We all got up that Thursday morning. In the three days that we'd been around LD's our gear was all over hell. Gathering it all up took more time than usual, and we hadn't fully recovered from yesterdays ride thru hell on the Rainbow trail.
Squalls were in the air....
Squalls were in the air....
Finally, we were ready to leave.....but LD said that we should ride the backway 10 miles out to the road for a last dualsport ride before leaving. So we did that. Palma Canyon or summat. Very nice. Look at this picture of paradise at the junction to the paved road.
Here's a live map of the day's ride. https://goo.gl/maps/oeAiXxiuS6E4XH1E6
Here's a live map of the day's ride. https://goo.gl/maps/oeAiXxiuS6E4XH1E6
So then we were really ready to move on to Leadville's Sugarloaf Campground where we would be meeting about 20 riders from all over the states. These guys are from the Sabre/Magna (sabmaggot) internet list that has kept in touch since it was started back in about '95.
Most have moved on to newer bikes, but there were still 6 of the first Generation of Honda V4s that showed up. Most of us had met before at one time or another. Quite a cool bunch of folks.
Nip, Bud and I moved out of LD's new deep graveled driveway without getting stuck or falling down. We were going to visit St Elmo Co as it was on the Way. We'd see both Tom And LD in Leadville later.
We stopped in Salida under the big 'S' on the mountain to watch some kayakers practice in the water feature installed there on the Arkansas River.
Next was St Elmo. It is a neat old mining town from the 1880s that is very interesting. We had a hot dog at the general store there...doesn't everybody. Oh, and we watched the chipmunks that were being fed by kids across from the store. Then we walked around town and took pictures.
We'd just finished our hotdog.
Parking right in front of the store...Woohoo
Some kind of working cargo sled
Then we moved on. I made a wrong turn onto 285 just north of Buena Vista. I pulled into a multi-pump gas station and selected the only pump that said go inside with your credit card. Grrr....but ok, I can do that. We gassed up and leave. About 15 miles up the road I discover my routing error and get us turned around and back on track after consulting my map. That is a nice canyon on that section of road going east from Buena Vista on 285, though. :) I needed north on 24.
50 miles later we are in camp in Leadville. About 5 other SabMaggots are already in camp. Hellos and handshakes were had as we pitched our camps. The Majority of folks would be in Tomorrow, Friday.
Among them was Tom Blum who is famous for his travels with Vermin, an ADVrider from ADVrider.com, in Mexico.
There's my Blue tarp setup...
More of the Thursday arrivals
We BSed each other till it was time to get some food at around 5pm. 10 or so of us went to town for a burger for dinner. That's when I found out that I had no Credit card and had left it at that last gas station 50 miles away. Damn.
I had unloaded my bike of all the saddle bags and such for a couple of day's riding in the area, and I had 2uped Bud to town behind me. So after my burger, I fixed Bud up with Carl Custer to take him back to camp while I beelined it back to that gas station hoping that it would be there.
Damn the bike felt good when running unloaded. I had to fight with myself to keep the speed down. Sure enough, the credit card was waiting for me. The attendant wondered what became of me. I signed the charge ticket and made my way back to camp. All was well, and I wouldn't have to admit to my wife that I'd lost another Credit Card. Future trips depended on that. Ha.
The rest of the evening was spent lining up what rides to do the next day. It looked like we might get some rain that night, but none materialized.
We had said that kickstands would be up at 0900 in the morning. So much for that idea. But the group of 5 riders that I was in, did take off for Independence Pass and Aspen by 10am. That is a great 60 mile ride from Leadville to Independence Pass and 125 back again, If you go thru Glenwood Springs on I-70. It was only about an hour to the top of Independence pass where we stopped for pictures, of course.
On the way to Independence Pass
Me showing off
At the top
Down the western slope to Aspen is just as good, but Aspen is a traffic nightmare, and was that day as well. On the way to Aspen, we stopped at a pull out to view a bit of the creek by the side of the road. Some kids were jumping into a deep pool there. It was quite a place.
Down the western slope
The old swimming hole is about 5 miles down the slope toward Aspen after there was some runoff build up big enough to cut a canyon thru these rocks.
The girls were the only ones with the cajones to jump.
The water looked cold to me.....but it did look like fun. :)
After giving up on Lunch in Aspen we went back to camp, and had a general good time with the rest of the riders that had showed up from all over. It was a general good time.
No comments:
Post a Comment