Colorado High Country

Riding the high country of Colorado is like honey and butter on freshly baked biscuits. It just doesn’t get any better than that!




Clean, fresh, pine scented air with a crispness that wakes the senses like nothing else can.




These pictures do not do Colorado justice…mainly because you can’t experience the wonderful people who live and work in small shops nestled in high country towns.




As for Julie, Mark, Hoppy, Jay and I, we will have memories that will last a lifetime.




I would also like to thank God for all of us because we made it home safe with a better understanding of our beautiful blue planet. I will continue this blog along with more pictures as time goes by. Hoppy has many more pictures and plans to make a CD showing the whole trip in detail.

Write on,

Mittster

Let's Get in the Wind

Harley fans, it’s Four Corners Rally time again. Our group is leaving for the trip across the Navajo Reservation early Friday morning and ending up in Durango, Colorado, sometime late afternoon.

I want to commend the three newbies who are making this trip for the first time. Kudos go to Hoppy (far left),




Mark (I'm sorry to say I don't have a picture)and Mark's wife Julie, and especially Julie (far right).




The last newbie gal that made her first and last trip to Colorado dislocated her shoulder in Cortez during a horrible thunderstorm by cranking down on her front brake at a stoplight. I have mentioned this story to Julie many times hoping she will not have the same fate on wet roads, and there will be wet roads!

Some may ask why do we take on the challenge of crossing the Res and riding the high country of Colorado knowing we could and probably will face rain, sleet, snow, high winds and blowing sand. Why do people skydive or do all the high intensity, adrenaline pumping crazy things in life? We do it because we can and it makes us feel alive!

Personally, I don’t think there is anything more inspiring than riding a motorcycle through the Colorado Rockies. You breathe in pure, cold air and your eyes are treated to majestic mountain peaks with endless valleys of green, luscious pine trees. The scent is like fine wine and you become intoxicated from the experience.

After a long, exhilarating ride there is nothing like a wonderful meal, hot tub and incredibly sound sleep. You wake up in the morning to the sounds of song birds, crisp air and the urge to saddle up and ride some more. Breakfast tastes divine and hot coffee becomes the nectar of the Gods.

Even the ride home after two days in the high country is OK because everyone will be mentally planning next year’s ride to the most beautiful mountains in the world. Sure, we will be tired, sunburned, wind burned and butt sore,




but who cares. It will be a fantastic adventure and life is way short on this kind of thrill.

Write on,

Mittster

Motorcycle Heaven

While many motorcycle riders are looking forward to Sturgis, South Dakota, again this year, I can hardly wait for the Four Corners Rally. Where the Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado state boundaries meet is smack dab on the route to Durango, Colorado, from the Verde Valley, Arizona. We will end up in Durango and ride daytrips up in the high country until it’s time to head back to Arizona.

What a ride it will be for our small group, which includes Walt, Jay, Hoppy, Phil, Julie, Mark, and yours truly this year. We don’t all ride Harleys and that makes the trip even better. Walt will be riding his Italian (three-wheeled) Piaggio, while Jay will be on his 1975 first year Honda Goldwing. Hoppy and I ride V-Rods, Phil will be on his Road King, and Julie and Mark will be riding Super Glides. You have to know that our Harley group will be making fun of the almost silent Piaggio and Goldwing. We will say things like, “Hey, you better start those bikes; the light is about to change!” and “Guys, it’s not safe to coast down these grades with the motor off!” It is all in good fun though and they will expect no less. In the old days, we would have to ride a quarter mile behind the foreign bikes so no one would know they were part of a Harley group. My, how times have changed, and to the better, I might add.

The ride through the Reservation is always a challenge because of heat and the distance between pit stops. You have to drink plenty of clear H2O, which turns into yellow H2O. Nothing worse than having to ride miles squirming on a motorcycle seat like a cat on a hot tin roof while watching out for horses, cows, dogs and a multitude of other critters on the road. Then, when you finally reach a pit stop, there are two hundred other riders standing in line at the only toilets for a hundred miles all with legs crossed and swaying back and forth like yellow-eyed zombies. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the whole experience is what riding is all about.

When you are convinced that the Reservation must be endless, the peaks of the Colorado Rockies come into view. The last stop before Durango is at a casino and service station just before Cortez, Colorado. The air has cooled and the promise of pines, fresh air, food and drink is only fifty miles ahead. I guarantee the motel’s hot tub and beds will call to you like a Siren’s seductive cry, and later sleep will be instantaneous and sublime. The next day will bring high country riding in some of the most spectacular mountains in the world. Good grief, I wish we could go right now!

I’m just saying,

Mittster