30 Days to cross the USA

[Wildman]

Are we nearly there yet?

[OnHellas]

More please.

[DanielS]

Sorry for the delays. Work, life, and all this stuff getting in the way.

Anyhow, the Saturday morning came and we could see that the poor Airstream had taken a beating in the night, aeriels broken, patio umbrella destroyed, no electricity and a lot of debris around. We were headed for our Saturday morning parkrun which was just a few km down the road and there were trees and power cables down all over the place, so it wasn't just a little storm that had come through.

The parkrun was great, very small with about 10 of us there. The people running it were truly lovely and we had a great run and finished second and third, our best ever results! It's not often in a parkrun briefing you hear "Remember to watch out for deer and snakes". Here's us completing the first section.

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We got back to the campsite, had a freezing cold but refreshing shower and made plans to head off. While packing the bike up I noticed that the centre stand was almost touching the rear tyre when it was up. Two mins later it was obvious that one of the centre stand bolts had snapped. By now it was about 11am, on a Saturday, in Rural America and everywhere was closed. We did however manage to find a truck stop on the way out of town and a very friendly mechanic popped a new nut and bolt in it for us, free of charge too. Yay!

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We then had probably one of the longest days of the trip around 500 miles. My fault because I'd prebooked a hotel in Hot Springs that was a stop to get washing done and things. It was a long slog, only really stopping for fuel and occasionally food. We arrived at the hotel, sweltering at around 9pm and I think we made up an hour on the way with time zone changes.

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Got some clothes washing on the go and called it a night at around midnight.

[DanielS]

I wish I could make it a little more exciting, but the next two and a half days were just a slog to get to some more good stuff. We left our swanky hotel on the Sunday morning and headed west towards Oklahoma City. The weather forecast was sad, and within a few hours we had to stop at a tourist centre to get shade. It was tipping it down to the point it was a little unsafe to keep on riding.

This Harley Rider has setup camp ON the table to keep dry, quite a comical nice guy.

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We waited about half an hour but it wasn't getting much better. We were a bit cold, so decided to just hit the road again, and we did, for about another 150 miles before arriving at a motel on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. The motel was a really weird place, it seemed to be full of single Mum's who were lodged up and waiting to go to the city offices the next day for food vouchers, handouts and help. Pretty sad really.

The Monday morning we got off pretty early and almost immediately passed a BMW bike place, so we popped in to see if they had a side stand bolt. Unfortunately not, but gave us an excuse to look at bikes and enjoy free coffee and cakes.

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Our destination for the day was a place called Dalhart in Texas. We were trying to make up time and had stuck to the interstate most of the way. The service stations weren't all bad though and the weather was behaving.

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[DanielS]

We kept going, and being a typical brit, i couldn't help take a photo of this. Which way to?

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We also realised at one point that we'd been next to Route 66 for a while, so although it doesn't take my interest, we decided to ride on it for a few miles.

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Out motel in Dalhart was a dive. Motels are never great, but this one was awful. Carpet along the floor and about a foot up the walls, we should have just left as the whole town had an awful vibe. The dinner place was miserable, we received some abuse by some 16 year old kids in a truck cruising the streets and the whole place was just generally run down. Thankfully it was just for the night. At least breakfast was included, could be looking up.

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Fruit Loops to the rescue!

[DanielS]

Tuesday was going to be a better day. We woke up, had our amazing fruit loops and got the hell out of Dalhart. After a while we saw mountains, yay, something interesting!

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We were heading towards our motel at Canyon City and were going via Colorado City. The scenery was getting better and we soon turned off into the San Isabel Forest for some great, empty roads and scenery. It was bliss after a few bland days. The roads were just nice and flowing, you dodn't have to go mad to enjoy them, and there was lovely scenery to keep us happy too. After a while we came upon this place, which we learned was called Bishops Castle. Totally built by one guy who has a somewhat unique outlook on life.

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While it was interesting in an odd sort of way, we didn't go up and about in the place. It was built by the guy and I don't think there was any safety standards here. I'm by no way a chicken, but I'm not going to kill myself for something like this. Also, although the place was interesting, it had a weird vibe about it. The other visitors there seemed to be those "Alternate Living" types and it was all just a bit weird. Probably completely harmless but it wasn't for us so we didn't stay long.

[DanielS]

We made out way to our motel again, which if I recall correctly was next to a prison in the middle of nowhere. very odd indeed. But it was a nice new one and fine. We had a few hours to spare before dinner and bedtime so we unloaded the bike and headed up to the Royal Gorge. The photos don't do it justice but it's a ... well it's a gorge, about 1,000 feet deep and looks spectacular.

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We spent a few hours there having a walk around. There is a lovely metal bridge that goes across it, but I seem to recall that it was about $50 and we were bothered about going across it and only hanging around for an hour and then having to come back.

As it started getting dark, we called it a day and headed back and grabbed some food. We had a busy day tomorrow.

[OnHellas]

We stayed in Dalhart back in May. At the Tri State Motel, which was OK. But the town itself.....definitely dying in its backside. Sad to see.

Thanks for the continued updates, keep it coming.

[DanielS]

The next morning we had planned to get going quite early. Up into Colorado Springs for a fuel up (and watching some locals fight/steal from a local service station) and we were on our way to Pikes Peak.

There was racing on this weekend and every morning they were out practicing from I think first light till 8am. I'm pleased we were early as the queues at the gates were already starting to get long. We only had a 10 min wait, but it was long enough for the poor bike to start getting a bit warm. We were told at the gate that due to construction at the peak that you could only ride up to mile marker 10 or mile marker 13 and park there. Then you could get a ride in a minibus to the top.

The start of the hill climb.

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The speed limits are something daft like 25mph and stuck behind a bunch of people sticking to the limit made the bike get pretty warm pretty quick, so we pulled off a few times to let the bike cool down and a gap in a snake of cars. Eventually making it to mile marker 13 where we parked up and caught the bus to the summit a few more miles up.

This poor guy got pulled for speeding on the way up. He must have been doing all of 35mph, the hooligan

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After 10 minutes up there the light head kicked in and I was quite pleased I wasn't on the bike. A bizarre sensation, almost like being drunk but totally sober at the 13,000 feet or whatever it is. Very odd. Anyhow, we took the obligatory photos, decided against buying stickers and headed back down after about an hour.

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[DanielS]

The ride back down was euphoric, I could almost taste the air getting thicker. Lots of snow too.

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The road was a lovely snake, however after seeing the police earlier we weren't taking any chances, so stuck to the silly speed limit. Although saying that, with very few crash barriers and it being a loaded GS going downhill this meant that there was a fair bit of momentum to stop if things went wrong.

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Once we arrived near the bottom we found a picnic spot and had our lunch, it was a lovely place and empty now. As we came to leave another family arrived to have a picnic too and struck up a conversation with the driver. An american who was born in England so a nice chat with him.

Then off to our hotel for the night in the lovely town of Salida a few hours away. The roads there were great, through national forests most of them and arriving in Salida was lovely, a proper picturesque town. We took a walk to find dinner and found a busy car park for a place called Quincy's. Now, I'm no foodie at all, I can't be bothered with it but I did fancy a change from fast food. We walking in and the waitress asked if we'd been before before announcing that they server only one thing, nothing else. Steak and Salad. So that made it easy and we had a great dinner for a ridiculously cheap price. This photo doesn't do the place justice, it was just a lovely place, deer in people's front lawns (Eating their flowers) and other amusing things too.

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