Day Two

The weather Gods were somewhat listening. It rained overnight but it had stopped by the time we were all packed and ready to leave. We didn’t get on the road until close to 5:00 am and as we turned west on I-70 I noticed something over my left shoulder .... the moon!! Yay, I got to start the ride out under the light of the moon. Good thing we were on the freeway and the traffic was light because at every opportunity I turned to look at the moon. Yeah, I know, I really should keep my eyes on the road!

Other than being a bit chilly, the ride through the first tank was uneventful. Dirk managed to get 200 miles out of his tank and learned that when the “miles to empty” gets to zero he still has at least seven miles to ride.

After gassing up in Lord-knows-where Kansas, about 50 miles east of Kansas City, we decided to pass up eating at the, um, “deli” in the gas station and opted to go on down the highway in search of a more appetizing spread. A couple of miles down the road the “Food at this exit” sign named a restaurant called the Iron Skillet. It sounded enticingly local so we pulled over. As we went up the off-ramp it turns out both of us were paying too much attention to reading the signs and got full use of our ABS brakes as the fast-approaching semi at the stop sigh caught our attention!!!

The name of the restaurant was interesting but the food turned out to be much less so. I poured a whole lot of ketchup over mine and wolfed it down in a few bites. On exit the skies to the west looked rather low so we donned our rain gear and a good thing too because the ride through the next tank of gas was rather damp. We didn’t get a good rain but it misted and drizzled a little.

This two hundred miles got us just east of Salina. It was getting hot and we were trying to decide if we were done with the rain. Dirk queried a guy on a Harley but he was a local so he had no news of the weather conditions up ahead. As we diddle-farted around prepping for the next leg a lady walking her dog remarked that we should be in Daytona because they are having “Bike Week” down there. She said her sister was down there for the festivities. I asked her in which direction she was traveling and it turns out that she was coming from the west and there was some severe weather between where we were and Denver. Decision made, keep most of the rain gear on.

I also talked to a trucker who said that back in the days when he used to ride he and his buddies called the BMW’s Singer Sewing Machines because of the unique sound of the boxer motor. He told me about the day he decided to stop riding. He was living in California at the time and riding without a helmet at around 110 mph when he caught a June bug square between the eye brows. It shocked him and hurt like a bugger and left a mark. He said that was it for him. I though ....... why didn’t you just buy a helmet?

Kansas lived up to its promise of strong winds but, thankfully the wind was to our back and aided in pushing us along and upping our fuel economy. My bike normally runs around 40 mpg and this morning it was pushing 45 mpg!!

The next two hundred was as uneventful as Kansas can be but when we were about ten miles from Colby, our next refueling town, the sky ahead turned an ominous and very dark gray. Dirk was riding about half a mile ahead and I sped up and told him to pull over. I said, get your rain gear on and strap everything down good and tight. A couple pulled over to chat and said that they were glad we pulled over. It turns out that they were from Colby and they received a call on their cell phone warning them that there was a serious hail storm and that they should wait a bit before coming into town.

We suited up got going. I told Dirk that the thing with violent storms is they move fast and it was likely that the worst of it would have passed by the time we got into town. Thankfully, I was right!! It was some storm, though because the puddles that were still draining were pretty deep.

After eating at Subway we ....... yup, you guessed it, turned west on I-70. With six hundred miles on the day we had about two hundred and sixty left to ride and if we were lucky the wind would stay to our back.

Our luck ran out.

The wind turned and started blowing from the south. The weather man had promised gusts of 45+ mph and he delivered to his word!! That hour on the freeway was challenging and I laughed in my helmet as I though “well, Dirk is getting his baptism of plains riding today!” The wind was strong enough that I lowered my windshield to the full down position so that it would not flap about but I still had forward protection up to my shoulder level. His bike has a short windshield that only goes half way up his chest so I know he had to be having it rough back there.

We kept it at ten over and crossing into Colorado we got to bump that up by 5 mph. A lot of folks had slowed down as cars were getting pounded by the wind. They must have thought we were crazy!! There were hundreds of tumble weeds blowing across the road and they exploded as we ran into them. We pushed on and it was not all too bad until, that is, it started to rain. I often joke about it raining sideways. Well, this time it was not so funny. In fact, it was not funny at all!! The rain brought with it even stronger gusts and that along with reduced traction from wet roads did not make for ideal riding conditions. We slowed down and rode along the right side near the shoulder with our hazard flashers on and the rain let up after about five-ten minutes and we got back up to speed.

We got off the freeway in Limon, Colorado for the drive southwest along route 24 to Colorado Springs, in the shadow of Pike’s Peak where we would jump on route 115 to take us within spitting distance of Canon City, our stop for the night.

We topped up and pulled the debris of shattered tumbleweed from the front of our bikes. I was standing down wind of the bike when I was filling up and I managed to splash the gas up out of the tank and was instantly covered with gasoline. Oh well, lesson learned.

As far as the wind goes, things didn’t improve on route 24 but once we got to Colorado Springs, the shelter of the mountains considerably calmed things down. The ride along 115 was a nice sunny afternoon ride. We go in with daylight to spare and got really good food and a bucket (six beers in ice) of beer at a Mexican restaurant just a short walk from the hotel. I had a sip or two of bourbon while Dirk was looking for a loose wire on his bike before we went to dinner so that combined with a couple of beers and a good meal meant a good night’s sleep for me.

I took a look at the weather for today and it is snowing along our intended route so we are detouring and heading straight down into New Mexico. I will give Wolf Creek Pass a go later but we will see what the day brings.