, 2009 The Adventure Continues....

From Calgary Alberta to Antelope Wells New Mexico via Motorcycle.

Greg Willson and I follow the Adventure Cycling Associations maps that are made for Mountain Biking... We follow back country gravel roads and forrestry roads for 4,000 km to the Mexico border and then return 4,000 km via secondary roads through rural USA back home...

Tounge Creek Road westbound Sat June 27 / 09

We scoot out about 8 am fuel up and head south to Longview then west to Hwy 940 and take the gravel road south to Crows Nest Pass. Greg and I both needed that road to refresh our gravel technique ... We were both a little rusty............

Highway 3 westbound (looking east in the rear view mirror) to Fernie....

How did we get that picture? Don't ask!

Hwy 3 westbound near Fernie...

The road is great and the vistas are wonderful... Lovin' it already

When we got to Fernie it was time to fuel up (our boddies) so we found a very small eatery in a snowboard shop. The chicken burritos were really good.

Greggy is showing off his brusied hand. He injured it during a football game a day or two before we took off.... His hand is so swollen here that for the first few days of the trip it was difficult for him to get his glove on.... He's a tough guy so ignored the pain.

Roosville border crossing

We cross the border and go visit Todd Tanner @ the Grave Creek Cabins in Eureka Montana. Todd got us the Adventure Cycling Association maps and we wanted to visit him to say thanks and to pay him for the maps.... By the way, the maps are amazing. This adventure would not have been possible without them.

Grave Creek Montana

We enter the realm of Forrestry Roads just south of Eurika Montana and navigate our way to Lincoln MT, with a supper stop in Seeley Lake Montana for a very good steak feast.

So here is an interesting story...

When we got to Lincoln Montana (end of the road for day 1) the road side motels seemed to be full. We looked and found a small motel with the vacancy sign still on (it's about 9:30 pm) so we stop and meet the owner. Bob (the owner) is a mature gentleman that looks just like Santa, real beard and everything. Speaking with Bob we found out that he is 76, extremely happy and has a picture of himself as Santa on the wall.... Bob tells us that he has sold his motel and that tonight is his last night working as the Owner of his motel. Bob was retiring and going to his log cabin the very next day... He insisted that we park our Motorcycles in his garage for the evening, and wished us a good evening.

Bob is an individual that was content, not complacent. Happy, not resigned.... kind, not bitter......

This seemed to be a comon theme in Lincoln. Our server for breakfast was similar, a mature gal that really loved where she lived and what she did. She was content as well.... Hmmmmm, kinda seemed like a theme that was to be repeated in many (not all) of the small towns and stops that we were to make over the next 8 days. I started to wonder what there was to learn from these folks........... More to follow.......