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

July 9^th

After coffee and muffins at a quaint little shop in town, we left for our second attempt at the climb up over the Continental Divide at the Monarch Pass. Clear skies and great weather made for a perfect ride up to the top at 11,312 feet.

After a snack of some local chocolate fudge, the down-hill run was fast and easy. With Sam leading, he came off the gas about ¼ before the speed trap that caught the guy behind us.

For those of you who didn’t know, my wife Uschi used to live in Colorado. We stayed friends with a number of great folks here. Also, another couple of our friends from San Diego, Terry and Marie, moved here some years back, so Sam and I have a lot of people in Colorado we want to visit. I think we really need more time for this trip.  Uschi ? ?

We got to Herb and Nancy’s cabin in Jefferson about 12:00, where they graciously let us stay the night. The ride up their driveway is on a switch-back dirt road, with the last 50 feet being a steep gravel path very hair raising on a street bike weighing 1000lbs loaded, and even more exciting riding down.

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Their place is a lovely cabin high up in the Rockies with an awesome view of a valley, trout-stream, and small lake below. Like many summer afternoons in Colorado, rain storms moseyed their way across the horizon as we kicked-back on their deck and talked politics and compared the world views of an 18 year-old to us old folks.

Nancy (an expert trout fisherman, who calls the lake her own) had been out fishing all afternoon, came home empty handed with some story about defective bait. Herb made us all PORK chops for dinner. Thanks to both for their wonderful hospitality.

July 10^th

We left Herb and Nancy’s in the morning for an easy 70 mile ride into Denver. Stopped at the local Harley shop to arrange an oil change and get some parts to change Sam’s handle-bars out to something a bit more styling and comfortable. We’re staying near Denver in Arvada for a couple days at Doug and Pepper’s place. Doug even moved his Porche out of this garage so we could store the bikes in there. What a great guy.

For dinner, we rode over to Terry and Marie’s home, also in Arvada. Their son Devin wore Sam out on their trampoline.

It was fun reminiscing about baby Sam. Terry and Sam exchanged dirt-bike stories all evening. I learned from Marie that my wife (when she was single and living in Denver) used to work for a guy who ended up being a serial killer, and did away with 3 wives, one of whom he met at their work. Seems she made a good choice chasing some geeky engineer out in California instead.  I love ya dear!