Monday, August 25, 2008

Rides on 8-24 and 8-25-08

It’s a busy weekend, but what a better way than to start it with a ride on Saturday. Our plan was to shoot out highway 24, past Florissant, to the eastern edge of South Park. I had been on that road two weeks earlier, but I was going east instead of west. It was about a 100 mile round trip, and gave us enough time to get out and back in time for lunch.

There were seven of us, and we started at about 8:30. Our route took us through town and then on to Highway 24. The weather was clear, and I really couldn’t see a single cloud in the sky. Knowing Colorado, one only has to wait a few minutes for the weather to change.

We didn’t have any problems at all going up the pass. We had to pass a few people who were just travelling too slowly for the ride, but nothing was too hazardous. We rode through Woodland Park, which was having a Biker’s rally that day, and rather than participate, we continued on to our destination. After another half hour, we ended up at the ranger station on the east side of Mineral Spring Road at highway 24.


This was a rest area and nature center that overlooked the South Park basin. The area was pretty clear, giving us the ability to see Mount Princeton, Columbia, and Harvard, but I couldn’t see Shavano way off to the southwest. After our time there to stop and drink a coke, we headed back east.




It turned out that all the bikers from Woodland Park seemed to be headed out west from there. We probably encountered 150 motorcyclists heading west. As is the tradition amongst bikers, everyone gets a casual wave with the left hand as you pass each other, low so as to not confuse someone behind you as being a right turn signal. There were so many bikers that we just held out our left hand for miles at a time!

We got back to the Springs at around 12 noon, in time for the barbecue for the rest of the afternoon.

On Sunday, I was planning on a much longer ride. This one was to see my cousin’s cabin up in Ward, Colorado, which is a small town about 20 miles northwest of Boulder. The 20 mile distance is through the mountains along the winding roads. This makes the 20 miles seem much more like 40. Last summer, I tried that road on my bicycle. Since it was all up hill on a hot July day, I only managed to go about seven miles before I called it a day.

I decided to travel the back route-from Golden to Blackhawk, and then on to Nederland. From there, it would be a straight shot to the top of Ward. Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn at Nederland, and ended up in Boulder-adding about 25 miles to my trip up to Ward.
Ward sits on a hillside. It’s just east of the Continental Divide. Established when Colorado was part of the Nebraska Territory, it was originally a mining town. It’s over 9000 feet above sea level, and several degrees cooler than the rest of the state. In 1900 a huge fire burned 50 buildings, but it didn’t close the town down. In the 60s and 70s, Ward was known as a haven for counter-culture youth, or a polite way of saying drug using hippies. Now, it still is a home for older people who still wear sandals and hemp shirts. It has quite a history.

My aunt’s family had a couple of cabins there, but they were anything but counter-culture. They still enjoyed the mountains and its area. As a child, my parents took vacations out to the area and we spent many times in Ward. I vaguely remember taking a vacation there at one point, probably in the mid 1960s.


Since then, the cabin fell into disrepair, so my cousin, Rick, has been working for the past couple of years restoring it to a usable state. It’s a ton of work, but it looks so rewarding. The cabin was built around the 1920s maybe… and some of the items seem to be from those days. Rick finally built a bathroom in the cabin within the past few years. Up until then, it had an outhouse near the back door.

I spent Sunday with my cousins Rick, his older sister Betty Ann, and brother Pat. We had another half a dozen relatives there, all of whom I was meeting for the first time. It was a great time, and I hope to keep in touch over the next several years better than I have over the last few.

At 6:30, I had to leave, in order to get back to town within the same calendar date. I headed down the hill back to Boulder. The hill wound around, and my safest speed was about 35 MPH. I made it in to Denver at 7:30, a full hour after I left Ward.

In Denver, I was interested to see the preparation for the Democratic National Convention, starting Monday. Invesco Field was surrounded by security people, and the hotels were all lit up. It looked like an exciting week.

There had been some rain, so I expected that in had passed over without worry. I was slightly mistaken. When the interstate took its southerly direction, I saw some very dark clouds and lightning over southern Colorado. I knew I’d have to stop and put on the rain suit. At Castle Pines, I stopped for gas. When I was through, I donned the suit. Another driver called over to me, and said that the rain wasn’t too bad south of where we were. He also told me that the rain stopped at around Monument Hill. I thanked him for the report, and he wished me good luck.

In Castle Rock, the rain started. It was pretty convenient, because the road went through a construction zone, reducing the top legal speed. I managed okay, but worried about the visibility, traction, and wind. The only way to counter this was to ride slower, but that increased the risk of getting into a collision with someone who was also having problems with visibility. Good luck for me followed: I fell in behind a recreational vehicle that ran at a steady 50 MPH. I found that pretty strange that there were times when I was driving in a big hurry, and frequently swore at the RV drivers who travelled slower than the flow of traffic. Tonight, I needed this guy right in front of me.

We drove at our steady 50 MPH all through Castle Rock, Tomah, Larkspur, Monument, and to the Air Force Academy, where the RV pulled off. Throughout that time, I stayed behind the vehicle, keeping close enough to stay out of the way of faster moving traffic. The only thing that impressed me was that there were two other bikers who passed me like I was in reverse. Either they were really dumb, or really experienced. I gave them the benefit of the doubt, that they had more than my eight months of riding experience.

Only when I got home at 9:00 PM did I discover that there had been four tornados that had touched down in that area where I was riding. That was pretty crazy. It felt really good to be back home.
My motorcycle, (named Steve McQueen) had put 293 more miles onto its odometer.

Information on Ward

Saturday, August 16, 2008

No Ride on 8-16-08

It’s raining outside, so I am not riding today. This rain is bothering me now, because it makes my xeriscaped front yard look stupid, now that it’s growing grass. The rain does give me an excuse to do some housework that I’ve put off for a while. One of these jobs is to scan a stack of papers into my computer that have been sitting around. Some of these papers are my homeowner’s insurance policy. I had never read this before. I don’t think I’m alone-quick show of hands: who has actually read their homeowner’s insurance policy? Anyway, I discovered that my home is not covered in the event of accidental or deliberate nuclear weapon detonation, whether as a result of war or not. Somehow, I believe if this occurs, I won’t really be concerned with my homeowner’s insurance policy. This did lead me to another silly question. The movie monster Godzilla was spawned as a result of a nuclear detonation. Would my home be covered if Godzilla left a big old footprint in my xeriscaped front yard?

My weekends are the best times of the week. Why is that? I think it has to do with taking back our lives. We usually work five days out of seven, and this tends to make us feel like we live our jobs. Yes, I need money to buy food; to support our kids; to ensure our survival. I think we also work to do more.

I can hardly meet someone from Chicago without saying that I used to manage a major movie theatre on the north side. It’s not important that now that movie theatre is a 24 hour workout gym. A couple of years after I left there, I had doubts as to whether or not I did any good as manager. I had poured my life into that job, and was wondering if I had any impact. So, I called the place, identifying myself as a government employee who had to locate current and former employees. I named off a few, and the person I spoke to hadn’t even heard of me.

Sometimes, I’ll read movie reviews. They usually start by saying, “Clint Eastwood plays a boxing coach,” or “Frances McDormand plays a small town police chief.” That prompts this question, who is going to play you in the movie of your life story, and how will the review begin?

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had a list of sayings that he kept prominently in his office. One of these sayings was “Avoid having your ego so close to your position that when your position falls, your ego goes with it.” We work all through the week, and hope we’re making an impact. I just don’t believe any more that we make an impact out of simple employment.

So imagine the impact I’d make if I wrote homeowner’s insurance policies, and I were the first to add a Godzilla clause…

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Seen between Colorado Springs and Denver: 8-12-08

While driving back from Denver on Tuesday, I saw this vertical rainbow that I had to stop and take a picture of... Something you just don't see every day









Sunday, August 10, 2008

Ride on 8-9-08

I had a free Saturday, so there was a pretty good excuse again for a ride. I had an idea that I cooked up a few days earlier, so I was anxious to give it a shot.

My route was from Colorado Springs to Penrose; from there I would travel west to Salida, then north to Buena Vista. My home stretch was eastbound back to Colorado Springs. When I mapped it out on the computer, the distance came out to 220 miles. I think I planned this route because I really enjoy highway 50, which travels adjacent to the Arkansas River through a canyon, and parallel to a railroad track, which was an active passenger rail for many years. The railway was home to the Denver & Rio Grande Western Railroad, which started its leg in Pueblo and ended in Grand Junction, connecting to the Rio Grande Western Railroad. The railroad was completed in 1883, and was an active passenger line until it eventually became a tourist trap.

I started a little later than I wanted to, because I had new saddle bags on my motorcycle that I had to make sure were secure. To say ‘new’ is a bit of an overstatement-they were new to me, because I bought them at a used motorcycle part store. I did hit the road at about 10 AM, taking my familiar route along highway 115 to Penrose. I enjoy this area, because I believe that little about it has changed over the past two or three hundred years, except-most notably, the asphalt of the road that has been paved through it.

From there, I headed out west, passing the Fremont County Airport. This airport is familiar to me, because I have been skydiving and landing at this place. As I rode by, I saw a couple of parachutes overhead. One of the skydivers was enjoying his dive by performing some very wide spins. I remember a jump that I did last year, when I also did a wide spin. It scared me when I did it, because it meant that my body and the parachute were horizontal. What scared me appeared to be nothing but fun to the guy doing the jumping. I was envious.

The road took me in to Canon City, and beyond to the Royal Gorge area. After that, I was along side of the Arkansas River on one side, and a steep canyon wall on the other. I stopped along the way to watch the whitewater rafting. There were hundreds of people out on the inflatable rafts, each enjoying the adventure of an extreme sport.


I reached Salida after an hour and a half on the road. I had driven past Salida a few years ago, but I have never stopped in the town to have a look. I had been missing this. The town has been in Colorado since 1880, when the Denver & Rio Grande railroad made it a stopping point. It then became a hub for the expansive mining and farming in the area. The old buildings that are still standing captured my attention. On the keystone of most of the buildings, there is a year of construction, and on some, a name of the builder. I’m certain they built these structures hoping that they would last forever, but did they seriously think that the buildings would be standing over a hundred years later?



I was also interested in the signs on the sides of buildings. These had been painted, and in some cases, painted over. It was kind of funny to look at the Snow Drift sign that had been covered with a Coca Cola advertisement.

After I ate a hot dog and chatted with an antique shop owner, I headed back out. Highway 121 went from Salida to 285, which was my next leg. This road ran along the east side of the Sawatch Range, home of Mount Shavano, Antero, Princeton, and others. In this valley, there were more whitewater rafters out, and little traffic to compete with.
I did have to stop to capture another piece of history, with an old schoolhouse that was still standing. I didn’t get too close to the building because of the it did look like it had been transformed in to someone's home, but would have liked to. The swing set next to the building did not look to be older than 50 or so years, leading me to believe that it may have been put there by the school when it was active. I’d like to know for sure.
My final leg took me from just south of Buena Vista back to the Springs. I passed a couple of motorcyclists who had stopped to put on their rain suits. I didn’t think that was necessary, so I did not bother with mine. In five miles, I stopped to do the same. The rain wasn’t hard, but it penetrated my jeans, and the cool wind felt amplified. I started traversing the basin between the Sawatch mountain range and the western side of the Front Range.

I stopped to photograph an old home that had been abandoned at some time.
I also passed areas so desolate, that I wondered: given any random square yard out in this vast area, how many humans throughout history had actually stepped in that spot? A dozen? Fewer? Even more haunting: would someone in two or three hundred years fly over that area in his space ship and think the same thought?

I made it back to town at 3:30 PM, and finally pulled off my rain suit. I had traveled 229 miles.