Jackson, WY

Today I woke up to near freezing conditions and put just about every layer I had on. I didn't bring much warm clothing because I was headed to the desert. Come to find out that up here at 6500 feet in late August it starts to get really cold at night but it stays in the 60's during the day. The cloud cover was pretty heavy and was supposed to rain so I thought I would grab a room in Jackson and just do the tourist thing. It did pour rain for the morning and then cleared up a bit. I just did laundry and hung out it was really nice to take a day off the bike. So after the whole tourist thing and laundry I went to see a movie. Before the movie I went into the Million Dollar Cowboy bar just because I can and the last time I was here was over 10 years ago. The place has saddles for bar stools but other than that its just a cowboy decorated bar. Today I am going to do a little more tourism and then find a spot to camp and fight the cold again. I do really want to check this place out in the winter and do some snowboarding on all the mountains you see here. Some day soon I will be back and see it during the wintertime.

Rock Springs to Jackson Hole

Slow start today, I was waiting for some of the storm to move off so I would't chase it down today. I only had a short 3 hour ride anways so no worries. From the start in Rock Springs you can just start to see the Windy River Mountain range to your right and rolling hills to the left. I did find out first hand why they call it the Windy River Mountains. A pretty steady 15 mph wind was hitting me on the left side pretty much the whole time pushing me and and bike around. As you start to head north you then can see the Wyoming Mountains to your left and the further you traveled north the closer those mountain ranges got. I stopped for a short while in Pinewood to top off the tank and there was a Mountain Man Museum. Lots of cool old artifacts from the fur trading days but they also had Jim Bridgers rifle that he carried on his trapping exploits. Back on the road the mountain ranges get to a point where they touch and thats the pass you go over into Jackson Hole. Shortly there after you are in the town of Jackson. I spent some time here as a kid at Teton Valley Ranch Camp and would check out the town when my parents came down to pick me up and it seems the same but totally different. I attribute some of it to I was here almost 15 years ago and thats almost longer then half the time I have been alive. I did remeber the antler archways that are in the center of town. And I was going to head to the Jackson Pharmacy to get a milk shake but as it turns out some people bought them out and now its an art gallery. Life just keeps moving on erasing everything you know. So I was split between getting a hotel because of the weather or camp but just as I was about to grab a hotel it looked like the clouds were moving on. I rode out of town into the Teton-Bridger National Forest and headed towards the place I went to camp. You pass the tiny little town of Kelly who's population was about 10 up from 5 when I was here and then you turn towards the camp. Some time ago the dumb kids of the owners sold the property and now its just call Teton Vally Ranch. I wish they would have come up with something else if your just gonna tear town the memories of hundereds of kids who attented that camp. Hell my dad and his two brother attended when they were kids. The camp is still alive but it had to move to the Idaho side of the Mountains. There is a big No Tresspassing sign but I much just go for it and see what happends, or try to call them tomorrow and ask if I can swing by and see how much they desicrated the place. Enough ranting, I grabbed a campsite just up the Gros Venture River. It's on a lake that was created by a huge landslide. Tomorrow I am unsure of what I am going to do. I do want to swim in Kelly Warm Springs and maybe go for a hike. It's still as beautiful as I remeber here. The Tetons rise out of the ground with just an impressive wall of rock and stand look out over the valley. Its amazing how memories come flooding back with just the simplest thing. I have smelled Sage Brush before but it is a completely different smell here in Jackson. As with this whole trip I will tell every one you will actually have to be here to take in all the beauty of this place. Once you have been here then you will see why there will always be a little piece of my heart that stays right here in Jackson Hole.

Dinosaur NM to Rock Springs, WY

It rained pretty hard last night with a little bit of thunder (kachuga kachuga, from the movie Cars don't know if I got it right) Anyway moving on, I rode up past the camp ground to some petroglyph's and then there was this little cabin at the end of the canyon which was owned by a lady who ran it by herself until she was in her 90's. She used the canyons as natural pens for her livestock. I then made it to the Flaming Gorge Dam, amazing. It was built almost exactly like the Hoover Dam but in the 50's so it was documented very well. The tour is pretty simple but you get to go outside at the base of the damn and get to look up at it from just about water level. The wild part about the whole tour was there was me and another fellow on this tour and that was it. It turned out that he was from the UK and was on a solo motorcycle trip around the country. What are the chances that the only 2 people on the tour are doing solo motorcycle trips. He was riding a Harley that had 10 beautiful ladies air brushed on it from the 40's and 50's movie era. After we got done with the tour I say some pretty dark clouds gathering and decided it was time to get on the road. I was going to take the west side of Flaming Gorge Reservoir and made it to Manila, UT and pulled into a gas station just has the heart of the storm passed over. I'll tell you one thing when you riding just in front of a storm and you see lighting strikes a few miles away you body tries to make you the lowest part of the bike, which isn't possible. All I could think about was getting to safety but there was no where to go until I got to Manila. So I had lunch there and was waiting for the storm to pass so I could follow it. Just as I was getting on the bike this older gentlemen stopped for gas in his Mercedes and told me he just drove through the worst rain storm of his life coming from Green River, WY which is where I was headed. We looked at the clouds and thought it would be best to ride the 35 miles back from the dam and take the east road past the reservoir, which paid off. A few times I begged the road to turn more north because I was headed to the next storm, but I managed to find the window and flew a couple of miles an hour over the speed limit to beat the storm, and it worked. I have been so lucky with rain storms. I've run in to some rain drops here and there but full on storms I have managed to miss. I found a great place right on the hwy I am gonna take up to Jackson tomorrow and a laundry mat right next door. I am excited to get up to Jackson and check some things out where the last time I saw it was over 10 years ago.

Grandby lake to Dinosaur National Monument

Today, I am sorry to report, was a pretty un eventful day. I am back slogging through miles of highway but unlike Texas or south east New Mexico there is actually things to see on the trip. Once I got out of the mountain area of Steamboat Springs, which is a pretty cool town, it turned in to big rolling hills which reminded me a lot of eastern Washington and Oregon. In stead of wheat feilds and farms it was just rolling hills of Sage brush. Then I was creeping (70 MPH) towards the border of Utah the geologically fasinating mountains started to rise again. The colors and the crazy shapes these hills and mountains make almost makes we want to switch gears and become a geologist, maybe I can do it on my days off. I arrived on the southern end of Dinosaur National Monument and found out that they big display of bones is closed. They have to rebuild the facillity because the gound kept shifting under in and broke down the foundations. So tonight it will just be camping and on the road tomorrow which out a chance to see much. I did manage to snag a camp site right near the Green River. I always love camping next to a river and hear the water flowing past. On the down side the river is flowing way to fast for me to hop in a cool off and take a bath so its a couple more days of sweaty stinkyness. Oh and the crikets or what ever insect is makeing that racket is either getting louder or closer so its starting to drown out the river noise. More on the trip tomorrow, Good afternoon, good evining and good night.

Estes Park to Grandby Lake

The ride thought Rocky Mountain National Park is absolutly incredible. You weave your way up the side of the Rockies, where there is hundered foot drops to the side. You end up at the highest point somewhere north of 12,000 feet. As with all the national parks I have been to its a circus. To top it off there was road construction, of course. Besides these few little gripes there is the wonder of what it was like before huge RV's or even motorbikes where your taking these roads on horse and buggy or even on foot like the mountain men. It is also no wonder that places like this are National Parks. There were a few camp grounds before you headed over the Great Divide and I was going to check the park out and head back if need be but because of construction and all the traffic I headed out of the park. I went through several camp grounds that were RV heavy until I found the one I am at, which is still RV heavy but all along the lake front it tent camping... My tent is sitting 12 feet or so from the edge of the lake. Back to the Park though. The Great Divide is a little spot, where basically you can sit in the middle and put one foot on one side and the other foot on the other. If you want a great Divide experiance I would recommend the southern route through the Rockies where there is a lake and one side drains to the Pacific and the other the Atlantic. I will say it again though. Washington and Oregon has wonderful mountains but there is nothing like Colorado to access the mountains with such ease. What a beautiful place, you have to experience it to believe it.

P.S. Estes Park

I had a pretty rough night last night. The bears came through camp at about 3 am last night and I had a hard time needless to say. I was lucky though the only thing I lost was my camp water bag, they ripped a nice hole right through it. I at first thought they were gonna wrestle my bike because all my food and smelly stuff was in the right pannier. But I think its air tight and kept the smells from escaping. So I got on the road and was gonna take a picture but the camera battery died so I found a little coffee shop and am writing this in the morning and I will write another one tonight about the days progression. I always think about so many things to write in here but always forget to write about them when it come time to sit down and write something. I was gonna write last night how nice people are in this state. I had a few people come up to me in the REI parking lot just talking bikes. This one fellow was curious about the waterproof bag I had on the back and come to find out while he was in Rowanda, Africa he met up with Ewen and Charlie as they were filming the Long Way Down and spent a few days with them. What an incredibly small world. Anyway just sitting here charging all my batteries and sipping on some coffee. Looking forward to the day.

Red Rock CG to Pre-Rocky Mountain National Park

This morning was the earliest morning I have had this whole trip. I woke up at 6:30 and was on the road shortly after 8. I am very proud of my self and hope to do the same tomorrow so I can either grab a campsite in Rocky Mountain National Park or just on the west side if it. I have a feeling that campsites are going to the plentiful in the mountain areas because from what I have heard they mostly shut down the week after Labor Day. So there really shouldn't be an excuse to camp from here to Washington. I really hope that my Father can come out and ride the final leg in, even if its just a few miles it doesn't matter it will feel like a Police escort into town. Today was a pretty short milage day but I did figure out that I am just shy of 10,000 miles on the motorbike and that would mean almost 6000 miles total trip mileage. I spent quite a bit of time in Boulder today, mostly because I got lost looking for the REI and come to find out that I passed it on every loop I made.... Some times a GPS would be nice but I think the only thing it's good for is in city stuff. I love Colorado. Maybe not the whole state but everything I have seen so far is amazing. One of the roads I traveled today is called the Peak to Peak HWY. And not shit it runs a ridge top from one Mountain top to the next. Although it was a hwy and not to many places to stop I have mental pictures that I will only be able to share via word of mouth. The greatest part about the view in Colorado is there is a ton of trees but out of no where there are these huge rock out croppings that make you feel small. There is a lot of hills and mountains in Washington and Oregon but there is only a few select places you can go and most of it is hikeing that you can see for miles down a mountain range that you can here. I love Colorado. Tomorrow I am going to ride into Rocky Mountain National Park and see what the deal is there because it would be hard to top what I have already seen the last few days I have spent in this state.