The Gaggle of in laws left 4 days ago, John and Angela left 2 days ago, and Nannette left yesterday. So I'm all alone in this huge 3 story, 5 bed, 10 person timeshare. I woke up at 6:00 but just lay in bed reading and listening to music. Animals tend to move around during the early morning, so it isn't safe to ride the bike. I don't want another close encounter with a deer. Once, 7 years ago, was enough. (read about it in this blog)
Eventually I got up and showered, then made myself an omelette. I sat on the deck enjoying the cool morning air and the not so subtle honk of the geese around the lake. The geese and ducks were very active this morning. In hindsight, maybe that was my first hint of the storm coming.
My first goal today was finding my GPS. Yesterday before my ride, I'd noticed that my Spot GPS was missing off the bike. I left it parked all day Friday when Nan and I went to Chimney Rock, and at first I thought maybe someone had stolen it. The Spot uses GPS to figure out its location, then using a satellite modem, transmits that location to a website. After my brain got working, I realized that all I had to do was check the website to see where the GPS was, and sure enough, it had fallen off the bike 3 days ago while returning from Lake City.
I had a few roads I wanted to ride today, but picking up the GPS was more important, so I figured I'd just head home via Lake City and get it.
I packed the bike and headed North toward Wolf Creek. The ride was beautiful but chilly. It was the coldest morning since I've been here with the temperature at 65 degrees and dropping as I climbed up toward the pass. By the time I reached the top, it was a chilly 52.
When I reached South Fork I stopped to gas up. The gas station had a Blimpy sub shop in it, so I bought a sandwich, thinking I'd stop at one of the overlooks for lunch rather than an expensive restaurant in Lake City. As I headed North East toward Creede is when I first noticed the heavy clouds over the mountains. I wasn't too worried about it because storms don't usually develop until later in the day after the sun has warmed everything up.
I stopped in Creede for a quick picture by the FireCave (it's like a FireHouse but in a cave).
The GPS showed that it was about 15 miles outside of Creede so I kept going toward the mountains and those heavy clouds. I could see rain was falling but it wasn't very close to me and seemed to be headed West so I didn't worry about it. I hoped my path would skirt it all.
I had to stop a few times to check where I was relative to the Spot GPS. I found a wide spot to park the bike near the last position and started walking along the road looking around as I walked. I hadn't gone more than 20 feet when I saw the bright orange of the spot. It was just sitting in a bunch of weeds about 3 feet off the road. I'd been so afraid that it had fallen on the road and been run over, but there it was safe and sound. The leatherish case had torn causing it to fall off. I took a gallon ziplok, dropped the Spot into it, then tied it onto the bike. I turned the Spot back on and sent out an "I'm OK" announcement.
With that all done I took stock of the weather. The road had turned north east and was now headed directly into the middle of the black clouds. I could see heavy rain falling only a couple miles ahead. If I waited long enough it might clear, or it might descend on me even worse than it was now. It didn't take long before I decided to turn around. Maybe I'd take those roads I'd originally planned to ride after all. I was 35 miles off the main highway, but it was 35 beautiful road miles, so I didn't mind backtracking.
As I got near Creede again I could see the rain was coming down the mountains and into town. Heavy sheets of rain were hitting the hills just above town. The road through Creede turns North for a mile, then makes a sharp turn in town and comes back out South. I hurried through town and got spattered by slushy rain. The temperature dipped and the wind really blew as I brushed the front edge of the storm. Once I was headed South again it quickly warmed up and the wind stopped, but I could see it boiling behind me in my mirror. Within minutes the town virtually disappeared behind a wall of water. I had really flirted with a major storm back there.
Once back in South Fork I turned East on highway 160. I only stayed on it for 16 miles till I reached Del Norte, then I turned a bit north toward the town of Center which would head me toward a great riding road and eventually to Gunnison. I could still see those dark clouds over the mountains, but I couldn't really see where they were heading. I hoped it wasn't toward me. At center I turned again, almost due north.
I hadn't gone more than 5 miles north out of center before I saw the wall of clouds rapidly descending and crossing right in front of me about 10 miles ahead. A car came out of the cloud bank toward me and as it got near, it started flashing it's lights. When the 3rd car did the same thing, I took the hint and quickly turned around.
Back in Center I stopped for a bathroom break and to look at weather maps. It showed a huge storm north of me and trailing back to the west. It looked like I could easily get east of it and around because it wasn't moving too fast. But it was expanding south some too, and by the time I headed back for highway 160 the wind was blowing pretty hard. The San Luis valley is a big farming area, so the storm was picking up all the bare earth and starting to form a dust storm. I rode south out of the leading edge of the storm....again.
I picked up 160 in Monte Vista and turned east toward Alamosa. I could see the storm off to the left and building. I talked to Klair and Nannette on the phone a couple of times as they advised me about the weather alerts north of me. I have my motorcycle setup so I can fully interact with my iPhone while riding. I can answer incoming phone calls, and using Siri, I can listen to incoming text messages, respond to text messages, and make phone calls. The only problem is that I can't tell who's calling when I answer the phone and it's really annoying to get a salesman trying to talk to you while riding a beautiful stretch of road.
So anyway, there I am on highway 160 heading east with this massive dust storm off to my left. I was quickly pulling ahead of it and (I thought) I could easily outrun it to the mountain pass 80 miles ahead of me. There was very constant 2 way traffic and a 4 lane road. I wasn't speeding or pushing it very hard, it just seemed like an easy ride.
A pair of riders on harleys came up behind me riding side by side. I do see that often, but these 2 were really parallel to each other on the highway with a good gap between them. It meant they took up their entire lane and even just a bit outside their lane. They passed me and a few other cars, but I didn't follow or speed up any, I just let em wind through the traffic.
We were way ahead of the storm when we reached Alamosa, but of course, the speed limit drops to about 35 through most of the town, and traffic really seemed to get thick. It felt like I hit every stoplight in town. When I got into the middle of town I could see the storm had nearly caught up, but I couldn't do anything about it with all the cars around me. I did pass the 2 Harleys that had passed me earlier. They'd picked the wrong lane and got caught behind a car trying to turn left.
I should have found a good restaurant to stop and eat for a 2 hour lunch to let the storm blow by, but I didn't. I kept thinking about all the rain that was coming and I wanted to stay ahead of it.
Just as I left town the 2 Harleys caught up and fell in behind me as the road narrowed to 2 lanes. And then the leading edge of the storm caught us. The temperature plummeted from 68 to 55 and the wind whipped up. It's hard to tell how fast the wind is when you're already going 65, but it was really whipping around. The dust storm that had just been forming back in Monte Vista had now bloomed to a multi thousand foot high monster. The dust storm was trailing the leading edge of the storm by a few miles, so even though I was in the storm, I could still see clearly down the road...for now.
10 miles out of Alamosa the dust storm blew in. Walls of dust rushed at the road suddenly cutting off all sight of the cars coming toward me and I had no choice but to squint my eyes and push through it. 2 times visibility dropped to nothing for a few yards and I had to just hold my course. I'd seen the road was dead straight and all I had to do was ride straight. The wind blasted me from the left side and I had to steer to the left to overcome it and just hope I didn't over-steer. I couldn't even see the lane markers to guide me because the dust was so thick. These dust outs only lasted for a second or two but it was unnerving to say the least.
Several times we'd clear the dust and wind, then the temperature would rapidly rise again. Then another arm of the storm would push ahead and envelop us dropping the temperature and increasing the wind. The up and down temperature was really odd.
After 5 minutes of this I blew out the other side into clear warm air. I'd gotten ahead of the storm and the 2 Harleys were still right behind me and still riding side by side. In the mirror I could see the mess behind me as cars continued to emerge from the dust and other cars continued to plunge into it going the other way. A few cars had pulled off the road but there was almost no shoulder to the road and if you pulled of too far you were in soft dirt/sand and would probably get stuck.
With clear air ahead of me I twisted the throttle and tried to get farther ahead. My 2 escorts followed right behind.
We were easily leaving the storm for about 15 miles. I'd passed a couple cars and thought it would all be smooth from here when we came up on a line of slow moving cars. Slow meaning they were only going a couple miles over the speed limit. At the head was a big RV. I passed a few cars to get near the front and saw some other motorcycles behind the RV and wondered why they weren't moving around. It was 2 lanes, but it was dead straight and there were large gaps in the oncoming traffic so it shouldn't be hard to pass.
I dropped in behind the other bikes to evaluate my chances of passing, and after a minute I saw one of the bikes pull over to pass the RV. And the RV pulled the left, crossing the line and blocked him. He literally wouldn't let the bike pass. This happened a couple more times with the bikes and once with A sports car. Any time someone came to the other lane, the RV "wandered" over the center line. It wasn't violent or agressive, he just sat right on the center lane and would wander a foot or two across it. Very unnerving.
Another pair of sport bikes came up form behind, passing cars till they were just in front of me, then the lead bike opened up and started to pass the remaining bikes and the RV. When the RV wandered over the line he just kept going and laid on his horn. He got beside the RV, horn blasting and the RV went back into his lane. He and his buddy blew past and kept going, but none of the rest of us wanted to try it.
I watched the storm slowly catching us as we reached the 2 little towns at the eastern edge of the San Luis valley. Once again I should have stopped, but I didn't. I did stop for 5 minutes to let the traffic clear and let that idiot in the RV get WAY ahead of me.
By now the dust storm has subsided. It couldn't keep going with all the greenery in the foothills, but now I could see the clouds building as they were pushed up over the mountains. It still looked clear to the east, so I pulled out onto the now clear road and headed for La Veta Pass.
I'd only forgotten one fairly important thing. The road doesn't go east over the pass. I wasn't far into the valley when the road turned almost due north and started to climb. Suddenly I was headed straight into the teeth of the storm. The wind whipped up and the temperature dropped. I kept riding and climbing and hoping that I'd beat it over the top. I was pretty high up when the first big fat raindrops hit me, It was time for some protection, so I found a wide shoulder of the road and stopped.
No matter how many times I do this, it never gets any easier to put on rain gear while standing beside a road with cars streaming past, wind blowing, and rain starting to pelt me. I removed my heavy riding jacket from the right saddle bag, but as it always does, the velcro grabbed other things and threatened to pull everything out onto the muddy ground. I separated it, took off my mesh jacket and tried to stuff it back in place of the heavy one. Wind whipped everything around making it a nearly impossible task but I got it done.. I put the heavy jacket on, then started trying to get my oh so stylish green rain pants untangled and over my boots and pants. Lastly I put on my heavy riding gloves.
I was sure that I was only a few miles short of the pass by now so rather than turning around, I was determined to keep going. I looked around the bike one last time to be sure everything was closed and nothing was hanging out. Then I mounted the bike and waited for my chance to rejoin the dash for the top.
You know, this is a pretty long blog, so I think I'll end it here and finish it tomorrow...
Panorama from the deck of the Timeshare
Storm clouds over the mountains as I head toward Creede
Creede Fire Department
My lost and lonely Spot GPS sitting beside the road
Getting gas in Center. The very beginning of the dust storm east of me
A few miles outside Alamosa as the dust storm approaches the road
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