Hall Road Trip 2007

Greetings and Salivations

This morning when we left it was kinda dismal – low hanging clouds and no sunshine. I even put my leather jacket on. As we traveled west it began to clear and off in the distance we could see what looked like mountains….

As we got closer to Colorado Springs they kept getting bigger and bigger…….

While in Colorado Springs we stopped at Rocky Mountain Sports – a hewage motorcycle store (honda, kawasaki, suzuki, polaris, victory). We got ourselves a couple of throttle locks and Steve replaced his third world looking sun film/glasses with a nice set of tinted goggles. What a dude. Also looked at the new MeanStreak with the flat powder coat  looking finish – way cool, and the new Victory touring bike – a bit different looking but I’d ride one.

We had finally made it to the mountains. Off the interstate and onto the back road twisties. And lots of em. As we climbed higher up to 11,000 feet it got a bit cooler. The pic below was shot when we stopped and put on jackets. And that is snow in them thar hills. Also notice the clouds – as we continued westward and upward they became black – blacker than a coal miners you know what.

If we were professionals there would be some pictures of the hail and rain and scores of bikes pulled off along side of the road feverishly getting into rain gear – but Alice and Alex – we are not. It seems the battery on the camera went dead and since I was trying to keep the bike on the road and out of the canyons as I was snapping pics I didn’t notice the battery was dead – as in door nail.  Fortunately my cellamaphone had a camera and I was able to get a pic without killing anyone….

We drove right into and through this. There was rain, there was hail, there was lightning,  and the temp must have dropped from 75 to 50 in a second. And we were snug as bugs in our rain suits and helmets. It was even fun. But it was more fun to get through it. Dry and alive. As we started to decend again towards Buena Vista, we stopped, and I changed batteries in the camera and shot this panorama (the camera – an Olympus Stylus 770SW – can take up to 9 pics and stitch em together)….

The wierd red light in the road is a passing car that didn’t make the cut in the auto stitch.

So we made it to Buena Vista where we got a room at the Super8. They should take lessons from the folks at our first Super8. The service here sucks, the wifi internet in our room wasn’t working, my room key didn’t work and some pimply faced ahole kid at the front desk didn’t even get it, or care. Good thing Steve dealt with him or I would be in jail. Its hard to believe the paying public’s expectations have fallen so low that this has seemingly become the status quo. If I treated my clients that way I’d be out of biz. Don’t get me started.

The stats for today – Left Goodland, Kansas this morning  9:30am mst and got to Buena Vista @ 4 pm mst. A total of 280 miles.

Anyone paying attention out there may notice we missed Utah. We are rearranging our itinerary  a bit as it’s becoming clear we can’t do all we wanted in the time we have. Stay tuned to see where we end up.

Also want to say thanks to all who are commenting as we go – its nice to have a bit of input from the folks at home.

And I’d also like to thank my father for coming and my mother for being there. We got our love of motorcycling from dear old dad.

And Kenny – if your out there – hope practice doesn’t go too well without me.

And Cynthia – bite me…….

And Kate – this ones for you…..

See yinz later……

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