Alice Mae Dougan White Leach - Life Story

Alice Mae Dougan was born on July 1, 1931

She was born in Emmett Arkansas in her parent's home on Route 2.  The road lead "around the country" South of Emmett.  It was a 2 bedroom house with no running water and a 2 hole out house.  Her grandpa Dougan owned the house in addition to his own home.  Grandpa Dougan farmed the land growing corn, cotton, beans, watermelon.  They raised cows to provide milk for the family.

Alice's father  Douglas Henry Dougan worked the farm with his dad.  Alice's mother Hazel Octavia Mohon worked at home.

Douglas and Hazel were both raised in Emmett.  Their parents farms were adjoining so they probably knew each other their whole lives.

Alice was the oldest of 3.  Alice Mae Dougan, George William Dougan (3 years younger), and David Randall Dougan (11 years younger).

Alice's earliest memory was of the farm house and her mother.  Part of the house wasn't finished.  Hazel and Alice used to sit in the unfinished room playing jacks together.  

Alice started school when she was 5.  She used to walk to school about 3 miles each way.  All 12 grades were in the same big school building.

Right behind the house was a methodist church.  They attended sunday school in that church. Douglas used to take their horses around to pick up some of the neighbors for church.  One night a lady in the church got "The Holy Ghost".  She was wearing a big lacy white dress and she walked around yelling and preaching to the people.

Sometimes they would lay a big blanket on the floor and the kids used to go to sleep during the meetings.  Meeting lasted until everyone was finished having their own say and carrying on.

Alice remembers picking beans with Grandma Dougan.  She was a big woman and wore a large dress.  They would pick beans and store them in the folds of Grandma's dress.

When Alice was about 7 their house caught on fire.  She remembers that they got all of the jarred fruit out of the storm house.  Not a jar of the fruit was broken.

After the house burned down they moved in with Poppa and Momma Mohan.  The house was 1 level with  4 or 5 bedrooms.  The kitchen was down a long hall and seemed far away to her.  They stayed for about a year with Poppa and Momma.

They rented a house way out in the country, about 10 miles from Emmett.  They called it "The Hill Place"  It was a big house (to young Alice).  The government built them an outhouse.  It was a 1 story house.  Alice doesn't remember if they had a car, but her dad continued to go back to Grandpa Dougan's farm to work every day.

One day they were going home from Grandma's house.  It was raining so hard that the creek below a bridge had risen so high it threatened to wash away the bridge.  Douglas got out of the wagon, held the halter of the horses and led them across the bridge so they wouldn't panic or bolt.

The school bus picked Alice up by the mailbox and drove back into Emmett.  

After 3 years, they moved closer to town with Douglas' sister, 3 youngins, and another sister.

Daddy, Momma Dougan, and a neighbor all bought new freezers.  But the next morning, Daddy's freezer hadn't even got cold.  They had to go back to the store to get a new one.

When Alice was about 17 she met Charles White at church in Emmett.  The first of the month they would have a singing at the church.  Everybody came to sing but the girls and boys would stand outside so they didn't have to sing.  She and Charles were both outside.  Charles was from Sutton, about 20 miles from Emmett.  He had 3 bothers and 2 sisters.

They wrote letters back and forth.  Every so often they would meet back up at church.  Or Charles would borrow his father's car and come to visit.  Every so often they would go to a movie on Saturday night.  They didn't have enough money for gas and a movie.  They courted for about a year and a half.

When Charles got his own car and would still come to visit.  One night Charles just said "Why don't we get married?"  and Alice said "Yes lets get married".

The next morning Alice woke up and told her momma "I'm going to marry Charles."  Her mom said "when?".  Charles father said "You don't even have a window to piss through".

That night Alice and Charles drove to the Pentacostal in Laneburg to get married.  The preacher told his congregation that the meeting would be a bit longer because they had a big wedding to perform.  Alice and Charles were married at the start of the meeting, then they walked out.  They didn't hang around for the service.

Alice thinks that if they'd waited a week, they wouldn't have gotten married.  She'd have stopped herself because they hadn't really thought about marriage and what it meant.

Alice's parents were on their way to the show as they got married.  They didn't know they were doing it that night or they would have stopped.

NOTE!!  I will continue editing and updating this story for the next few weeks. - Clay

Colorado Fun Ride August 2020 - Day 6

 

Today I head for home.

Everyone else is going to meet at 8:30 as they head West for Telluride, but I head East for Colorado Springs.  I didn't bother setting an alarm and hoped I might sleep in for a while, but I woke up at 6:00 and couldn't go back to sleep.  So I might as well hit the road.

I was up, dressed, packed, and loaded by 6:25.

Last night I contemplated 3 possible routes.  First was back over Cottonwood pass (4 time over in 6 days).  Second was Monarch Pass to highway 50.  Third was South to Saguache and the San Louis valley, then over Poncha Pass to highway 50.

I finally chose Monarch pass because if I go highway 50 it was going to get hot and I wanted to get through it as early as possible.

I grabbed a drive through breakfast as McD's, then headed East up the highway.

Traffic was pretty light so I only had to pass 1 or 2 cars.  It was a chilly 60 at the bottom of the pass and only dropped to 52 at the top.

I've taken sooooooo many photos and videos that I figured I wouldn't take any today, and didn't even bother getting the cameras out.  But I couldn't resist yet another photo by the Monarch pass sign.

I was half way down highway 50 before I realized it was silly to deliberately avoid taking pictures, so I pulled into a picnic area and got the cameras out.  I also took a few pics by the Arkansas river and even changed my facebook profile pic.

With the cameras out, I got some video of the winding ride along the river.

Then as I got close to Cañon City I decided I should ride up Skyline Drive and even break out the drone and try some of the cool features that I've never had the nerve to try.

Using my helmet cam, I grabbed some of the ride, then on top I took a drone shots with the bike stationary.  Then it was time for the challenging stuff.  

I switched batteries so I'd have the maximum amount of time.  I launched the drone, positioned the drone back and up a ways, selected Active Track mode selected the motorcycle and hit GO.  Then I hopped on the bike and slowly drove up the road.

IT WAS WORKING!! The drone was following but very slowly.  I could see it in my rearview mirror and it was even adjusting it's altitude as I went past some trees and rocks.  So I rode a few minutes along the road and stopped the bike.  I brought the drone over and was just about to land it when I realized it wasn't recording.  In the quickshot modes it automatically records, but I guess Active Track doesn't.  DOH!!

I landed the drone and switched to my 3rd and last battery.  Launch, RECORD, position, active track, select, and go,  I started to drive off but the camera wasn't following.  It did seem to climb so it could keep me in view, but it was just hovering.  It was about this time that another motorcycle came up behind me so I couldn't fiddle with the drone.  I just kept driving as my drone fell farther and farther back.

Finally I found a wide spot to pull over and let the motorcycle pass.  I grabbed the drone remote and tried to bring it to me but it didn't seem to want to move.  I'm not sure what I'd done, but I saw a cancel button and hit it, then the drone would move and I brought it up to me.

Once again I positioned the drone, set active track, selected the bike and hit go.  This time the drone followed.  I drove to the end of the road, then landed the drone but somehow the drone stopped recording after just 30 seconds.  maybe I accidentally hit the record button as the remote bounced around on the end of the lanyard.  But I did get a few seconds of it following me.

I recorded the descent with the helmet cam and that was the end of the videos for the day.  Mostly because it was already over 90 degrees and I was ready to get home.

I stopped in Penrose for a cold drink in the shade.

The drive up highway 115 is very well known to me.  I spent 7 years as a prison service missionary for my church and drove down here 2 times a month.  But the road is still fun after all this time.

I was home and enjoying the air conditioning by 12:30

I spent the afternoon putting together a video using what I'd taken for the day.

I have many of these photos both alone and with others but I couldn't resist yet another

Stopped along the arkansas river

Another shot along the river

Pretty daisy's

The Arkansas River

Posing

New profile picture

On top of Skyline Drive

It's hard to capture the drop on both sides of the road with a side on photo

This shows it better

Higher is even better

One lane, narrow hogback road

Colorado Fun Ride August 2020 - Day 5

 

After yesterday's 4:00am wakeup, we decided to start today's ride half an hour later at 9:00am.

Even though we could sleep in, we still  woke up at 6:15, but we took our time getting ready.

Sean and I headed to get some breakfast from the Waffle Iron restaurant.  I thought they would have a selection of items for breakfast, but they just had variations on waffles.  So Sean got a breakfast sandwich which was eggs, cheese, and bacon between to waffles.  I got a single waffle and bacon.  The waffles were the heavy Belgian waffles with crystals of sugar throughout.  It was very heavy so I only ate half of mine, but I ate ALL the bacon.

We were packed and ready to leave shortly after 8:00 so we stood around the bikes and talked until everyone was ready at 9:00.

Honestly, 50% of what makes these rides so fun is the time spent gabbing with people who also enjoy riding motorcycles.  We shared stories both exciting and embarrassing.  Talked about today's ride and especially we talked about how cold it might be.  These were a bunch of people from Arizona.  I could tell them it was going to be 105 degrees and they wouldn't bat an eye.  But tell them it was going to be in the 60s and every piece of warm weather gear they own would come out of the saddle bags.

I used to be an Arizonan, but no longer.  Anything over 85 degrees is HOT, and 65  to 70 is a perfect riding temperature.

The air was still filled with smoke so I didn't take many pictures.  But we did stop next to a lake after 45 minutes so I broke out the drone and took a few videos.

After we played a while, we continued South to Kremmling, then turned onto highway 9 and Silverthorn.  We took a short break for gas and snacks, then on into town.  Rather than getting on the freeway for only 2 miles, we continued just under the freeway, then turned right on the Damn Road.  It runs across the top of the Dillon Reservoir Damn and dumped out onto highway 9 in Frisco.

I barely recognized Frisco with all the road construction.  Sean even called to ask if we were on the right road, but I had no clue.  So we just kept going and it turned out to be the right way to get to Breckenridge.

In Breckenridge we took the truck route around downtown which turned out to be a good idea since they had closed the main road through town.  It wasn't construction or anything, they'd closed off the road so that restaurants could put tables out in the middle of the street and people could eat and browse without dealing with cars.

I really liked it.

We parked in a parking lot and had a WHOLE nother experience.  There were computer terminals to pay your parking, or you could use a QR code to pay on a web page.  I was first in line, but figured I'd get out of everyone's way by using the QR code.  But everyone else saw what I was doing and started doing the same.  So we had 13 senior citizens trying to figure out how to use a QR code, then follow horrible instructions with question after question, including your license plate number and credit card number, just to pay a 50 cent parking fee.

It was bad, really bad.

But eventually we all paid, or at least made our selves feel good about trying to pay.

We walked around town a bit, but we all wound up in the same place for lunch.  They actually had indoor dining, but not for all of us at once.  8 people got one table, 4 of us at another, and one couple wound up by themselves.  They don't offer menus.  Instead they tell you the wifi password and a QR code to get an online menu.  The food was good.  Then it was time to pay.

They handed us a tablet which we could use to divide up your bill and pay individually.  Yet more modernization.  It wasn't too bad, but Sean was paying cash and it didn't tell us that cash should be the last to pay.  he couldn't back up to let me first, so I paid and he just left some cash on the table.  No robots followed us out so I guess it was ok.

Back at the bikes I heard a few complaints about being drug kicking and screaming into the internet age.

From Breckenridge we crossed over Hoosier pass.  We got a few raindrops crossing the pass and the weather ahead looked like more rain, so we stopped on the side of the road to put on rain gear.

Putting on rain gear is never a dignified experience.  Several people had to actually sit on the curb to pull rain pants over boots and pants.  I decided just to put on a FrogTogs rain coat.

We continued down the pass and out to Fiarplay where we stopped for a break.

Sean was leaving us here.  Mostly because his front tire was getting a bit bald and he didn't want to push his luck.  So he said his goodbyes and headed South toward Colorado Springs and home.  I thought about going with him, but tonight's hotel was prepaid and non-refundable.  So I stayed with the group.  Sean texted me once he had arrived home safely, although he was wet.  He found the rain storm that the rest of us missed.

Back on highway 285, we retraced some of day 2 and day 3's route.  We talked about taking Monarch pass instead of Cottonwood Pass, but there really isn't much comparison between the two when you consider motorcycling for entertainment.  Monarch is a highway meant to move masses of traffic.  Cottonwood is a shortcut to the back country around Taylor Park.  We chose Cottonwood.

This was my 3rd time over the pass in 5 days and I have no complaints.  In fact I'm going to do it again tomorrow when I head for home.

We stopped for gas just before we went over the pass and several people asked how cold it would be.  I figured it would be in the upper 60s or lower 70s.  By the time we got to the top it was 62.  That was perfect to me, but everyone else was cold.

We took a group photo, then quickly got back on the bikes and headed for warmer altitudes.

The ride up and back down was again, a blast.  The road is just so nice because it's only a year old.

I lead the ride to the top, but Greg led going down so everyone didn't have to slow down.  I'm not a speed enthusiast but I get where I'm going.

The ride out from Taylor to Gunnison was still fun and we arrived at the hotel without incident.  And this time the rooms were all ready, so no waiting in the lobby.

We made reservations at the Ol' Miner's Steak House for 6:00.  A few people decided to walk the 4 blocks, but last September I learned my lesson about long walks after a long day riding.  We'd walked to a restaurant and by the time we ate, I was so tired and achy that I really hated the walk back.  So this time I rode the bike, plus I needed to gas up anyway.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Crossing Rabbit Ears Pass

Clouds and smoke, it's hard to tell where one stops and the other starts

Still a nice day for riding

Riding along Green Mountain Reservoir

More along the reservoir

And more

Colorado Fun Ride August 2020 - Day 4

Who the heck decided to wake up at 4:00 to go through a national park??

I guess, in part, that would be me.

We discovered a few days ago that RMNP was requiring reservations to enter the park between 6am and 5pm.  So we looked at the reservations and found that the earliest we could get in was 2pm.  That would put us in Steamboat Springs around 7 if we just rode through without stopping and then what's the point if you aren't going to stop and enjoy the scenery.

So we figured that if we arrived before 6am, we could get in without a reservation  Then Sean and I talked to a ranger who told us that lines begin forming around 5:30, and once the lines form its hard to get past everyone, so really, we need to be IN the part before 5:30.  That means we need to head to the part before 5:15 and to be safe, 5:00.

So.... we set our alarms for 4:30 so we could pack and be ready at 5:00, but Sean didn't sleep well and woke up at 4:00 and I got up as well.

Complicating all this was my motorcycle tires.  At midnight, my cell phone made an odd noise.  I didn't know it was my phone, I just knew something made an odd noise.  Then it did it again 10 minutes later and this time I did check the phone.  The rear tire of my motorcycle had contacted my cell phone to notify me that the pressure was below 25 lbs.

So at midnight I got up and went out to check the tire.  It didn't look flat and I slowly rolled the bike forward to look for something stuck in the tire.... Nothing.

So I went back to sleep.

This morning I realize that it's the first time I've ever slept close to the motorcyle all night and maybe the cold temperature reducing tire pressure is a normal thing and would wake me up every night if I was close enough.

So I'm up at 4:00am with about 5 hours of sleep.  I packed everything including the fruit I bought for breakfast.

We met at the front drive of the Hotel, talked for a bit, then said a prayer and headed for the park.

We were told to use the North Entrance because it's not as busy.  There was no one in the ranger booths and we rode right into the park with several other cars in front and behind us.

Our first stop was the alluvial fan.  It's a cool river feature with rocks and cascading water, but it was all blocked off for construction.   I was really sad because a sunrise with water cascading over the rocks would be a gorgeous photo.

We found some picnic tables in the pitch black and everyone pulled out whatever food they had purchased and we ate with a few flashlights shining around.

I had raspberries, nectarines, and some trail mix.  But Angela also gave me a banana and Ron passed out Oreo cookies.  We talked and munched while the sky slowly brightened until we could see things around us.

Suddenly someone called out "There's an elk over there".  I got up to look but couldn't see it way out across the valley floor despite how hard I looked.  Then someone said "no, not out there, just beyond the fence".  And sure enough, about 30 yards away was a massive elk with a huge antler rack just munching on the grass.  It could care less that we were there, or that cars continued to drive past.

After that excitement we packed up our trash and headed deeper into the park.

Sean lead us up toward Trail Ridge Road just as the sun began to shine over the horizon, but it rose as blood red because of all the smoke from the nearby fire.  I've seen blood read fire sunrise a few times in the past and this was still just as eerie.

A few miles up trail ridge we stopped at a scenic overlook.  Sean lead everyone to the upper parking lot, but I just flipped around and went back down to the lower parking lot because I've walked down many times in the past and didn't need to experience the joy of walking down again.  Sean called me lazy for not walking with everyone and I yelled back "You bet"

We were taking a picture with the red sun behind us when someone commented that it would be nice to take a picture from the top of the big rock wall on the other side of the street.  So Ron said "You bet I will" and started to walk over.  Karen hung on his arm telling him not to do it, but Ron went on over and climbed up about 15 feet to get his picture.  Ron's a real adventurous 65 year old. (Hope I got that right)

We got back on bikes and headed on up the road.  The sun was climbing higher and starting to warm things up by the time we reached the 2nd big scenic overlook.  We started the day at 50 degrees, then surprisingly it warmed to 66 at the alluvial fan.  Then warmed to 69 at the first pullout and now it was just over 70.

We stayed at the 2nd overlook for a long time.  Well over 30 minutes because no one wanted to risk super cold weather up on top.  We were there long enough that the chipmonks came out to beg for food.  They put some trail mix on Karen's shoulder and managed to get a couple to sit there and eat the nuts.  Karen was thrilled.

Finally we were bored enough to risk the wide open space on top of the mountain.  The last time John, Greg and I did this ride, we got on top and found ourselves in a full on blizzard, in July.  But this time the skies all around were clear, other than the smoke.

We needn't have worried.  There was no howling wind or hail stones up there.  Just a nice road with 360 degrees of beautiful views.  The roads were still very empty, nothing like a normal summer day.  I guess arriving early really pays off when you don't have to deal with all the (other) idiots in the park.

We rode slowly along through the gentle turns of trailridge road at 12,183 feet.   It's the highest continuous paved road in the US.

Way too soon we reached the visitor center and pulled of to take a break.  The visitor center and the cafeteria were both closed and not due to open for a few hours.  So we walked around taking pictures and looking for elk on the flats below the overlooks.

Eventually, Ron and Karen decided to do a hike to the top of the peak overlooking the parking lot.  It looked to be a few hundred feet high.  Rick joined them for the hike and all 3 made it to the top and back.

Not long after they got back someone pointed back up the trail and called everyone.  A pair of elk came running around the side of the hill and stopped by the trail.  Everyone oood and awwwd and snapped pictures.  Then they just took off again.

Once you leave the visitor center you start descending off the mountain with a series of switchbacks.  It's redundant to say the road was great.  We stopped once to look at a mother moose and her baby, then left the park.

We stopped in Grand Lake to get some brunch.  Most of us got an omelette of some sort.  We sat out on their open air patio and enjoyed the morning.  It was kind of a nice relaxing end to the park ride.  While we ate, we talked about some of our past rides through the park.  Angela pulled up a picture we took years ago with most of us draped over the big park sign, then nothing would do but we all needed to go back and take a group picture at the sign.

It was only a couple miles back to the sign.  Several people climbed behind the sign, others around the sides or below.

The rest of the day was spent riding to Steamboat Springs.  It was way too hot and sunny so I didn't take many pictures.

For dinner we were joined by Drew and Penny who had driven over from Salt Lake.  We went to a mexican restaurant downtown where we sat on the roof.  The roof was covered by a big deck, that fact will become important later.

I ordered some carnitas tacos and really enjoyed it.  Everyone else liked their choices as well.  We spent a long time reminiscing about all the rides we had done in the past.  Many of my other motorcycle trips on this blog were with these people, and none of them were ever boring.

Finally we asked the waitress for our checks and sent her off with a stack of credit cards.

When she brought the bills back, she was setting them down when the top credit card fell out of it's order and fell perfectly between the boards of the deck and landed on the actual roof about a food below.  She looked embarrassed and said it had happened before and they could get the card back.  She left to tell the manager, but neither she nor the manager ever came back.

It turned out to be Sean's credit card that had fallen.  He waited for a while, then started trying to figure how to get the card himself.

You could see the card if you shone a camera flashlight just right.  Then someone figured out that you could access the crawl space from a small area nearby.  So Brenda pointed her phone's flashlight down between the slats to highlight the card and Sean found a 2x4 that he could reach in and just touch the card.  But there was no way to actually pull the card out.  There was no ridge or hook to pull with.

They tried that for a while, then Ross remembered that he had some double sided tape on his bike.  He ran down to get it.  They added the tape and soon Sean had his card back.

It took over half an hour to get the card.  The restaurant did nothing, and still expected Sean to pay for his meal, or at least no one offered him any sort of compensation for the ordeal.  One of the waiters said the manager wasn't present, and the girl had gone home.

So that's one of "memories" we'll all share from this trip.  There's always a couple of good ones to take back with you.

Once again, my photos aren't in order.

Red sun balanced on a branch from a scenic view

Normal perspective of the red sun

Ron up on his perch taking a picture of the group

Me with the red sun behind me

Parked near the top with the red sun behind us

Red sun in the sky and reflecting off a lake

Wide open vistas on the top of Trail Ridge.  You can barely see mountains through the smoke

Riding on the top of trail ridge

Early start because of the limited entry times

Entering the park

Riding through the park toward Trail Ridge Road

More riding

Red sun from the road

Parked at the first overlook, I cheated and rode back down to the closer parking lot

Looking out across the tundra

If it was a better picture you could see everyone

More mountains in the distance through the smoke

Another view of mountains

Looking down from the visitor center.  I've seen herds of elk down there in the past

Greg and Brenda looking at the overlook above the parking lot

Better view of the overlook and the 2 elk beside it.

Stopped for a break at Granby

Riding the canyons toward Kremmling

The not yet mighty Colorado River

Wide oepen spaces

Colorado Fun Ride August 2020 - Day 3

 It was a nice cool morning.

Woke up and packed most of my things on the bike by 6:30, then spent some time cleaning the road grime off the bike.  John always teases me about how dirty I let my bike get, but now that I have a brand new bike I guess I'm taking more time to keep it clean.

By 6:50 Sean was packed as well so we headed to a place called Jan's for breakfast.  I've eaten at Jan's many times when I come on camping trips with guys.  We do a big camping trip every September just as the colors are changing.

John and Angela joined us for breakfast and it was as good as ever.

After breakfast we gassed up and headed back to the hotel for final prep to ride.

At 8:30 everyone was ready.  We talked about the days route and what everyone could expect, especially whether it would be cold.  I pointed south and said we had to go around the mountains, then back north.  We said a prayer then mounted up and headed out.  As soon as we left, John turned North instead of South, so Sean took off to try and catch them.  I stopped the couple ahead of me so we just sat in the parking lot waiting for them to come back.

John's GPS had split the day in half and was trying to fasttrack him to the start of the 2nd half rather than taking the route we had planned.

Once we were all back together we drove 2 miles South out of town, then turned North East on our route.

It was instantly obvious that the I-70 traffic was on the road with us.  There were long streams of cars coming past every few minutes.  We got stuck behind a few slow RVs but it wasn't all that bad.

We stopped in Fairplay for a bio break and snacks.  I took the time to try to figure out how to fully reset my bluetooth headset.  It wasn't passing audio to me any more.  So I tried to reset to factory defaults.  But before I could get it reset, it was time to go.

We headed East out of Fairplay for 30 miles to the town of Grants, then turned North on Guanella Pass Road.  I rode over Guannella pass about a month ago and really loved it, so John decided to add it to this ride and I'm glad he did.

We grouped up to make sure everyone was together, then they headed up the pass.  It was right about this time that I realized I hadn't put my camera lanyard around my neck, so I couldn't take pictures.  I stopped and tried to rush removing my helmet which of course, meant that my glasses got tangled and nearly fell to the ground.  I grabbed them, finished taking off the helmet and tried to rush putting the lanyard over my head which, again, hooked my glasses and nearly flipped them off.

So I took a slow breath, put on the lanyard, then calmly put on my helmet and headed up the pass.

It's always when I let myself feel rushed and try to hurry something that I really screw things up.

The South side of Guanella pass has a more gentle slope with only a few hairpins.  There were a few section of road cut into a steep rock wall, but all of those sections had guard rails.  It was a relaxing ride all the way to the top with few other vehicles on the road.

Once we reached the top was a different story.  There had to be 100 cars parked along the road and in various parking lots on top.  It was Saturday, but still, the number of cars on top of an eleven thousand foot high pass was crazy.  And almost no people.  Everyone was off mountain biking or hiking the trails.

We pulled into a parking lot to stop and get some pictures, and, of course, there was a bathroom.

I managed to get my bluetooth headset fully reset.  I had to push and hold the phone button for 10 seconds when the LED turned red, then push the big round dial button once and it reset.  I re-paired it with my bike and everything was working great again.

We took a group photo then got back on the bikes and continued down the the far side of the pass.

The north part of the pass was MUCH steeper than the South side.  We immediately started off with a tight hairpin turn and they continued all the way down.  We spotted a herd of mountain sheep along side the road but they got spooked and took off too quick.  But after the next hairpin, there were two mountain sheep eating grass along side the road who didn't care that we were riding past.  They just munched the grass contentedly.

We passed several reservoirs and a hydro generating plant.  We also passed many scenic overlooks but with so much smoke in the air it wasnt worth stopping.

The last mile was non stop hairpins down a super steep rock face. It really wasn't scary, but when you look back at that face and see all the hairpins, it makes you a bit nervous to think about it.  Once we got down into George Town we stopped for another break.

From George Town we had to get onto I-70 for about 20 miles to the Central City exit.

Central City has casinos so it's a big nice exit and a really nice road up and over the ridge to the casinos.  It needs to be as easy as possible to seperate you from your money I guess.

We parked in a lot just as soon as we entered town, then walked down to main street to find something to eat.  I was shocked at how many businesses had gone out of business. There was empty window after empty window all along the street.  We stopped to try looking for something on Yelp when a guy sitting on a bench nearby recommended a nearby pizza place.  We had no better ideas so we headed there.

There was no inside seating, and no shade outdoors but we decided to eat there anyway.  I ordered a small pepperoni and mushroom.  The pizza was great but it took almost 30 minutes to come out and we were sitting in the sun the whole time.  A weather app claimed it was only 76 degrees, but it felt more like 95.

From Central City we headed due North.  The was really nice with plenty of turns and views through the foothills of the Rockies.  We passed through several small towns and all of them were packed with people trying to escape the heat.

We saw many trailheads full of cars and empty UTV trailers.

I had hoped it would be nice an cool, but it felt pretty warm.  Besides just the heat, the smoke continued to get thicker.  There's a fire just North of Rocky Mountain National park and it is continuing to grow.

We arrived at our hotel in Estes Park and split off to our rooms.  Tonight was a "find your own meal" night rather than trying to get all 13 people into a single restaurant.  Sean and I decided to go get a Gyro over near the park.  It was a really good Gyro.

After we ate, we rode to the visitor center to check on the park status.

RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park) is currently under covid restrictions.  You have to make reservations for a specific time to enter the park.  But if you arrive and enter the park before 6:00 am, you don't need a reservation.  We double checked with a ranger and she told us to use the more Northerly entrance and to be in line before 5;30.  She also told us that the restaurant at the top of the mountain was open so people could eat there if they didn't want to bring in food.

Back at the room, Sean put on the first game of the Avalanch vs Stars hockey game.  He had to explain a few of the rules to me.  I've known them many times over the years, but I'm not a big fan and I always forget them.  It was not a happy night in mudville when they lost 5 to 3.

Since we need to be in the park by 5:30, we need to be packed and ready to leave by 5:00 and which means waking up before 4;30.  So I need to finish the blog, get showered, pack up my gear and get some sleep.

Sorry about this, but the pictures seemed to load backwards and I need to get to sleep.

Higway 285

More of Highway 285

Parked for lunch in Central City

The road to Central City

Freeway exit to Central City

Looking down on Georgetown

Switchbacks before Georgetown

More Switchbacks

Grazing Mountain Sheep

Coming up o the Mountain sheep

Switchbacks

Mountain sheep left nothing but some dust in the air

Mountain sheep panicked by our passing

One of the many damns we passed above Georgetown

Just some pretty scenery on the pass

Another damn on the pass

The parking lot on top of Guanella pass

More pretty scenery

The start of Guanella

More of the start of Guanella

Sunset through the red haze of forest fire smoke

Waiting for food in Central City

On top of Guanella pass