Retreat from the Heat
One of the advantages of my day job is that it allows me to travel by air for free. I have found I can best take advantage of this perk by riding one of my motorcycles to an area I'd like to explore, and then stashing it in a u-store-it facility near to an airport. This allows me to avoid lengthy and time consuming slogs in/out of Texas, which, in turn, permits shorter breaks (like 3 days) to be used enjoying different locations. The cost is reasonable - 70$ for 3 months plus 30$ cab fare each trip (compared with 2 days used, 45$ gas each way,food,plus one night accommodations if I road). This summer, as in 2003, I put the bike in Colorado Springs, CO in preparation for the Paonia Top o'the Rockies Rally held in mid-July.
I rode my 1985 BMW R80GS, which had performed so well in Chihuahua Mexico, as I planned to ride some dirt and 4X4 roads in CO. There's a myth about starting out early - it never seems to happen right (for me). In this case I didn't get on the road until 0730 (rush hour) and when I did I was still so groggy I headed off in the wrong direction! I wound up making 3/4 of the loop around Ft Worth to get to I-35 northbound instead of just the 1/4 I had planned. With 650 miles to go it was just a blip on the radar.
Highway 287 is the price we Texans have to pay for the privilege of Colorado's splendors. They're worth it, but it's a high price none-the-less: 6 hours of mindless droning to Amarillo, and then another 4 or so in the heat and unstable weather of the panhandle. It's something to know unequivocally that your rain-gear will not leak, I suppose. I made the break into NM and then CO on I-25, and arrived at Trinidad CO State Park for the evening. Excellent facilities, with Bob and Earl's Cafe (good food as always) just 3 miles down the road with a liquor store just across the street. Sitting at the picnic table in front of my tent, sipping a beer while listening to the engine do it's cool down tick-tick-tick and the children laughing nearby, smelling the clean mountain air and staring across the lake to the high clouds over the mountains is a long sentence, but one I'll gladly serve anytime.
Loop 12 between Trinidad and Walsenburg is about 3 times as far and 4 times as long as the drive up I-25 between the two towns, but it's what you come to CO for! Twisties, scenery, smells and that cool, cool air. This time there was no reason NOT to take the Cordova Pass cut-off and follow the diameter line across to Aquillar, just south of Walsenburg on I-25. Bags and all the bike and I enjoyed a rutted dirt road to the pass and our first stomp in the snow (yes, snow in June). On the way down we passed through tunnels in the lava dikes, formed when the volcano we were on erupted and poured lava through cracks in the ground, which then eroded leaving only the narrow veins of lava like tree roots.
The dirt took me back to I-25 at Aguillar and as far as Colorado City, where I jumped back over to the west onto 165 and eventually 67, which passes through Florence and Canon City and becomes the dirt road of Phantom Canyon. It travels along side a creek all the way up to Victor and Cripple Creek. Victor is a true mining town - played out and dirty, where people are holding on to land and businesses by their dirty fingernails. Cripple Creek has gone Hollywood - bus tours, gambling, B&B's, etc. I thought it was pretty clever that the --->67 signs sort of disappear in Victor, ensuring a passer-through will have to take the 'business route' through town and maybe even stop to ask directions or maybe buy something.
67 butts into 24, which, in turn, winds its way into Colorado Springs, the storage area and the airport.
Two wonderful days up and an hour and a half back. Way cool.
I rode my 1985 BMW R80GS, which had performed so well in Chihuahua Mexico, as I planned to ride some dirt and 4X4 roads in CO. There's a myth about starting out early - it never seems to happen right (for me). In this case I didn't get on the road until 0730 (rush hour) and when I did I was still so groggy I headed off in the wrong direction! I wound up making 3/4 of the loop around Ft Worth to get to I-35 northbound instead of just the 1/4 I had planned. With 650 miles to go it was just a blip on the radar.
Highway 287 is the price we Texans have to pay for the privilege of Colorado's splendors. They're worth it, but it's a high price none-the-less: 6 hours of mindless droning to Amarillo, and then another 4 or so in the heat and unstable weather of the panhandle. It's something to know unequivocally that your rain-gear will not leak, I suppose. I made the break into NM and then CO on I-25, and arrived at Trinidad CO State Park for the evening. Excellent facilities, with Bob and Earl's Cafe (good food as always) just 3 miles down the road with a liquor store just across the street. Sitting at the picnic table in front of my tent, sipping a beer while listening to the engine do it's cool down tick-tick-tick and the children laughing nearby, smelling the clean mountain air and staring across the lake to the high clouds over the mountains is a long sentence, but one I'll gladly serve anytime.
Loop 12 between Trinidad and Walsenburg is about 3 times as far and 4 times as long as the drive up I-25 between the two towns, but it's what you come to CO for! Twisties, scenery, smells and that cool, cool air. This time there was no reason NOT to take the Cordova Pass cut-off and follow the diameter line across to Aquillar, just south of Walsenburg on I-25. Bags and all the bike and I enjoyed a rutted dirt road to the pass and our first stomp in the snow (yes, snow in June). On the way down we passed through tunnels in the lava dikes, formed when the volcano we were on erupted and poured lava through cracks in the ground, which then eroded leaving only the narrow veins of lava like tree roots.
The dirt took me back to I-25 at Aguillar and as far as Colorado City, where I jumped back over to the west onto 165 and eventually 67, which passes through Florence and Canon City and becomes the dirt road of Phantom Canyon. It travels along side a creek all the way up to Victor and Cripple Creek. Victor is a true mining town - played out and dirty, where people are holding on to land and businesses by their dirty fingernails. Cripple Creek has gone Hollywood - bus tours, gambling, B&B's, etc. I thought it was pretty clever that the --->67 signs sort of disappear in Victor, ensuring a passer-through will have to take the 'business route' through town and maybe even stop to ask directions or maybe buy something.
67 butts into 24, which, in turn, winds its way into Colorado Springs, the storage area and the airport.
Two wonderful days up and an hour and a half back. Way cool.
posted by Randy Masters at 6:37 AM
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