Goose & Whit's Wild Ride

mile 7736

The headline refers to yesterday, I got into my hotel room too late to mess with posting an entry. Picking up at the end of the last entry, I finally made it out of Lyons (a day later than I had planned) by finding a mechanic who both had a chain to fit my bike and had time to put it on. Once that was finished I proceeded to Highway 40, which runs through the heart of the Colorado Rockies. This is the route that Ben convinced me to take in favor of the faster but much more desolate I-80, and I'm glad he did so - I passed through some stunning scenery.

After the stunning scenery faded away I had a really smooth, fast, vehicle-free ride through a lot of what was left of Colorado and into Utah, but that came to an abrupt halt when the sun went down, because that is apparently when the rabbits come out to play "dodge the motorcycle". I missed around a hundred of them, but unfortunately hit two. I don't think they would have been a real danger to my safety as long as I was going in a straight line, but I also had the threat of deer to deal with. There were signs posted periodically and I passed three that I saw. Might have been nice if it wasn't so unnerving. After all that, I had to contend with the fact that in each of the podunk towns I passed through, almost none of the motels had rooms to spare. I finally got into a room at 11 PM in Vernal, UT, from which I will be leaving for Salt Lake City in a few minutes.

Photos below include choppers from the first shop I took my bike to, random shots of Lyons and Silar the dog, and the amazing Colorado countryside.