Last little leg.

I have no idea why I have been putting this off. I am sure people aren't waiting and reading anymore but I need to put this little bit back in.

We woke up at the campsite and my father was able to sleep well on MY air mattress and the one he brought deflated and made for a rough night. So enough I would be in a bed so no big deal. We got camp all packed up and hit the road. My dad lead for a bit and showed me a few things around Winthrop then I took over and made our way up in to the North Cascades National Park.

Now the wild thing was I have been in quite a few national parks and they always seemed like a circus. You waited in line to pay to get in then fought traffic albeit in the most beautiful places you will see. North Cascades National Park is none of those things. You just hop on HWY 20 and ride through it and it's just as beautiful and the rest of them.

There looked like a bit of clouds hanging around the mountain tops but we didn't expect to see a little bit of snow on the ride over the pass or for it to be 40 degrees. Needless to say I was freezing. I got all of my gear together thinking it was late summer and I will be riding through desert. It then rained off and on down the other side of the mountains. We stopped for a hotdog and when we did it absolutely poured rain. Luckily we didn't ride in the worst of it. From this point on knowing I would be done with the trip was a little surreal but it also seemed to drag on. Part of me wanted to just finish it because I was so close. The other part wanted to rest a few days and head out again. I knew that I needed to get on with the rest of my plans and get ready for school. Well if you are reading this there is going to be one more final post to put it all together. This really was a trip of a life time. But it wont be the last.

MT to WA, This post is out of order I apologize.

Today started about 400 miles ago. I am meeting my father in Wintrop tomorrow and wanted tomorrow to be an easy day so I poured on the throttle today. Lots of beautiful country. I thought at one point I was coming down out of the mountains but every corner I took around one mountain another one showed up! I few miles outside of Missula, MT I followed a river for about 100 miles so there was always something to look at on the road. I pretty much stopped to get gas, food, and my buns a rest for a few minuets. I was thankful that most of the labor day traffic was headed in the other direction.

On the ride I was trying to figure out what my total milage for the trip will be and that's one thing on this trip I wish I had done is keep and accurate account of the milage. On a guestimate I think it will be in the neighborhood of 8000 miles. Thats more miles than driving to the Atlantic coast and back, pretty wild stuff.

I was a little bit worried about finding a place to stay tonight. On the first try though I found a camp site. Its right on Lake Rosevelt (Columbia River) and it was practically empty. It's on a cove which is pretty much dried up so maybe that's the reason it's empty. Well I only have about 150 miles to Winthrop and I should make that by noon, easy.

Camp to Winthrop

Today I couldn't help but wake up early because in a few hours I knew I would be seeing a familure face. I was up and dawn and had to slow my self down so I wouldn't get on the road too early and end up waiting. So I was awake and stirring around so I decided to change my route then I found out that my Dad had left earlier than planned so I just flew right towards Winthrop. I was expecting a lot of traffic but was pretty much on my own until I got just out of Twisp, then it was a mad house. I finally made it to Winthrop and just I got into town I saw another 1200 gs and wasn't sure if it was my dad then I saw him a few feet from the bike so I slid the bike it through traffic and made it. We had lunch then went searching for a camp ground and again the first one we stopped at had a few spaces left so we set up the tent and dropped a few things off. We then headed further up the river and down a gravel road. We rode for several miles of gravel roads just exploring. Most of it my Dad has been on but in a truck. But I did fordge through my first river! Ok it was a concret gully and the water was only 2 inches deep but I went through it on the bike! We spent several hours just cruzing around then got back into town grabbed some beers and a few supplies and now we are just hanging out. It's finally nice to have some one at camp with you.

The trip isn't over quite yet but I still feel like I made a major milestone in the big picture. About 150 miles to go tomorrow then I will be home and ready to start the next chapter in what is called life...

Yellowstone NP to Hamilton, MT

I was surprise this morning to see not a cloud in the sky which really brightened my day. It was f-ing cold though. I put on almost every layer of clothing I had on to get out of the campsite. Also this morning I almost forgot my Camelback, I got about 4 miles down the road before I had to turn back and grab it. I am lucky that this whole trip thats the only thing I have almost forgotten. The road has been pretty straight and fast again, the highway speed is 70 MPH. It has been mostly rolling hills and farm land. Thankfully there is so much to see on the road and they have decided to chip and seal the road instead of just putting down road snakes. For those of you who don't know road snakes is the tar they put in the cracks of the road to preserve them. For a motorcycle they are spots of not much traction so you feel the front tire slip and grip along the corners where they have placed road snakes.

I haven't regretted much this trip, but there were two old mining towns I wish I had stopped at but didn't here in Montana. I kept riding and was trying to find a camp ground but I was pretty sore from the last few days so I decided to grab a hotel here in Hamilton and grabbed some food and now just going to look for the next route to bring me to Winthrop, WA to meet up with my Dad before the trip to Anacortes.

Grand Teton NP to Yellowstone NP

It was a very cold and wet start today. I slept a little longer hoping the rain would pass, but it did not. I spent the morning under some trees to keep dry until I got everything put away. Then I rode back into Jackson to supply up on a cup of joe and some gas then headed north towards Yellowstone. Couldn't really see much on the trip up the clouds were low enough to cover up all the peaks and the roads were wet so I was really concentrating. When I arrived at the Yellowstone Park gate there was a sign that said traction tires advised and was a little worried. I talked to the ranger and they said they had that up for people to be cautious but there was no snow on the pass. Needless to say I was really worried and took my time getting up to the pass but it turns out that it stayed right about 50 degrees and when I was just about to the pass the roads were all dry. I some how had forgotten that all the Yellowstone gysers and geothermal events are quite far into the park. But I made it to Old Faithful and didn't have to wait too long to see her go up. Then I walked around the gyser field and checked things out. They have a new HUGE visitors center up there now right next to the original lodge. They weather stayed good enough to enjoy myself but then I saw some clouds moving in and was in a bit of a hurry to get to camp and set up. Luckily not a drop of rain sence this morning. I got camp all set up and had some food then walked down to Firehole River and found some warm springs that dumped right out into the river and the whole river had little bubbles coming up from the bottom. When I was engrosed by mother nature she surprised me again. I hear what sounded like fat kids stomping down the hill to the river but I turned and looked and a bull Elk ran right between me and the camp. He crossed the river and went on his merry way. He was only about 20 yards away with those huge antlers. Well tomorrow looks like it will be dry all the clouds have moved on but then again thats what I said last night.

Jackson to Grand Teton National Park

I was foiled again this morning by the elusive Alpine slide. The day before was rain and today at 10 am they didn't open till 11, I could have waiting but thought it best to press on because the weather looked iffy. Well the weather looked iffy all day today and sans a few sprinkes here and there I have stayed pretty dry. After the failed alpine slide I made it a few miles outside of town to Teton Village where the world famous Jackson Hole Ski area is. I took the tram to the top of Rondevous Mountain. Man what a view. It was mostly broken up by the clouds running around the tops of the mountains but when you got to see through them the view is spectacular. It reminded me of the time I climbed Static Peak when I was at camp. The peaks are a few miles apart but taking the tram to the top at 10,400 feet or so is awesome. There is a new tram they built in 2008 and it can hold 100 people and climbs over 4000 vertical feet which in the winter time you can SHRED down it! I HAVE to come back and snowboard this mountain. 50% black dimond 40% blue runs and only 10% green. The Tram serves only black dimond runs. Back down in the village I picked up some more warm clothes and just walked around for a bit and tried to picture what it would look like with an average base snow of 80". After the Teton Village I rode into Teton National Park and rode around for a while checking out all the view areas and found a place to camp. This is the part it drizzled on me for. Then I headed out to the park determined to forget about the no tresspassing signs and go to the place where I went to camp. I got quite a bit down the road to a bridge that crossed the Gros Venture River and stopped and if this was a cartoon a big ? would have showed up above my head. Just pass the bridge I saw where the rodeo grounds USED to be and thought to myself "Keep the memories you have and don't ruin them with what is there now." I said to my self thats a great idea and turned around. I think my mind was telling me that I probably wouldn't like what I saw and be upset about it. Listen to youself, your mind knows what its doing. That's one of the best things that I have really found out about my self is my gut is pretty much always right and to listen to what it has to say. So after that I made my way back into the Park and grabbed one of the few campsites left and set up camp about 200 yards from Jenny Lake in the shadows of the great Teton Mountain range.

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.

Cripple Creek to Red Rocks Camp

Today I got quite a late start, about noonish. After I went down to help Chris clean up the bar a bit we came back to the cabin and I did a load of laundry to let the weather pass. It rained off and on in the morning and I was letting the road dry out a bit so I didn't repeat the ride up there and put the bike down. Once I left I headed up the hill to the Molly-Cathlene Mine. It is no longer a working mine but you still ride the same elevator cars that the miners took up untill it closed in the 50's, and you drop 1000 feet underground. It was a very informative and spectacular tour. The tour was set up as a time line, so you started out with a hammer and a chisel and worked your way up to modern phneumatic drills and every step in between. Very cool stuff, and all of the tour guides used to be what they call "hard rock" miners so they do this to make a little extra money. After that I made my way up to the American Eagle Overlook to the moden open pit mine just outside Cripple Creek. When I got up there I was told they were blasting and I had to wait 15 before I could go up there. While I was waiting there is an old mining town you can walk through. So I was leaning against a huge rock and all of a sudden the rock starts shaking and then you can here the blast, I was not expecting that. I thought you would just be able to hear it and thats it. So once they let me pass I rode right across and active mining road where the huge ass dump trucks were traveling along. Once you get to the top you can pretty much see the whole open pit mine but at the top was the actual mine of the mining town I saw while I was waiting. The area around here is so rich with history and I would venture to guess one of the only placed you can see the old and the new side by side then learn about everything in the middle.

After all the excitedment of the day it was getting late so I rode back to Woodland park grabbed some food and then headed north a ways to get to a set of camp ground. I found a good little spot and now its dark gonna get some rest then make my way further north and hopefully make it to Rocky Mountain National Park and if I don't no big deal because I love this whole area here and could spend plenty of time here.

Cripple Creek

I must say that today has been one hell of a day. One of the days that I will probably remeber about this trip for the rest of my life. The day started out with a few drops of rain and was looking pretty somber. I made my way up to the National fossil monument, which was mostly petrified trees and a huge area where they have found tons of fossils, which are kept at various museums and a few held in the gift shop. I followed a park ranger guided tour and was just amazed at the amount of history stored in this one little area perfectly preserved by seemingly random geological events. Then it was time to head into gold county to take some tours of the mines. I made it to the town of Cripple Creek and went through the town museum which took a few hours. So much history here and they still produce about 900 ounces of gold a day out of the main mine. I lot of history meets the present time gold mines, you can see the remarkable movement from old to new in one small little town. After the museum I decided to grab some food and found a little joint that wasn't connected to the many casino hotels here and orderd a calzone. While I started to eat this delicios lunch prepared by the owner I started up a conversation with Chris, the owner. After a few minuets it started to absolutly pour rain so I stayed at the bar just waiting out the rain storm and discussing my options with Chris who is an extreamly nice guy and a very giving individual. At first he was giving me info on where the nice cheaper places to stay were then he said he takes care of a house for a friend and I could stay there. He drove me up to the house and I was hesitant to stay there because I didn't want to impose or feel like a free loader but he was very insistant that it was all good and the house was built for people to hang out there. So we made it to the house down a dirt road and it has a spectacular view of the Rocky Mountains and I said why not. The owner of the house Todd was already there and very much welcomed me to his house. We drove back to the bar grabbed a few supplies and then headed back to the house. On the way there though I hit a very slick spot of clay and laided the bike down at about 20 MPH. The worst crash I have had yet and I just got the bike muddy tweeked my bad ankel and burned my leg on the exhaust, so all in all not too bad at all.

I made it to the house and we started drinking beers and bullshitting getting to know eachother and Chris cooked an amazing dinner of several fish he caught when he was in Canada and some beans, corn, and a salad. I can't say enough about how generious these guys are and welcomed me to stay at the house for several days and eat what ever I want out of the pantry.

So tomorrow I am gonna head down with Chris and work off the hospitality helping him clean up the bar and get it ready for the day then I am gonna finally get to take the gold mine tours. I am unsure if I am going to stay longer or just keep on trucking. The ever nagging feeling that I need to get a job grows stronger every day. Thats the price you pay when you start to get older I guess.

Camp to Woodland Park, CO

I got my camp site together at about 9.... and rode a few miles south to catch up with HWY 24 again and I headed on my way up Pikes Peak. I knew they had talked about paving the road to the top and found there was about 4 miles of gravel and the rest was paved. I talked with an old timer who was there with his 55 year old son and he told me the reason why they hadn't paved the whole road is because there was another mountain with the record of the highest paved road. The view was spectacular, every direction you could see miles upon miles. The bike did wonderful a, s well, the only thing was stupid cars slowing me down!! After the trip up the mountain I decided to hit the Cave of the Winds and waited 2 hours to go on the Lamp light tour which was worth it. Seeing the parts of the cave that was not lit. There was a ghost side of the tour which was interesting. All in all I would recommend the lamp tour to anyone.

So today is also my birthday, I never thought I would be on a lone motorcycle trip during a birthday but all of the people who wished me a great day was very surprising.

Tomorrow I am going to go on the Gold mine tours then camp and then start to head north west again.

I hope that with all the pictures I have taken I can describe which each one means to all of you who have been following this trip.

Colorado City to Camp

I got a desent start from the hotel, 9 am seems to be my go time. I got on the road and headed west a few miles then picked up this awesome road that would take me up to HWY 24 where everything I want to see is off of. Turns out that it was 22 miles of dirt road, very easy dirt road. It took me up through this canyon and into the hills and was just an amazing ride. It kind of sucks that while I'm on a motorcycle I have to pay much more attention to the road than if I was in a car, so I feel as if I missed a lot of what this road has to offer as far as vistas. I had an incredible time none the less though. They blasted away roadway and if they couldn't blast a whole hill side then they bore a tunnel through it. It's awesome that I have the opportunity to ride that road but it sucks that it took the desimation of the country side to create that road.

My luck and timing seems to be way off track. Once I got near the town of Victor there were thousands of motorcycles and I at first thought it was a saturday and was sunny and the mountain roads are the place to ride. I got into the town of Victor and find out that there is a Veterans motorcycle rally in the next town over and most of it spills into the town of Victor, which is an active gold mining town. I found out a couple of things about my self on this little trip. I feel that being in the Coast Guard that I am not a true veteran even though I have earned the title. So many people before me have sacrificed so much in a service that was on the front lines. I have to remind myself that although the Coast Guard is not on the front lines now that they have been, and played an important role in every war this country has been in. It also makes me feel like I have abandoning a sence of duty that I one had but now I don't. As of the 15th of August I am a free man, no ones owns me. I am torn between the two, do I do what I want when I want to do it or do I need to serve this country. A lot goes into this thought and on a motorcycle is where you can really put it all to thought, but that's another rant for another day.

I was able to make it into a BMW dealership to get an oil change done in Colorado Springs, which I am thankful they were able to squeez me in as a walk in. Come to find out that I was about 500-1000 miles from being unsafe on the tires that I had. So Lizzy got a brand new pair of shoes and she feels like a new bike. They were also saying that I was luck to get the mileage out of the tires that I did.

I was headed west again toward a cluster of campgrounds that I saw on the map. I stopped by the camp grounds further from the city hoping to find a spot and they were all full so I headed north and was able to find a campground with a few spots left and snagged the first one that was open. I here I am now back to camping and having a blast, because hotels are all the same and expencive. It was worth it in the heat but no excuse now that I am in the mountains. Going with the bad luck part I wanted to climb pikes peak on the bike today but time and there was an annual marathon up the mountain today... So tomorrow I have some new more aggressive shoes on Lizzy and a mountain to climb.

Amarillo, TX to Pueblo West, CO

Today I just felt like it needed to get the hell out of Texas. That state is huge and feels like a black hole. Once I hit the north east corner of New Mexico things really started to change, for the better. MOUNTAINS!!! I thought I would never see hills, let alone mountains, again. The best part is the temperature, 85 degrees is a very comfortable temperature to ride in. Maybe I have adjusted to the heat a bit but it is very comfortable. I picked up a Colorado map and set my sights on a campsite are just outside of Colorado City and headed right there. I am really tired of hotels and was really looking forward to camping again. But there was a wrench thrown in my gears. There is a motorcycle trials competition thing weekend and all the campsites were full.... So I headed on my way to a state park where I saw a little camp site symbol on the map and tried to get there, but apparently it is not real. It was already dark and the next campsite symbol is about 60 miles away so I grabbed the first hotel I saw so I don't have to back track into the mountains. Tomorrow I am gonna head north and there are gold mines and caves to check out so I will be in this area for a few days and then I am going to try at some point to climb pikes peak!

Mason to Amarillo, TX

Today was just a day to eat up miles to try to get out of Texas. Just very straight roads and 70 mph. I made it even with a bit of a late start 400 or so miles. I stopped by Sam's famous steak house for lunch and they didn't open till 5 so I just kept moving.
When they say everything is bigger in Texas, they are not joking. From the people to the food servings. If you go to a gas station the "normal" size soda is 32 ounces. It actually hard to find a smaller cup..... Well tomorrow I will be in Colorado and hopefully back to staying at campsites.

Sonoma, San Antonio, George West, Corpus Christie to Mason, TX

Well I got on the road early from Sonoma to haul ass to San Antonio to meet Sam. I got there early and had to hide in the shadow of Sam's Saturn to stay out of the heat.... So we made into to San Antonio and the first stop was this map shop and man it was one of the coolest things of San Antonio. They had maps from all sorts of country and they were all from the 1400's to the 1800's, amazing stuff. Then we went to the Alamo which was pretty cool but there is only some of it left and what I didn't know it the iconic picture of the Alamo is actually the church of the whole fort. I thought it was the entrance to the fort. Anyway it was pretty packed with people and commercialized so it was good to see but I think it would be just as good to read about it. Then we went down to the river walk and proceeded to start drinking and then walking and then drinking and repeat. But then it just turned into drinking. We got a hotel ahead of time and I am glad we did by the end of the night. So the next day was slow going but we made it down to George West where Sam lives and just hung out and caught up. Then Sam started to show me all the awesome wild life that is prominent in his area, pretty much huge or stinging insects or spiders and thats pretty much it. The next day was a lazy day for me which was really nice, some time to recover after the long and fast haul to make it there for the weekend. That night we cooked up a good old fashion steak. The best part about Texas is the mesquite trees that grow every where and you can just cut them down and cook with them, it's very convenient. The next day we drove down to Corpus Christie and while Sam "worked" I spent the day on the USS Lexington, a WW II air craft carrier. There is good reason I spent the whole day there, so much to see and learn! Pretty amazing, instead of talking about it here I recommend to read about it on the interweb. Then it was back to the home stead for some Scotch Pie and Scotch eggs!

Today was a early wake up and I was moving all morning but I did't get everything done till about 11:30 and was on the road by noon. I was gonna be able to make it to Abilene but I showed up here in Mason about 20 minuets behind a rain storm and looked on my phone and saw another one headed this way so I thought it best to hold up here for the night. Tomorrow I am gonna make it to Abilene for lunch so I can eat a steak by Sam's favorite steak house then hopefully make it out of the state of Texas....