Loopy in Wyoming

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Snow had made some of the closer passes impassable. So when it was time to blast off for my first big ride, I decided to go north to Wyoming on a slightly longer ride that still had dirt aspects, but also had some paved roads. The trip got off to a late, but not so uneventful start. Just before reaching Clark, I felt a sharp burning sensation on my inner thigh. The poor bee was bouncing around on my leg like bungee jumper hanging from a ceiling fan. I brushed him away and tried to remember the best method for getting a stinger out. They say if you pinch it and pull it out it shoots more venom into you. I have also heard that the more we get stung, the lower our tolerance is. After a few minutes with no anaphylactic shock, I decided that I still wasn’t allergic to bees. Thank goodness.

About thirty miles north of Steamboat, Hwy 129 splits. I was hoping to take the right fork and check out Big Red Park. I hadn’t been there since the Rainbow Gathering two years ago. Unfortunately, there was a locked gate. When I went to the other fork it said “road closed ahead!” There was no gate, though, so I decided to keep going and try my luck. I figured that I could always pull my “journalist” card and say I was reporting on the road closure. I had to laugh, Paulie, my business partner, had written an article the day before that talked about entitlement. http://www.thesteamboatlocal.com/article.php?id=604 It was a good article, and I felt like its subject. Regardless, five, ten, fifteen miles… still no sign of a closed road. Sometimes they just forget to take signs down. I stopped for a few minutes at Three Forks Ranch to take a photo of an eagle and some antelope when a fishing guide and his client stopped to say hi. I asked if the road was closed ahead and they said no. I wasn’t going to be blocked from my goal! The rest of my dirt miles felt like I had just won the golden ticket. I was getting used to the bike and feeling comfortable with a little speed. Eventually I got to a paved road that said Bags one way and Encampment the other. I opted to take a right. My Colorado Atlas and Gazetteer stopped at the border. I would have to rely on signs. Hopefully I would find one that said “Walden” at which point I would take a right.

The next 20 or so miles climbed up to over 10,000 feet. When I reached the Continental Divide there was still deep snow on both sides of the road. The views were breathtaking and the forest service had the road lined with interpretive signs. One of the signs was the site where Thomas Edison got the idea for the filament in his incandescent light bulb. I didn’t think I’d find anything up there, especially the site of a significant event in history. I was glad there was virtually no traffic on the road. I must have looked drunk weaving from one to the other side of the road reading the signs. One of the few cars that passed was full of pretty girls waving out of a sun roof. The adventure was getting better all the time! At that point I decided that I would have to stop at a bar in one of the little Wyoming towns to have a ceremonial beer and check out some of the local wildlife. Some of their older sisters, perhaps? I just had to remember the cardinal rules: Don’t talk about religion, and don’t talk about politics. It’s amazing how far talking about the weather can get you.

I cruised through Encampment, population 400-something. The bars had little windows that I couldn’t see through. It’s awkward to walk in a bar, decide you don’t want to be there after making eye contact with the very reasons you DON’T want to be there and then turn around to walk out. I kept riding.

At the end of town I saw the sign I was looking for: Walden, and took a right. There were two bars that looked full of life. I stopped at one, parked right in front and walked in. “No more talking about politics,” I heard someone say when I walked in. Another guy ordered a Guinness. I followed suit. This wasn’t such a bad place after all. Still, I decided to take my beer and sit outside where a gentleman convinced me to ride 20 miles out of my way to Saratoga where there was a free hot spring. I’d no sooner pass up a hot spring in Wyoming than I would pass up a Guinness after crossing the Great Divide. The soak felt great to my road-beaten body, but the sun’s position in the sky afterward wasn’t reassuring. Despite being the third longest day of the year, I wasn’t sure my motorcycle and I could beat the sun to the horizon. We were no match for its speed and by Walden, it was almost dark… and getting very cold! I stopped at a gas station to fill my jacket with crumpled newspapers, an old survival trick, and got back on the road. About 20 miles later I was disappointed that I didn’t stuff more newspapers in my jacket. Not nearly as disappointed, however as I was that I didn’t think to get GAS at the station. I had read that the KLR got 300 plus gallons to the tank. I was only at 216 when the engine started puttering. Fortunately, it has a reserve tank that somehow got me to the top of Rabbit Ear’s Pass. At that point, I put it in neutral where it wouldn’t use too much gas (and was quiet enough so that someone upstairs may hear my prayers). At mile 242 I coasted into the Shop ‘n Hop at the far end of town. I was frozen, I was exhausted, but I was home!

The rest of the weekend was full of excitement. Cutting beetle kill down in the National Forest, getting my motorcycle license in Craig America, going to the sheriff’s wedding reception, a few days of gondola laps on the mountain bike, but nothing could compare to the first big journey on the motorcycle.

Tomorrow I go away for four days to Life Skills Camp in Estes Park with a bunch of middle-schoolers. There’s no telling what stories will come from that adventure. I better get to sleep.