On the Return Trip Already!

Free time with Internet connectivity has been a very scarce commodity on this trip so all of the full updates and photo galleries will have to wait. My plan is to not use motels on the way back unless the weather is a problem so there may not be too many opportunities for updates. The forecast looks ok for the next few days. This was last night's campsite, I'm looking forward to a few more nice places to park Babe for the night on the way back.

As for photos, here's a sample from the ones I've put up on my KraikerPhoto FaceBook page (click on the hyperlink to see the full gallery as it currently stands).

And here's a rough map of my route back. I expect weather and road conditions may change it slightly but I'll make my way east and north over the next 5 days. I'm currently in Cortez CO and will make it past Durango today (unless some stunning landscapes slow me down :)

Exhausted but still full of adrenaline...

I'm sure lots of my friends can relate to this post, it's the result of an adventure-filled day and the effects last for a varying length of time (I assume there's a direct relationship to the level of excitement and duration of the high but haven't bothered to get clinical in any form of analysis). It's been quite a day!

Last night and this morning were the result of 4 years of a slowly evolving friendship, that came close to having something like this happen in 2011 when I kicked off my "retirement" with a trip to cover a bike race in Arkansas. In hindsight it would have been a lot easier to make a visit happen then, already down here (and being paid for the travel!) instead of a multi-day multi-thousand mile venture that still has dates in the days to follow that I have to meet (like being in Las Vegas when Andrea arrives! :)

I look back and think "coulda, shoulda" and I add that to my list of life's lessons. As it turned out it worked better than any of us coulda expected... Lar had that "minor" bit or surgery after turning 65, which prompted a wedding to happen too. And for the record he still takes cream and sugar in his coffee... all you VW friends have to help break him of that habit so he & Maggie won't have to repeat all of that!

Then I put my life on a strange path called halo, one that I don't recommend unless you really need to go there. That didn't really impede us meeting, it did really put life into a new and precious perspective.

But things have a way of happening if they can, and this is one of those happenings that seems to have happened despite all of the participants rather than because of us. So a Friday evening in April just happened to be the window that opened.

(Now... the adrenaline test: this is all preamble to the day I want to describe, I very much enjoyed the preamble and I suspect when I start writing about the day itself I'll hit that wall where everything that was making it possible just goes "poof".) It's after 1AM Mountain time, which makes it after 3AM Eastern time (and my body clock is still on Eastern so I expect I'm screwed for an early start tomorrow).

Back to the tale though... I coulda stayed longer (woulda loved to!). I shoulda been more persuasive in suggesting they join me for the weekend and we could explore sites they know and love (justified by getting them back into camping mode and "testing" RoadHaus to make sure he's ready for the next trip they are planning). Instead we looked over maps and talked about places that are sources of inspiration. I'm looking forward to tapping into that, today on the road wasn't a good start on the inspirational part. It sure was on the life lesson scale though! What an amazing day. And here I am at almost 3:30AM body clock time still rambling on. The tale of the day on the road will be a separate entry though, I finally feel the tug of exhaustion...

I will close with a parting shot though, it's one I put up on Facebook as it captures a bit of what I felt as the day was starting to wind down. A beautiful sky, a ribbon of road, and a weathered Westy :)

On the road to Moab - day 2

It's either 9:30pm or 10:30 pm, I haven't set clocks so I'm not sure which time is right for where I'm camped tonight (which is the home of the Jesse James wax museum in Stanton MO, don't ask). Regardless of which clock is right, I'm enjoying sitting here in a t-shirt... the weather has improved  lots over the past two days and at the warmest part of the day it was around 25c. I'm now officially in favour of this so I'm mapping the next few days of my trip based on where it's warm :)

Tomorrow will be Ponca City and a visit with Larry & Maggie... We've only had the pleasure of meeting in person once before (when they came up to BusFusion in 2010, before I even owned a Westy). We have threads that cross on lots of different levels though and I'm really excited to get to visit them at home before they start out on their second retirement voyage.

After that, I'll head a little further south, a little corner of Texas (I was last there in 2008 I think, when I was teaching in Houston) and then to New Mexico (a place I've never been to before). I'm hoping to find some hot springs, and some sweet spots to camp.

I haven't planned beyond that other than to be in Vegas on the 17th... that gives me a week to explore so I'm looking for ideas!

To wrap up this entry, here are two photos of highlights of my day. Route 66 is in my list of places I've wanted to get to (check!) and tonight's campsite in Stanton (first camping for 2014, and it's on Route 66 :)

RVV! The Second Monument in the Cycling Calendar

Ahhhh.... the Tour of Flanders, what a route! And what a race. This year looks like it will be "kind" from a weather perspective, the cobbles will be as hard and harsh as ever though!

It's now 4 years since I rode them, the memory of the route is still very much etched in my mind! And I "only" did around 75km of it, Andrea did more than twice that. It's not how long though, it's which part... and all of our riding was on the sharp and nasty final half... totally unforgiving.

Photos I've seen from the cyclo-sportif event today (the Saturday before the race) suggest it was cool but dry, great riding weather. The forecast is for more of the same so it won't be slick cobbles that decide the race, it's up to the hardest riders to turn the screws themselves. May the best win the day!

Here are a few pics from 2010... Boonen outside the hotel before the race.
Me.
And the two men who made it a race, at the moment they broke the spirit of the rest of the pack (this photo was published on velonews.com within minutes of it happening).