Ridin'Ard (The h is silent)

In conclusion, it was an awesome trip. We don’t know if we’ll ever get to do somethi g like this again, and we are really glad we got to do it.   We covered over 3100 miles in 25 days. 2 of those were airplane travel days, and there were 2 days when we did not leave the hotel. So we were basically on track for 1000 mi/wk, which is about what it’s been on other trips. There were a lot of days that we rode < 100 miles, too. Maybe someday I will add up the total # of hours in the saddle, or a loyal reader will do it and post it in the comments. 😉 Our biggest hazards were wildlife crossing the road, people doing irresponsible passing on two-lane roads, and wind gusts. We only used the first aid kit on Julie’s bug bite.  Sunscreen comes in a stick -- like a deoderant stick.  Brilliant. Jaron kept referring to the 1.8 billion year old rocks at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. It kind of puts things in perspective. When you’re stressing about something, just remember that tho...

Miles Thursday: 250?  Hours in the saddle: 5:36 Our flight landed at 10pm the night before, and we both did some unpacking after we got home and got to bed really late. We thought we’d take the next day off, but instead we decided to hit Skyline Drive https://www.nps.gov/shen/planyourvisit/driving-skyline-drive.htm. It was a weekday so we thought we could miss some of the crowds, which we did.  Skyline is a highway that goes through the Appalachain Mountains. There are almost 70 overlooks along the 105 miles. It’s a national park and costs $15/vehicle if you don’t have a handy-dandy park pass.  We did the south half of Skyline Drive last October. There was a big sign warning of fog, but we blew it off because we’re smarter than that and then had a pretty crappy time on a twisty mountain road with wildlife crossing when we couldn’t see. You can only exit the drive at a few places, so we were stuck on it for a while. Fog droplets collected on our helmet visors and glasses i...

Miles Tuesday: 197  Hours in the saddle: 10:57?? Tuesday was our last big riding day. We went in to the Santa Fe National Forest thru Los Alamos towards the  Gilman Tunnels . They appear in several Western movies and Julie just has a serious fetish for them tbh.  The gods of GPS and google kept routing us through Los Alamos National Labs, a large guard gate complex. We tried turning around twice, but all roads led to Los Alamos. We approached the gate and explained that we were just trying to go straight on the state highway. The guard let is through and it wasn’t a big deal. There wasn’t even a gate on the other end, making the other gate pretty pointless, and making us wonder how an inspection point can be placed along a state highway with no alternate route.  The route we took is the same route of Julie’s infamous Nightmare Ride down the Mountain 8 years ago, the first year I’d been riding. It was much nicer this time, in the daylight.  So we turned off on to...

Miles Monday: 290 Hours in the saddle: 7:22 Today we went to see the Philmont Scout Ranch, where Jaron spent two summers in high school. We saw the museum and got some memorabilia and camping items at the trading post. We walked around a lot (1.8 mi apparently) and Jaron noticed how much was new and improved since he was last here 20 years ago. It is a really nice campus. It was established in 1938 with a land donation. The ranch is now 140,000 acres.  Philmont had to close the backcountry this summer because of the fires. On our way in we saw (and smelled) some of the devastation. Base camp is still open, but not many people are working this summer. It’s really a bummer.  This is a cool 3D map in the museum. He remembered a couple of the peaks being on the treks he did. One of them was 64 miles and the other was 84 miles.  This is Jaron in front of the tent city.  We noted how Boy Scouts prepared him for military deployments and led to him feeling at home in the Cor...

Miles Saturday: 159 Hours in the saddle: unknown Saturday we ventured to Chaco Canyon, a very intruiging national park that is only accessible via 13 mi of gravel and dirt roads. It’s actually what started the discussion of getting off-road bikes, because it was otherwise off limits for road bikes. It contains evidence of human civilization for 10,000 years and some very advanced and unique architecture.  This is a really distinctive butte that was a big deal.  And let me tell you. This was a pretty crappy road. Very washboard-ey. It was not as bad as the road we had to give up on on our first day. But being so long, it was a different kind of challenge, and we needed a break each way. No bikes were dropped. I’m really proud of us for doing this road. It took over an hour each way.  We left Colorado and headed to Chaco Canyon in New Mexico. We patronized the last chance gas station before turning off on to 20 miles of county roads, the last 5 of which is not even maintai...

Miles Thursday: 67 Hours in the saddle: 2:33 Thursday we made our way from Durango to Ouray. It was a totally stellar ride thru the mountains via the Million Dollar Highway. I love the rugged red mountains peeking out behind the green pine trees.  After a hearty pancake breakfast at the KOA, we gassed up, stocked up on electrolytes and caffiene, and got going. We waited out some rain at a pit stop where we had a light lunch. They had a green chile stew which Jilie tried and was impressed with. Then we headed in to the mountains for real which included some tunnels and several 10-15 mph hairpin turns. They were more like S-hairpins...there was a sign I’ve never seen before with an S on its side. I can’t find a picture online. Sometimes we had a guardrail between us and a sheer dropoff, sometimes not. It was pretty exhilarating.  We also got to 11,100 feet today. Pretty cool!  We arrived in Ouray and went to a pizzaria for dinner and evaluated our lodging options. It was a ...

Miles Wednesday: 47 Hours in the saddle: 1:30ish Hours on a train: 3:25 Wednesday we rode to Durango to check out the Durango-Silverton railroad. Because of the fire danger, they couldn’t run the steam engine for the regular route because it generates sparks. So instead they were offering a shorter route with a stop in Cascade Canyon using the diesel engine. We got open air gondola seats.  The total time commitment was 5 hours, so it was worth it to change out of gear. It started raining and Juli was stressed about coming back to wet gear, but it was fine. We went to get lunch before the train and looked for lodging. Laundry day was upon us. Jaron wanted to see what KOA was all about, and they have laundry, so that’s what we decided to do for the night.  There were some giggly teenybobbers and their moms in our train car. Jaron pointed out a bear crossing the river. They all ran over to look and completely screamed their heads off about it. Later, one of the moms saw a tree fa...