Along the Million Dollar San Juan Skyway

We're camped at 8500 feet or so in the San Juan National forest, NE of Mancos, Colorado. Fired up the Raider yesterday morning to have her carry us two up to Silverton and Ouray.

Rolling east we dropped down into Durango at 6500 feet and then started the climb to Coal bank at 10,640 feet High in the Rockies!

Then you drop back down a ways before you make another climb...

This time you top out on Molas Divide just a sliver under 11,000 feet high.

The Snow ain't all gone yet... and the Aspen are just starting to leaf out... But it's no less a beautiful ride.

After making the Molas climb you drop into Silverton... where you can take on groceries if you're needful... and then continuing North you make another climb up over Red Mountain pass... This time you break through 11,000 feet to 11,018!

and then almost immediately drop into Ouray.

We met some good friends who live there... and fed us a fine lunch before we climbed back on the Raider and made the trip in reverse, rather than the long way 'round through Ridgeway, Telluride and Dolores...

 The skies going up were blue as they could be... but weather started coming in as we ate... and we made the return trip under cloudy cover.

Got back into Durango to find, when I refueled, that that Yamaha Raider carried two of us up over those passes and back again; starting from 6500 feet, climbing up to 11,000, back down a ways and back up... six times! over 189 miles, and tallied up 46.5 miles per gallon doin' it! ... and just for sayin' it... she's in pretty strong need of a tuneup too! ;)

She is an Awesome Machine!

So awesome... it looks like a friend of mine might be talkin' me into a Second run to Alaska on her in 2013!

Life is good when you live it on two wheels

Grab Your Handles and Ride!
Brian

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Hard Lessons Relearned

Have you ever let life get in the way of Living?

It's an insidious thing. One day, long after you thought you were free, as you talk about how much you struggled to cut the rusting chains of a wage slave... so that you could split the wind in Freedom on the Open Road...

... You realize that the son of a buck has snuck in on you and, once again, the Bike has been parked too much... so you could work... That though the view might be changing, you've slipped back into old ways and old habits... chasing the living that NEVER gave you any compensation the FIRST too many years you chased that phony BS.

I've been so busy it seems trumpeting the lifestyle of LIVE today 'cause tomorrow may never come... that I missed the beast sneakin' up and herding me back onto the self inflicted treadmill of watching the dollars and living for makin' a living!

ARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

How-some-ever... Luckily for me... For US! There's enough other folks chasin' the same sort of a dream that you can't help but run across a few of 'em now and again. That is a good thing.

Their Freedom on the road is In Your Face. Without saying a word they give you a smack as they roll past that asks; "What the Hell are you doin'?!!" Their disappearing tail lights and the receding rumble of their motors... calls to you.

They rattle your cage and reinvigorate your ambitions. They serve to refocus your attention on what's truly important... and they refocused mine.

Crossing trails with the Ural Riders a few days back... Stumbling across the websites of Redlegs and the Rounders ( I rode all winter in Colorado, down to 10 degrees!) and others... was a wake up call. Life is to be LIVED today! Who knows what tomorrow will be.

The Open Road calls; "I'm here... I'm waiting on you..." The Horizon beckons.

Don't get me wrong... The past two years, living on the road have been Fine... But... There's ALWAYS a but! ;) It's come to me the past few months that too much of my life has slipped back to worryin'.

... the cost of fuel... the cost of this... the cost of that... what will I do if this or that happens...

Worryin' 'bout the same damn things I tell ever'body else to push away!

I let myself, as I was concentratin' on spreading the word... to be manuevered back into sweating about things that don't matter. In the grand scheme of things... they are simply the tasks that must be dealt with to LIVE! Not something to be allowed to gain power over your LIVING.

So... Today I get to step off once again with a clear eye and a fine Motorcycle and hack away at the regrown tentacles of a bunch of grasping "cagers"... and restore my soul once again... on a Ribbon of Highway.

Grab Your Handles and Ride!
Brian

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Getting the Rust Knocked off by a Ural Hack

A bit over a week ago we were camped in the Utah, Goosenecks State Park...

*RV's Top Right... Boats on the San Juan River... Bottom left*

It was hot, pushing 90 and we were getting ready to move to higher ground.

A couple rolled in riding a Ural Hack. The he side of the pair has kept a pretty detailed Ride report of their comings and goings on the ADV ride forum... that lil' link above...

They'd flown out of Upstate New York to land in Seattle to pick up their new Ride. They already had 3,000 miles on the odometer of their new sidecar rig on the ride home.

They rode out the next morning bound for new roads and the sweet wind of Freedom on a Ribbon of Asphalt.

Made me stop and look at what I've been doing for two years now... and I came to the conclusion that I've been slipping. I got careful... and I got lazy.

You know what careful breeds? ... Complacency... and a whole hell of a lot fewer stories to tell when old age conquers your kiester and you're relegated to sitting on the porch zingin' the neighborhood kids with your wrist rocket as they ride their damned bicycles across your front grass!

So... the upstart is...that though I've ridden my Raider all over the west in the past two years... I've been doing that riding too... careful... too... comfortable... and too... Little.

Watching those folks ride off... with nothing but their bike, their camp gear and the Open Road in front of them made me stop and think... 

It's time to shake things up a lil' bit... this summer... though I might get a slow start at it... I'm working to do just that... Get back to pushing the envelope a bit.. and splitting the wind a lot!

Grab Your Handles and Ride!
Brian

P.S. I checked last night and the mileage he's wracked up since I saw him ten days or so ago in Utah had climbed up well over 6,000... and included trips over the Moki Dugway... and down The Tail of the Dragon a couple of thousand miles east! just stirs something in a Biker... Don't it?

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