Date: Sunday August 29, 2010
Start: 0945 (0700 wake-up)
Finish: N/A
Travel Time: 7 hrs
Distance: 234 miles
Distance: 3501 miles
Distance: 3501 miles
So we got a sort of sleepy start in Salida. Waking up at oh-seven hundred in a hostel, the occupants of which were out on the town later than we were in most cases, means it’s a quiet morning. We took care to pack up and slip through the rooms of sleeping travelers with ninja like stealth and precision. Once downstairs, we enjoyed some peanut butter sandwiches, a sloppy orange, toast and coffee, and had some hushed conversation with our pals Adam and Leone, who were also getting up for an early day on the road home. Apparently Jim had managed to wake up and hit the road by 0600, which is magical stuff considering they were all out later than us.
Like so many mornings, it was wonderfully cool and humid. I've often said that if I could have any weather I ever wanted, it would definitely be east coast fall morning weather. It's crisp, and cool, and sunny, and wonderful. Well this morning felt just like that.
Once we finished up breakfast, we started the procession of taking gear out to the bikes, running through our mechanical checks, getting the armor on, electronics wired, GPSs triangulated, and helmet comms connected. While we were packing and checking another moto-traveler popped by for some early morning convo. He was riding an older model BMW touring bike and clued us in to the amazing roads and scenery in New Mexico and Arizona. He had the most to say about route 666 in AZ though. We mused for a moment with the idea of re-routing to include that section on our way back to LA but we didn't need to decide anything right now. In fact, we had miles of roads and trails, and constant connectivity through our helmet comms so this whole trip can be looked upon as one giant mobile conference call. Yay!!! AND, if there's one thing we'd learned thus far, it's that trips like this are not pre-planned. Your plan simply will never work 100%. BUT, half of the glory and fun is in swapping, modifying, and flat out re-inventing the plan on the fly. That's what travel and adventure are all about right?
We'd see about the devil's highway... Or would the devil's highway see about us? Hah! We'd leave that one for later as well, because right now we needed to finish packing and get our GPS devices online...
Wait...
Where's goda's GPS... ?
Crap!
We shuffled through our gear a dozen times but no dice. Maybe it was back in the room? Chris ninja'd back through the denizens of sleepy, hung-over, travelers and quickly searched the room but, again, no reward. We started to worry at this point. The last time we could remember any contact with the device was when we were navigating into town last night. Did we leave the GPS on the bike overnight? If so, it didn’t make it. Someone must have felt it would be better served in their possession, and with that, our kick-ass time in this kick-ass town will have taken a sorry turn and left us with a slightly sour taste in the mouth... Bummer.
BUT, low and behold, we did indeed find the device. It was IN GODA'S HAND THE WHOLE TIME. HE HAS BIG HANDS. AND HE DIDN'T NOTICE IT. Just kidding. It turned up in a jacket pocket! Somewhere we'd never typically put it, yet somewhere that seems to make incredible amounts of sense... Strange we didn't check it earlier but we'll just chalk it up to several long trail days, several early starts, and several beers the night before.
With that mini-crisis sorted, we hit the road rough and ready. We stopped to gas up before leaving town, and started chatting about route directions and the conditions expected, etc. One thing was for sure. Colorado trails on day 1 certainly did not disappoint, and we were anxious for more of the same. We knew we'd be on our way down in elevation as we approached New Mexico, and we also knew there'd be an inexplicable, sudden, and magical change in terrain and landscape as there nearly always is across state borders. And so, the question hovered in our minds this morning, as it has each day of this trip so far... "What is in store for us today?"
Well Colorado day 2 lived up to expectations. We started the morning in some beautiful mountain terrain and alpine meadows, with gorgeous vistas stretching as far as the eye can see. The trail was mainly comprised of dirt access roads and they were fairly maintained, but they were rutted in such a way that you'd swear they were designed for the sole purpose of shaking your bike and your butt to pieces. (Imagine about 50 miles of rumble strips and you'll get the idea.) It was a little worrying, and we knew that a full bike check would be necessary.
As we proceeded south, the terrain definitely started to level out a bit. As the day wore on, We started to see more red-rock, and sand. Oh the sand... What did the sand have in store for us?
So there we are on some nicely groomed dirt roads, chatting, taking in the beautiful, if rapidly changing, landscapes full of redrock buttes and cacti, when a turn comes up on our GPSs. It was a turn not unlike so many other turns we've taken. It beared to the left at about 270degrees. So we took it. No big deal. The road became trail. Honest to goodness trail. This was at times seemingly less than even a quad trail, and whenever it pretended to be a quad trail, it did so poorly. It pretended to be the worst, most deeply rutted, nasty quad trail in Colorado, and then, to fill those ruts, a grainy, sandy, rocky mix of hell on earth. Our +450lb loads were sinking and swimming and fishtailing and all kinds of other things that describe behaviors on loose, liquideous, un-solid surfaces. It was hard to go straight for any given period of time, let alone stay upright. We were "puttin' a foot down" every few feet! We may as well walked alongside our bikes revving the engine... It'd be as fast, and waaay safer. But nah! Why would we do that? That's no fun. We'd toughed it out. Besides, we were getting pretty close to the base of a butte to the left of us, and what looked like solid ground again. Ahead of us was an old rusted out bus, and some other strangely out-of-place objects. Barrels, Chairs, Buckets, a few dressers and a table... It was a camp of some sort. We figured that camp would have an access road that led to it and that'd be our ticket outta here!
As we got closer we began to ponder just what the heck this stuff was doing here - I mean, it's a fairly random mix of items, many of which have no correlation to the others.... Still, that weird pile of items has the road and the way out so we couldn't wait to meet our eccentric camp/pile of junk. (I'm convinced at this point that the great pile of nothing was actually placed there by aliens... or the illuminati... uh huh... thiiiiink about it.) It was about at this point we realized that we were lost. We were so busy trying to stay upright that we weren't looking at the navigation queues and we'd ended up in a spot where nobody in their right mind would ever go. All of our hopes and dreams of getting outta the sandy stuff just got smashed in our faces. Hard. Not only were we off track, but the last 30 minutes of white knuckled, teeth gnashing, foot frenzied riding would need to be repeated. Ugh. We stopped for a quick wits and water break, and then headed back into hell's gate for another dance.
Here's something about me. I don't mind being lost. I'm generally confident in my capabilities to work through problems, back track, and find my way out of whatever jams I've found myself in. Heck, I've been lost in the dark on a mountain in the middle of death valley before. No biggie, you camp out if ya need to and get your bearings in the morning and keep on keepin on... It's just that I HATE BEING LOST! I know, I know, it’s a contradictory statement. What can I say, it’s true. Intellectually, conceptually, I'm fine with it. Sure it sucks and you lose some time, etc. but it happens and we'll figure it out. It’s like sometimes there's a chilled out hippie in control of my mind. However, my guts HATE IT! I get a pit in my stomach and a grinding, nagging feeling in the back of my mind that just needs to back on course.
Here's something about Pagoda. He HATES GOING BACKWARDS. I’ve been in situation with that dude where the only tangible option is to turn around and get back to whatever you need to get back to, and he'll try to think of a way to drive on and end up in the same place. Even if it takes three years and a near circumnavigation of the globe to accomplish it. Needless to say, we were back on point and on task, but not happy about it.
So in about 20 more minutes we found the stupid turn we missed and guess what? MORE SAND! we'd battle it out for another few miles but we are no strangers to battle! We both have played video games where you battle something... Like a monster... or a mean turtle with an army of mushroom people... you know... battle. Before long we found ourselves back on the dirty stuff and we were exhausted. We hit a little gas-stop town to fuel up and rest. As we hit the station, we prayed we'd seen the last of sand.
We were in luck because this gas station was also a subway! We fueled up and headed in for an air-conditioned sandwich experience and that’s just what we got. Yum. The other attraction that grabbed our attention were the jacked up KTM motorcycles parked out front. We checked out the rides as we strolled in and we knew the owners were inside doing the same to us as we approached. There was an instant kinship felt by all. We started chatting it up with those guys and they let us know that New Mexico would NOT be as sandy as what we just went through… BUT, if it got muddy, the dirt turns to a clay-like substance that cakes into your tire tread and you may as well be rollerskating on ice. Double-Ugh… We walked in praying for no more sand, and we walked out praying for no New Mexican clay-mud!
Just like so many of the riders we met on this trip, those guys were on the ADV rider forums , so we exchanged handles (they were Catastrophic Failure), posed or a quick photo op, talked a little shop, then armored up to hit the road again. As we packed we noticed a green KLR that drove by twice. It was all strapped up with sleeping bags, and blankets and bags. He pulled up next to us and asked for some lube. We gladly shared what we had as he precariously leaned the bike over on the side stand and lubed it up. He rolled off as did we. Luckily the next section would be pretty, open, and uneventful. We made our way through more and more of the red-stuff as we approached the NM border. It was as if someone painted the rockies red and gold. It was beautiful, and made moreso by the slowly setting sun.
Speaking of setting sun. It was time to get set up for the night. We didn’t make it as far as we wanted to today. So we found ourselves near the border, instead of across it! Luckily for us, just as the trail petered out and hooked up with the tarmac again, there was a little campsite area that seemed perfect. We registered, and had our pick of the sites. We figured there was some rain on the way, so we hussled to get the tent up and the gear sheltered before it really started to pour. Then we got busy on a campfire.
Campfires are great. They’ve been called nature's TV and that’s pretty apt if you ask me. You can stare at em mindlessly for hours. However, unlike real TV, you can cook on a campfire and it will also keep you warm to boot! YAY! I tried the ol’ flint and steel again, but it was drizzling lightly and the vegetation was moist so nothing would take a spark. After a few well intentioned attempts I decided to grab my trusty bic lighter and put it to work. I just wish it worked! After failing yet again with my flint and steel, it was some consolation that even with modern implements the tinder was just too stubborn to take a flame, but it sucks not getting to watch natures tv. Not to mention getting some hot grub in ya!
Luckily my buddy had no faith in me at all, and had been boiling water on his wimpy camp stove for a few minutes now. We cooked up noodle soup, potatoes, and some freeze dried mountain meals, and treated ourselves to a nice dinner at a picnic table in a campground between the middle of Nowheres-ville, Colorado and Nowhereville, New Mexico. There was no view, and it was raining, but it still felt good.
Once we were fed, it was time to get rested. We hit the tent to review some route data, take some notes on our progress so far, and then finally, set up in our sleeping bags with bike magazines and the pitter of rain on our roof, we reflected as we individually drifted off.
Today was a tough one, and with the rain on-coming and not stopping, we each quietly supposed that tomorrow would be the same.
/s/ Yobo
/s/ Yobo
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