Carthage, MO to Philpot, KY

Home at last! Yeah!!

Because of the lack of camping facilities and Adventure Cycle's description of the route we decided to ride Hwy 60 across Missouri. Adventure Cycle described their route as narrow, winding roads with no shoulder. They said when you hear a log truck approach dismount and get off the road......so we thought 60 would be better.

Hwy 60 is 4 lanes but not limited access across Missouri so we thought it would have a good shoulder. It varied from full shoulder to crumbled asphalt to a narrow rumble strip with about 2 feet of asphalt to ride on. I had ridden worse.

I was riding on a narrow shoulder near Mountain Grove when suddenly a mirror whizzed by within inches of my ear and a large brown object barely missed my elbow. It was a truck towing half a double wide mobile home and it was hanging over the rumble strip. While I was signaling my displeasure a second one came by but he moved over a few feet. The chase van however, cut towards me. After regaining my composure I rode on to camp, only about a mile.

After talking it over with the sag lady I put the bike in the trailer and she drove me to Wickliffe, KY. I rode Hwy 60 home. Hwy 60 has no shoulder but is lightly traveled and everyone gave me plenty of room. I even rode out 54 from town something I don't usually do. It was great to be home.

When riding in the boring states there was plenty of time to observe. One thing, you can always tell when you are getting close to civilization by the McDonald cups beside the road. Also, I didn't know there were armadillos in Missouri. There were many mashed on the shoulder. I guess the locals take to the shoulder after them. I would love to go again but I would ride the western states and drive home. Dr Polio told me that I was wise to ride from west to east because of the tail wind. From Hasty CO to Philpot I had a head wind component every day. It must be some kind of a record.

We would like to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and prayers. It really was great to feel all the love and support and boy did we need it on a lot of our days. Once again thanks. Colby's ready to go again so we are once again accepting sag person applications. Only those with late model, large motorhomes need apply.

Pueblo, CO to Carthage, MO

Gone are the bright blue skies and striking scenery. We have been shackled by a cruel wind from the east and punishing temperatures. Yes Dorothy, we're talking about Kansas. Western Kansas was a waste of eyesight and Dodge City with it's bazillion cow feeder lots and a temperature of 102 was an affront to the olfactory glands. As we moved eastward the scenery improved a bit starting to look more like home. The area around Chanute was especially nice. Today we made it to Missouri. We are excited to be less than 500 miles from home and hope to return to Owensboro within the week.

I am not making the miles I thought I would despite being on the road at sunrise and putting in a solid 6 hours of riding each day. The wind has really gotten on my last nerve. And yes, the forecast for the next few days in Missouri, pronounced misery, is 10 to 12 mph wind from the east north east. Thank goodness the end is in sight.

Gunnison, CO to Pueblo,CO

The end is near.....the end of the mountains that is. I've been thinking about climbing Monarch Pass ever since I decided to do this trip. I was familiar with the pass from inside a car or atop a motorcycle so I really had concerns about being able to pedal myself up. All along my route I had challenging climbs that I thought would make me stronger but it didn't happen and now here I am with the grand-daddy of them all.

I departed Gunnison on the last major climb. For the occasion I donned my Hill Slug jersey. For those not familiar with team Hill Slug, when I started riding I had a terrible time with hills as most overweight senior citizens do. As a joke my wife bought me a jersey with a slug riding a bicycle. I've worn this jersey on every major climb on this trip and this will be the last and highest.

Gunnison to Sargents was the easy part with 35 miles and only about 900 ft of elevation change. At Sargents the real climb began. In 10 miles the elevation rose from 8400 to a leg and lung searing 11,312 ft.

My low gear at a cadence of about 75 is 6 mph. With several stops to try get my heart rate down and my legs back it took over two hours. I was certainly ready for a break in the sag trailer at the summit.

And now for the descent.I have learned to dread the descents more than the climbs. I dug out my winter jacket as the temp was 40 degrees. I had to ride in the center of the lane or risk being blown of the road with the wind gusting to 35 to 40 mph. Most of the road had no guard rail so if you leave the asphalt you will become a glider. Some motorists were annoyed by this maneuver and would give me the you're number 1 signal. One even suggested that I ride my bike elsewhere.

In spite of all this I made it off the mountain and coasted into Salida. The sag lady found a great campground on the Arkansas river. We spent the afternoon icing my sore ankle in the river and watching people in rafts shoot the rapids. As we sat there a mallard duck came floating down the river and bobbed through the rapids. In a few minutes he flew back by. He may have been icing his sore ankle too. We hated to leave such a great spot but is was time to move on to Pueblo and WalMart.

After a rest day it will be time to tackle the great nothingness of Kansas.

Have you zoomed to see Colby on the mountain yet?

Blanding, UT to Gunnison, CO

The thought of finally getting out of Utah with it's continual climbing and horrible road surfaces was maintaining me through some tough riding. Colorado was the promised land, it would have silky smooth roads and have beautiful scenery and all would be right with the world. Not quite.

I left Blanding early because it was an 80 mile ride to Delores, CO . I was enjoying the smooth asphalt when a state trooper pulled me over and informed me I couldn't ride on his road. He said I had to ride on the shoulder. I informed him the shoulder was full of debris and would cut my tires. He didn't seem to care. I waited until he left and continued on the road. We made it to Delores without further incident.

The next morning I began the 50 mile climb up Lizard Head Pass and on to Ridgeway CO . The grade was not as bad as I anticipated and I made it over the top in about 6 hours and had another brake frying coast into Ridgeway.

The ride from Ridgeway to Gunnison began good enough. I caught up with a rider named Jeff from Louisville. I was wearing my UK jersey and he made some good natured rude remarks about it. We were almost to Gunnison when I realized the sag lady hadn't caught up. She will have to tell the rest of the story.

My morning at the campground had been lovely. Look out the window over the kitchen sink and see snow capped mountains, look out the dining table window and see a large reservoir nestled in mountains, oh the tranquility. I became restless and decided to pull out a little ahead of schedule and do a little shopping in Montrose. I found Dakota bread at the Great Harvest and a 50% off sale at Penney's. Took off toward Colby who had more than a 4 hour head start. I started up the first climb and was tickled when I could pass another large camper being pulled by a Tundra. Usually I'm the one who gets passed by the diesel pick-ups. Up I go to the summit feeling smug and then as I start descending it became apparent that something was not right. There was hardly any shoulder but I managed to get it over just outside the white line. Got out to look...driver side fine...passenger side....oh no....trailer tire blown to smithereens. Got the cell phone out only to find no bars. Stood there a while as cars and campers and semis raced down the mountain with no one stopping. I knew I could cry or try to do something. Doing something was a daunting thought as I had never even changed a tire on a car. Thought about unhitching and going on to get Colby but it was such a steep grade I was pretty sure the trailer would not hold. Wasn't sure if insurance covered accidental launches off mountains....so I began my task.

The extent of training Colby had given me was ...1.get the bolts loose before jacking and 2. you don't have to unhitch. Alrighty...the bolts came off fairly easy and now to get the bottle jack under the axle.....oops....it fit for Colby when the tires were inflated but it did not fit when they were flat. I had to dig a hole using a piece of pipe and a piece of 2 x 4. Got it under, jacked er up got the new tire on and was about to do the final tightening when a young man, his wife and friends stopped. He cranked the nuts down hard for me and made sure I got off ok before leaving me. So for those of you thinking about applying for sag lady you might want to think twice or bring a blond in a bikini with you in case of breakdowns

Torrey, UT to Blanding, UT (almost)

Made 87 miles yesterday from Torrey to past Hanksville UT. We both agreed that Capital Reef National Park, just past Torrey a bit, was the prettiest of all the parks we've seen so far. The last part of the ride was desending through deep narrow sandstone canyons. The camera could not do justice to them but we tried anyhow.

This morning I started near Hite. We were still in the deep sandstone canyon and in the early morning it was so quiet it almost hurt my ears. I crossed the Colorado River and began to climb, and climb, and climb. I climbed almost the whole 55 miles I rode today. The grades varied from gentle to 10 per cent. Utah's catch phrase is "life elevated". I think I see why.

The sag lady will drop me where I left off today and I will enjoy more climbing to Monticello I hope.

Job opportunity- The sag lady signed on for 2500 miles and today we realized that it was actually going to be slightly more than 2800 . So... I will be needing a replacement over in Missouri somewhere. If interested...

Our Trip to Torrey

The day dawned bright and sunny. It was going to be a nice 65 mile run from Escalante to Torrey.

About 35 miles into the ride things started to go south. It started to rain and the temp began to drop. My sag lady came to my rescue. For you people who don't ride, sag is an acronym for rider support. With it beginning to snow I did the only thing a tough guy would do. I jumped in the truck.

The rest of the ride to Torrey was uneventful with the temp dropping to 31 degrees with snow and fog.

In all the blogs you have read the sag lady has barely been mentioned, but without her this trip would be impossible. She has a great time all day pulling a 25 ft camper around on bumpy crooked roads. She cooks and cleans, does the laundry, shoots most of the pictures, and posts most of the blogs. In her spare time she does the shopping. She even has to occasionally rescue me from the elements.

Oh, and if you want to play where's Colby.....just zoom the picture of the road through the sandstone. Have fun!

Thanks sag lady.

Still in Escalante, UT rain rain go away

It rained all night and most of this morning so we decided to take a side trip to Kodachrome State Park. The sun came out in the afternoon so we were able to take some good pictures. The cactus seemed particularly happy to get a little moisture. All the color is difficult to capture by two rookies with a camera.

We hope to get started again tomorrow with another difficult climb at Boulder. We checked weather there today and it was snowing at the summit (9600 ft) but should be gone tomorrow.