"Life is the great adventure ride. Twist the throttle hard."

July 16   –  We arrived in Missouri, 2100 miles down.  The first city we came through was Joplin.  Pictures can’t describe how horrible the destruction is, and it choked me up to see the rubble with paint-sprayed markings where the rescuers had tagged the buildings.  This is a picture of what was once a residential neighborhood.

We rode over to Springfield where we stayed the night. Sam stayed with his friend Brian Hood. In the morning, Chris had an experience he’s never had before.  Its one of the reasons I wanted to take my boys on the road… to do and see things they never have done before.  He did laundary!

July 17 – Riding the Ozarks

We spent the day riding south through the Ozarks in Missouri.  Awesome riding.  We got a late start, so it was not a long day of riding. We stopped in the mountains and had lunch at a little cabin where they smoked their own meats.

July 15 – We left Denver early, and the weather was great.  Sam had a sore arm yesterday, and today it felt worse.  After a couple hours of riding, it hurt bad enough to have it looked at.  We stopped in the ER at Hugo Colorado and had it X-rayed. The guys at the ER were great.  I highly recommend going to Hugo if you ever need to go to the ER. 

The X-rays showed it was not broke.  Probably a pulled something from the go-cart race the other day.  By noon, we were back on the road.  We knocked out 380 miles today. A little less than planned, but did have quite a few nice breaks.  We checked out a couple automobile junk-yards that were packed with 1940-60 era cars.  The guys even let me go through an antique shop.  At the CO boarder, we found a wind-mill blade to take a break under.

We ran into a wall of rain in Kansas, but as we got closer, we were able to spot some sunshine, and timed our travels so that we slipped through the wall without getting too wet.

We rolled into Dodge City Kansas at sunset, checked out another steam engine, and got a nice steak dinner.  Sam’s icing his arm now and hopefully in the morning its all good. 

July 16 –  Eastern Kansas

You’ll see there are very few pictures of Kansas.  Two reasons.  1)Not much to take pictures of  2)My camera is laying somewhere on highway 400 between Dodge City and Wichita.

4:00 pm at a gas station near no-where, I had a Homer Simpson moment – D’oh!   My bike would not start.  Remember that flaky starter safety switch problem a few days ago.  Yup, it up and died.  After a half-hour of trying to troubleshoot it, we gave up and some friendly locals helped us push-start the bike.  The next harley shop that is open will be tomorrow in new Orleans, so we’ll be push-starting it and keeping it running all day till we get there.  We planned to go into the shop there anyway, because it is time for a new rear wheel and oil change.

Monday July 11.  We ran down to the grocery store, picked up pastries and Starbucks, and went to the rim of the canyon for breakfast. 

After eating, they climbed out onto the same outcrop that they climbed years ago.  Although they now have less fear. 
As cool as the Grand Canyon is, the ride up into Utah and Monument Valley is incredible on a bike. 

The weather was amazingly cool.  In the 70s and low 80s most of the day!  We saw rain storms in the distance, and they kept the air cool, but all day we had great weather.

Here’s Chris on left and Sam on Right:

Just as we entered Colorado, more rain storms appeared. We pulled over to watch the lightning and take a break.  As the storm approached, we left toward Telluride, still 2 hours away and night was comming.  We took a quick break as the odometers rolled over 1000 miles.  8000 more to go…

At 7pm we stopped for dinner 1.5 hours away from Telluride where I wanted to get to for the night. We hoped the storm would go away as we ate, but it followed us.  After dinner, we found every hotel in the area sold-out so Sam and Chris said; “Let’s put on the rain gear and go for it.”  We tried.  But it was now 9pm, dark, pouring rain, and mountain roads. After 20 minutes I cried uncle and were now in a small hotel someplace.  I’m not sure where.

July 12

We had a nice morning ride up to Telluride Colorado, a beautiful little town most of you know I hope to reside in some day.  Someone forgot to tell the Coloradians that the globe is warming.  Telluride was still surrounded by snow, and it was 60 when we got there. 

As we left Telluride, the afternoon storm clouds started to gather.  We had 200 miles to ride to Fairplay, where Herb and Nancy live, and it ended up being a very tought day. We took a break at an shop that sells furs and animal mounts.  Its very cool to browse around, and we all found something to bring along with us. 

Back on the road, there was rain storms in every direction.  I gotta give these two young men a lot of credit for making it through the day.  It was averaging 60 degrees.  It rained on and off all day so it was slow-going and cold.  Sam’s boots took on water, and both guys’ gloves got soaked.  As we crossed to continental divide at the Monarch pass, it was 47 degrees, gusty winds, lightning, and raining.  We stopped and Sam poured out his boots.

The boys were intent on making it to Herb and Nancy’s in Fairplay, so we pressed on.  We arrived just as the sun was setting.  Nancy made us a hot dinner, and Herb served up some cold beers. Thanks so much!  Their place in the Rockies is beautiful.

July 14  –  In the morning, it was sunny and warm, and we rode the 100 miles down to Denver.  We dropped Chris’s bike off at the Harley shop to have the fluids changed and clutch checked.  It’s a 14 year old bike, so I wanted to make sure all was OK with it.  We also bought new waterproof riding gloves.  Pepper picked Chris up, and we all rode back to Doug and Pepper’s place in Denver.   Pepper made us lunch, and then the boys and I went to Golden and toured Coors.  Afterwards, Doug and the three of us went to Unser’s indoor go-cart racetrack for a re-match from 4 years ago when Doug spanked us both.  It was a VERY intense race, and in the end Chris came out on top.

Back home, Pepper let Chris drive the Vette I sold her years ago, and Doug let Sam take his Lotus Elise for a spin.

July 14

We stayed in Denver one more day, while Chris’s bike was repaired.  A sheared cam-chain tensioner bolt caused the noise in the tranny, and we had the oil drained and the stator replaced due to the damage from the bolt grinding around in the engine.  We had lunch with Marie and then went to the indoor air tunnel for simulated sky diving. (Chris on left, Sam on right)   We did pizza and a movie tonoght, and will head into Kansas in the morning.