I'm in Delta, CO right now at a Family Diner. They've kindly let me plug in my laptop so I'm taking some time out before I leave for Yellowstone to put up a post. I would have done this earlier but finding a replacement for a burned out taillight occupied much of my morning ... for being alone yesterday is the kind of day I need more of.

I had promised the noisemakers that I would get up in time to say goodbye in the morning. Unfortunately, this meant I would have to willingly experience "no man's time", otherwise known as "morning".

So it came to pass that 7AM rolled around and I was up as I had promised. (I value keeping promises, especially to little kids.) We said our goodbyes, they all piled into their respective cars and off they went. The Hills stayed behind for breakfast. We went into town. I was so tired I could hardly stay awake and my legs were like jello from having dragged kids around in the pool. All in all I was hurting on multiple fronts. We found some espresso but that didn't help either.

We went back to the Ampitheatre and broke camp. We said our goodbyes and the Hills headed off towards home. I stayed behind to do a bit of work on the laptop. More software to test before we send it off.

The campground was depressingly quiet. "damn, I miss them all already, even the noisemakers". This trip is turning into a quest to collect people to miss.

I sat on a rock in the shade behind the bike and finished up what I needed to do. The contrast between all the life and commotion from just a little while earlier to the silence now was stark. It's such a pleasure to see Bruce and Ha together. I've known Bruce as long as I've known Duncan, which is forever. Bruce, like Duncan and a precious few others, is one of the reasons I'm still standing.

Ha told me a while ago, "You're not a friend, you're family". As I sat in the silence, I thought how I live my life and how foreign "family life" actually is. I can't remember if I've ever done anything like this camping trip before. Was this what "family" is supposed to mean?

I associate the words "marriage" and "family" with terror, abuse and endless hours of forced labor. I remember telling my parents when I was 7 during one of their epic screaming table pounding matches "I'm never getting married. I'm never having kids. This doesn't look like any fun at all".This was shortly after the old man had started forcing me into work. I was 11 when I did my first solo business trip to a hostile client. 12 when I did my first all nighter. 14 when I did my first stint of 100 hours weeks for an entire summer. None of it by choice.

I kept thinking if I had grown up around examples of relationships like the one Bruce and Ha have, maybe my life would have turned out a bit differently. Ever since I was a kid, people, mostly women, would tell me their problems. I've heard countless horror stories and seen into many relationships. I remember being 16 or 17 and having a friends mom crying on my shoulder one day telling me how much she hated her husband, how horrible married life was. Even bartenders tell me their problems. (You know who you are. ;) ) Don't get me wrong. I value being trusted and being a sounding board. I've been told talking to me can be good for the soul. But I guess I hadn't realized that it's affected my world view. I'm like the cop who thinks everyone is a potential criminal because it's all I see.

Challenging my own preconceptions, I found myself wondering if I had grown up seeing couples like Bruce and Ha would things have turned out differently for me?

This trip is about challenging myself to see and think differently. In some ways this camping trip was like Dancing Rabbit. I had intentionally put myself into a context that was way out of my comfort zone and after giving myself some time it began to feel ok, and it was certainly much better than sitting here alone.

After some time, a guy passed by taking his parrot for a walk. I've never seen someone take a parrot for a walk.

Eventually I got onto the bike and headed away. I couldn't resist another pic of Ouray from on-high.

My intention was to go see Telluride, mostly because of the "Smugglers Blues" song. As I left Ouray, I saw a scene Bruce would appreciate, a car show with a fully restored GTO. Bruce likes old American muscle cars.

This countryside is so beautiful and varied, you find yourself wanting to snap photos around every corner desperately trying to capture some hint of what it's like. In the end it's futile, but I keep trying. There are views like this everywhere.

... and this ...

It was only 50 miles to Telluride, but it took forever because I kept stopping to shoot photos. These flowers could be seen everywhere.

(There's so much "big" here that I found myself wanting to focus on something small.)

Telluride is on a dead-end street. There was some kind of Bluegrass music festival going on. Tents were everywhere.

Going through the center of town looking for a non-existent Starbucks the view was incredible.

It's hard to tell in the photo but on the mountain in the distance are waterfalls. Many bad ideas start with "I wonder if ...".

I followed the road which eventually turned into "Pavement Ends Ahead". The road ended but there was a fairly well travelled jeep trail heading up the side of the mountain. "Doesn't look too bad".

This is several switchbacks up the mountain. What was challenging was the size of the gravel. Much of it was the size of my fist. And, of course, the larger gravel rocks were concentrated in the steep switchback corners. Going up wasn't too bad. (Notice the foreshadowing?)

I stayed here for a while. It was nice to out and away. Jeeps and other four by fours would pass by. Every now and then a hiker or jogger would come down the mountain. I did get a few surprised looks. One guy asked "You're not taking that thing up there, are you?". "Yea, no. I'm don't have a deathwish".

So sometime later I decided I was not a wuss and headed up the mountain. The switchbacks were the hardest because of the tank bag. The Eclipse tankbag I have prevents me from turning the handlebars from one extreme to the other, which is a real problem on these switchbacks. To turn sharply to the right, I end up pushing the tank bag to the left, which means I can turn the bars to the extreme right but cannot then bring the bars back any further than center. If there's time, this is not a problem, but if you happen to hit a rock and need to move the bars in the other direction, it can get sketchy quick.

Up was no problem. Really.

I made it as far as the sign said I was allowed to go, which was right at the waterfall.

I suspect this trail was the only access to an incredible house sitting on top of the mountain between two water falls.

This may have to be my house. Simply incredible like something out of a fairytale.

So remember how I was saying that "up" was no problem? Note to self when considering scrambling up some much steeper than it looks in these photos jeep trail, down is so much harder than up.

This photo is actually a screenshot of the helmet cam video I shot. The straight sections were easy but the switchbacks were just littered with all kinds of fist sized and larger rocks and required the aforementioned extreme handlebar maneuver. This was in addition to some pretty steep downhill angle and sand. All in all it was a recipe for disaster. Unloaded, I could probably do this pretty reliably, but with the tank bag and other gear this was much more challenging that I had thought it would be. I think if I did this route up and back three times I would likely crash at least once.

Cursing in my helmet wondering why the hell did I do this, I encountered downhill sections where the bike would just slide regardless of ABS. I nearly pitched it several times. I really scared myself at one point which woke me up. "This is good", I thought. "It's important to be scared from time to time, it keeps you sharp.".

Oh, and did I mention my legs were jello and I was dead tired. Yea, probably an unwise decision. But man it was really cool to be up there.I love doing stuff like that. If I had a GS (adventure touring BMW motorcycle which is more capable in offroad conditions than my street oriented sport touring bike), it probably wouldn't be as much fun.

At the bottom I ran into a guy filming the falls. I offered to take a picture of him. If I remember correctly his name was Christian.

Christian had gotten his Iron Butt plaque which was displayed on the back of his bike. These can be obtained by doing a verified 1000 miles in a day. He had just come out from Pennsylvania to do a bit of tooling around the Rockies. We got to talking about distance, road conditions, gear and solitary travel. He had gotten here in something like two days. I commented on how I had done that in the past but was just putting on this trip. He said he would eventually like to go to Alaska; I invited him to join me. Again, I need to work on my salesmanship. I'm just not getting any takers.

Christian agreed that travelling solo on a bike kind of sucks in a way. You just never stop and go do things away from the bike like you would if you were travelling with someone else. You try your best to take pictures, but it just doesn't do it justice. We chatted for a good long while and then it was time to get underway.

I had been told to ride route 141 which was supposed to be one of the most beautiful roads in the country, so I heeded the advice and headed in that direction.

Route 145 connects up with 141. It starts out as a gentle canyon with a small river.

The canyon gets larger after a while.

After a while the canyon opens up into a huge plain.

This scene continued for some miles when suddenly around a bend the earth just opened up and the road descended down into the earth as if heading down the side of a mountain.

The road continued on through a stretch of 50 miles without services. There was a warning I had not seen before.

I did not, in fact, see any cattle on the road.

The climate here turned arid. I would not have been surprised to see a cactus, it was so dry. What struck me though was how lush and green it would get around the river banks at the bottom of the canyon.

From a higher vantage point you can get a better feel for it.

The further I went the deeper the canyon got. The geology also changed dramatically. I could see how someone growing up in this area could easily get interested in geology. I was grateful to the makers of "How the Earth was Made" on the history channel. It gave me some perspective on what I was looking at.

The sun was oppressive. The ambient temperature wasn't more than 75degF but it felt like over 100. I was endlessly trying to take photos only to be thwarted by the sun. There were so many incredible spots on this road that it was downright dangerous. I was overheating, tired as hell and distracted by incredible view after incredible view. In places the canyon narrowed down to the size of the river and road, in other places it expanded out dramatically. It reminded me of the Grand Canyon in some ways.

This is some of the most impressive awe inspiring country I've ever ridden through. Eventually the canyon opened up as the sun was setting.

It was still oppressively hot and the sun was blinding. At a town called Whitewater, I tried to decide do I got to Grand Junction or Delta. I knew nothing about either town but it was getting late and since it was Sunday places would be closing down. I opted for Delta since it was closer to some mountain parks that I could ride through the next day. This may have been an error.

I rode the 30 miles down route 50 to Delta. It's a rundown town with no major chain restaurants. I got a room at a motel built in 1946 and looks like log cabins. The rooms were clean but the smallest I've ever seen. Everything in town was closed, but I was starving. I found a sketchy looking bar and grill. There were just a few people inside, all clearly locals. I asked if they were still open and a rough looking misshapen woman, who I thought was a waittress, said, "Yea, we're open. Have a seat". I asked the bartender if the kitchen was still open but he said his cook had just left. I was just about to leave when he said, "Give me a moment, I'll fire up the grill.". I sat at the end of the bar next to an old Harley Rider who was, to my chagrin, drunk off his ass. He kept repeating himself loudly. Channeling a guy I know named Tony, I thought "yea, whatever". Once again, I'm outside my comfort zone.

The bartender, whose mother owns the bar, was really cool and hooked me up with dinner. After all the drunks left, we got to talking; guns, locals, travel, women. He said his new young wife was the hottest woman in town and all the other women hated her because of the way she looks. "Yea, I know several women like that. People think that physical beauty is such a benefit but in alot of ways it's more of a detriment.". "Yea, no doubt", he replied.

"Speak of the devil", he said as she walked in. A very young woman, I would guess mid 20's. "Did I lie?", he asked. I said "Nope. She's clearly the hottest woman in town.", I said thinking that, unfortunately for this town, it's not that tall of an order. I found myself thinking about relationships again, thinking about the guy and wondering how he treated her. He seemed to be paying attention to her, good. I guess I don't give people the benefit of the doubt as much as I used to. The woman looked very insecure and timid. Shortly after she sat down she got up again and started cleaning the bathrooms. "The fact that she's here this late on a Sunday solely to help you out impresses me alot more than the way she looks.", I commented. "yea, no lie, eh?", he replied.

The bar was empty. I said I should leave so he can close down but he said I didn't need to leave. He pulled out a very nice tequila and poured a couple of shots. "This is my favorite Tequila, it's called Milagro.". It was /very/ good. As I got up to leave I went to pay for the drinks and he said, "Don't worry about it. It's on me.". Very cool. His name was Rex.

I went back to the motel and fell asleep sitting down. Damn I was tired. To add insult to injury the taillight had burned out on the bike. An angry old guy complained at me that he nearly ran into me because he couldn't see me. "With all the reflection of the Aerostich suit?", I thought. Angry old guy just wanting to vent at someone.

As I write this I'm still in the diner some hours later. These things take a long time to write especially when I've seen so much. Now it's off to points North on my way to Yellowstone. It looks like I'm going to meet up with Ian in Northern Idaho to go camping Thursday evening. If I end up going to slowly I may blow off Yellowstone entirely and just head to Idaho. We'll see.