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| Riding to Silverthorne with my granddaughter Rayden |
DAY 1
So on Monday, August 3rd, I drove Klair to the airport and she flew off to Milwaukee for a work conference. Then on Tuesday I drove to the house and picked up Rayden. It had been a good while since I'd done a long ride so it took me longer to get ready than I expected. We didn't get away from her house till almost 8:30.
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| Ready to ride |
Our first stop was McDonald's for a couple of breakfast sandwiches and drinks. I kept asking Rayden if she didn't want to go play in the play land but she assured me she was far too old and mature for silly things like that. She's 11 after all. Two weeks ago she was all over the playland with her cousins but then she had the excuse of playing with a precocious four-year-old. Climbing around by herself probably felt embarrassing.
After we finished eating we double-checked all our gear and that we weren't forgetting anything. I asked Rayden if she wanted to listen to a book or if she wanted to listen to her own music on her phone.
We climbed on the bike and started to head north. I'm testing a new mapping software called Kurviger. It's specifically for motorcycles and allows you to set out a specific route rather than Google Maps constantly recalculating your route and trying to get you on the highways and freeways. Most of the time I want to avoid highways and freeways on the motorcycle and I want narrow curvy roads that are interesting and fun to ride.
In Kurviger I can actually tell it to avoid highways. It planned me a route north out of Colorado Springs, sticking to the side roads. We made our way up to Monument and then over to Palmer Lake and headed north towards Denver on Highway 105. That's one of my favorite roads that meanders out through farm country near the foothills of the Front Range.
At the north end of 105 we came out in Sedalia. This is where Google Maps always gets a little confused. It wants to take me up to the freeway and then over to Highway 285. Convincing Google Maps to take me through the neighborhoods and then up Deer Creek Canyon Road is almost impossible. Kurviger planned the route with almost no effort. So far my biggest complaint is that it doesn't show me my current speed nor the posted speed limit on the roads I'm on. I missed that from Google Maps.
We stopped at a gas station in Sterling Ranch to take a short break and go to the bathroom. We threw away the McDonald's sodas that had gotten watery and each got a bottle of soda in case we got thirsty on the ride. From here we took the ride over towards Chatfield Reservoir. Then just before we reached the freeway, we turned left onto Deer Creek Canyon Road. For me this is where we really start the more fun part of the ride. Deer Creek Canyon Road is a small two-lane road that bicyclists love to ride up and down so we have to be careful and share the road. But it's tree-lined, has lots of little curves, and because it's so shady it's always a cooler temperature than the surrounding flats.
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| First Gas Stop |
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| Deer Creek Canyon Road |
I was thoroughly enjoying the ride while weaving up the road through the trees. In my rear view mirror I could see Rayden with her hands out, sometimes flapping like a bird, enjoying the ride herself. I've been up this road at least 30 times over the years and it never gets old. As I was writing I remembered that we pass a little business called Tiny Town. It's a small-scale railroad that they built little homes, businesses, and animals around. You ride the little train as you tour around their town. I have never stopped there so I pulled over and looked up some information on it.
It only costs about $5 to get in plus about $4 for a train ride. I asked Rayden if she would like to stop there and she gave an enthusiastic yes. I went into Kurviger and added a new way point and it adjusted our route correctly to take us over to Tiny Town.
It was a little after 10:00 by the time we arrived. We parked the bike, left all our gear, and headed across the street to the ticket booth. I don't remember what the total cost was but it was somewhere around $24. We paid and walked in. Our first stop was the gift shop but there really wasn't a whole lot to see. It was just common toys, maybe a few t-shirts, and that was about it. We didn't spend long.
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| Riding the train in Tiny Town |
We decided to take the train ride first rather than walking through town first. The train was just about to leave and it was pretty packed so we decided to wait for the next train, which took about ten minutes. We took some pictures and sat in the shade while we waited. When the train got back we were about the third group to board. Rayden didn't want to sit in the front and didn't want to sit in the way back so we picked a spot right in the middle and sat side by side on the tiny little benches.
The train took off at about a slow walking pace and we headed through their little village. The houses were maybe a foot tall and two feet square but of course that's just a generality. Some were two-story, some were much wider or longer. There was a city hall that was quite a bit bigger and a pretty good variety of houses and businesses. I think it would be a lot more exciting for a four- or five-year-old than it was for an 11-year-old but we had a good time. Rayden's favorite part was when we got around the back side of the town and there was a huge area just filled with dinosaurs. There were also horses. There were cattle and several other kinds of themed areas. We enjoyed them all.
When we first boarded the conductor told us we'd be going through a tunnel and that we had to raise our hands and yell as we went through the tunnel because there was a troll that we needed to scare away or something. The tunnel was just an old shed with a few signs painted on it but we raised our hands and yelled anyway.
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| The "tunnel" |
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| They even have the Air Force Academy Chapel |
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| Rayden's favorite - Dinosaurs |
Once we were back we went and walked down to the town. Many of the houses had glass roof windows that you could peer into. Most had little figurines and furniture. A few of the houses or stores were donated and elaborately decorated, but most had been sitting out in the weather for years. A couple were absolutely filled with spider webs. Rayden's favorite was a very colorful house with the big smiley face on it.
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| Rayden's favorite |
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| Crossing the bridge over a mighty river |
All together we spent a little over an hour in Tiny Town. It was getting close to noon and we were both hungry so we loaded back up on the bike and headed down the road to find somewhere to eat.
This was the first time I overrode what Kurviger was recommending. It wanted us to take the road straight past Tiny Town and then turn left onto Highway 285. You're trying to turn left across four lanes of high-speed highway traffic with a semi-blind turn to your right. I've done it before and hated it. But I knew that if I backtracked just a half a mile, there was an underpass under 285 that would take you to a nice simple on-ramp heading in the direction we wanted to go. That's what we did.
Google would have just rerouted once it saw me going backwards on our route but Kurviger kept insisting that we should go back the other way. That's actually what I like about Kurviger: it tries to take me the route I planned. Once we were back on to the actual route, Kurviger quit complaining and just continued on with the route and again that's what I want to happen.
I knew of a good restaurant, The Crossroads Grill, on 285 that wasn't far away. It's at Pine Junction. I often drive that route as part of a four-hour loop. Normally I turn left and head South, but this time we just stopped for lunch then instead of turning, we're going to continue West down Highway 285.
Rayden got a bacon cheeseburger with no vegetables on it and onion rings. I got a Reuben sandwich with fries. Both were excellent and neither of us was able to finish all of our lunch.
Just as we finished and were about to get back on the motorcycles, we heard some thunder nearby and felt the first drops of rain hitting us. Normally I would just hop on the bike and go, hoping either to ride it out or that it wouldn't rain so hard that I needed to put on gear. I really didn't want this to be a bad experience for Rayden so I pulled out the rain gear and we suited up.
The wind really started to kick up around us when we pulled out onto the road and we could see sheets of rain coming out of the clouds around us. It sprinkled for about five minutes and then it just started to clear up and go away. We could still hear thunder behind us but we managed to outrun the storm. Not much further and the sun broke through and the heat started to build.
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| Rayden - full rain gear and ready for the storm |
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| Took the rain gear back off when we outran the storm |
We stopped and took all our rain gear back off and I looked on a weather map to see just what was going on. It looked like there were heavy storms in the mountains but since we were nearly out onto the flat plains we were going to be just fine.
My original plan was for us to ride over Guanella Pass to the town of Lake George but that would have led us right into the heart of the storms. So instead I changed and decided to take tomorrow's route and go up over Hoosier Pass into Breckenridge instead. There were no rain storms over in that direction so we should be fine.
We reached the town of Fair Play and stopped to gas up and to take a little breather. By now it was almost 3:00 and the temperatures had really risen up into the mid-80s. We still had our sodas and neither of us needed the bathroom so after gassing up we turned up towards Hoosier Pass and Breckenridge.
Hoosier Pass has always felt like a little bit of a cheat to me. There's a ton of houses and it doesn't actually get very high. When you compare it to things like Guanella Pass or Cottonwood Pass or even Berthud Pass, it doesn't really feel like a high mountain pass. There was a constant stream of cars going in each direction, which also detracted from the ambiance. But at least the temperatures dropped as we rode up to the top of the pass.
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| Hoosier Pass, kind of anti climatic isn't it |
Once we crossed over, however, the temperature really poured on. By the time we reached Breckenridge it was over 90 degrees. It's actually been five or six years since I've been to Breckenridge and it has really built up. It's always been a very popular town because of the ski resort but the sidewalks were packed with people and the streets were lined with cars. I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I'm sure it would be okay to come with friends and to wander the streets shopping, but riding the motorcycle through was terrible. We were going 5 mph and it felt stifling.
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| Breckenridge |
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| More of Breckenridge |
We finally made it out the other side but the traffic really didn't let up. There is a constant stream of traffic both directions all the way to Frisco. Kurviger routed us around town rather than through town, which was very nice. It also took us onto the Dillon Dam road instead of the freeway. Dillon Dam is an earthen dam about 200 ft high. It makes some people very nervous to drive across the top. One side drops right down into the heart of Silverthorne and the other side, of course, is Dillon Reservoir. Dillon Reservoir was way down, had to be 50 ft or more below the high water mark.
We drove across the dam then headed into Silverthorne to the Hampton Inn, where we would stay for the night. We checked in, then carried all our gear up to the fourth floor. Turned the AC way down and collapsed on the beds to recover from our heat ordeal.
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| Crossing Dillon Dam |
After twenty minutes we put on swimming suits and headed down to the pool and the hot tub. I sat in the pool for a little while to get cool then headed over to the hot tub. I'm not sure why I find the hot tub relaxing after all that heat through Frisco but I do. It had really good jets that felt very good on my arms, legs, and lower back. Rayden put on her swimming mask, got a couple of rings that dropped to the bottom of the pool, and proceeded to swim like a fish, dropping and picking up the rings. Every twenty minutes or so she'd come get in the hot tub. She didn't stay long and she'd go right back to swimming.
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| Rayden loved the swimming pool |
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| I loved the hot tub and the jets on my lower back |
I got out after a half hour and just relaxed on a chair, listening to a book. I'm listening to The Civil War by Shelby Foote. It's three books, each of which is about 30 hours long and I'm in the middle of book two. This is about the fourth time I've listened to the series and I really enjoy it. Books seem to occupy the portion of my brain that gets bored while I drive without reducing my driving skills at all.
Eventually Rayden decided it was time to stop. She was hungry so we started looking to see what was around. It turns out that we have a sushi restaurant just across the street and Rayden loves California rolls.
I ran up to the room and showered while Rayden did her last little bit of swimming, then she came in and showered and got ready to go to dinner. Rayden ordered a California Roll, and I ordered sashimi rolls. Rayden also got a mango smoothie with boba in it. She loved the California roll, loved the smoothie, but hated the bobas. They didn't pop and they tasted terrible. I didn't realize my sashimi rolls were battered and deep fried. They were okay but not my favorite. I ordered Rayden a second California roll because the first didn't seem that big.
While we sat there we could see a large 8-foot-high TV screen that was constantly running ads for various things on the restaurant's menu. One in particular was a lemon ice cream pop and I could see Rayden's eyes light up every time it came on. Sure enough she asked if she could get one and I said yes of course.
Once we were back in our room, Rayden asked if we could go swim again. I didn't need to swim but I was happy to go down with her. She went to the pool and I went outside the hotel to a big window that looked into the pool. I sat listening to my book and watching Rayden frolic in the water. I don't know just how long we were there but it was probably an hour. It wasn't dark yet but the sun had gone behind the mountains.
Back in the room Rayden showered and put on her pajamas. I went in to brush my teeth and by the time I came out Rayden was sound asleep. This was an awesome day!
DAY 2
I woke up at 5:30, just as light started to leak around the curtains. Rayden woke up just minutes after I did. We were both dressed and ready for breakfast just after 6:00. It was a standard hotel breakfast with waffles and scrambled eggs. The temperature outside was 41 degrees. I thought that was a bit cold so we took our time eating and packing so that we didn't get on the road till almost 8:00.
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| Rayden's whipped cream breakfast, and some waffles under it |
We started by driving over Dillon Dam again just to try to get better pictures than yesterday. It was still shocking how low the water was. We had talked about trying to fish, but it just didn't look like it would be fun to walk all the way out with that thick mud around the water.
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| Riding over Dillon Dam and trying to fly |
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| Wide angle of the Dillon Dam |
I had just started driving up the road toward Loveland pass when I glanced over and saw this striking statue of an Eagle beside the road. I was a few hundred yards down the road when it struck me how beautiful the statue and the view was. I wish I'd stopped for a picture, then it struck me "you can just turn around you know". So I did. We flipped a u-turn and headed back to get a picture with the eagle, and I'm glad I did.
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| Rayden and the eagle |
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| Both of us with the eagle |
Yesterday there was a huge amount of smoke in the air from nearby wild fires, but today it looked crystal clear. We spent 20 minutes getting some good pictures with the Eagle, the lake, and the beautiful mountains in the background.
We got back on the bike and headed up the road.. We passed by Keystone Ski Resort which looked very empty. I know they have a lot of restaurants and shops at the foot of the ski slopes, but the parking lots held no cars. Maybe it's too early.
Once we passed Keystone we saw almost no other cars on the road. The temperatures had risen rapidly from 50° up to almost 70°. It made me wish we had left even earlier in the morning and not worried so much about it being cold.
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| Quick selfie on the way up Loveland Pass |
20 miles past Keystone we came to Arapahoe Basin ski slope, also called A-Basin. It was even more shut down than Keystone.
After A-Basin the road started to have hairpins and get even steeper as we climbed towards the pass. It did get cooler as we climbed but the air was warming faster than we were climbing. I thought about stopping to take a few pictures but the light was just so harsh and we were starting to get smoke in the air again, which made everything fuzzy so I didn't bother.
We did stop at the very top and take pictures by the sign. Another couple on a motorcycle decided to flip around and take pictures at the same sign but they didn't bother checking for other cars on the road. They almost got hit when they pulled sideways to the oncoming traffic. We got our pictures with the tripod, then I offered to take a picture for them and they were very grateful.
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| Loveland Pass |
Once we're over the pass, the road down to the freeway doesn't feel very long at all. Soon we are flying along at 75 mph. I hate riding on the freeway for these sorts of rides but there is just no other way to get from Loveland Pass down to Georgetown. We got back off the freeway as soon as humanly possible.
We gassed up, snacked up, and peed out in Georgetown at the first gas station we saw. Then we started up towards Guanella Pass. I've always ridden this pass from the south, heading up and over the pass and down into Georgetown. Riding from south to north feels a little scary as you're descending that steep hillside above the town. But riding from town up the pass was no big deal. It felt very comfortable. I had been worried that it might scare Rayden but she didn't seem to care one bit. She just kept talking about how pretty it all was.
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| Guanella Pass road by a lake |
There was a lot of cleanup going on. We had about five sections where the road was closed to one lane and there were work crews trimming trees or clearing hillsides. None of the stops were very long and soon we had gorgeous views out across the valleys almost all the way back to Denver.
As we got near the top we came around a corner and suddenly there was a herd of about twenty bighorn sheep on the side of the road. Luckily none of them were in the road. My 360 camera was on and I tried to snap a couple of pictures. I probably just should have stopped but the sheep were in the area I would have had to pull over into and I'm sure I would have scared them off. What I really should have done was just stop in the middle of the road and take some pictures but I didn't. I'm too much of a namby pamby, follow-the-rules kind of guy I guess.
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| Bighorn Sheep |
We kept on riding up and the views kept on getting better. Soon we came out on top and were amazed at how many cars were parked all over the place. This is an incredibly popular hiking area. I pulled into the main parking lot but could see absolutely nowhere to park the bike to try to take some pictures and the roads were covered with no stopping signs. I did stop long enough to take a couple of 360 pictures and they came out pretty good.
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| Guanella Pass |
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| Another from the top of Guanella Pass |
My original plan was to stop on top and eat the snacks we bought in Georgetown but instead we kept on riding. After 10 miles or so I found a nice shady spot on the side of the road and we pulled over for a break. We got a couple of pictures and then Rayden said she thought she could hear a creek off to the side of us. I told her she could wander down there if she wanted so she did. Soon she called back that the creek wasn't very far off at all so I joined her.
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| Stopped for a snack on the way down |
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| Babbling brook in the woods |
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| Rayden |
It was a picturesque little creek running through tall pines. You could almost say it was a babbling brook because it made just the most pleasing gurgling sounds as it tumbled over the rocks.
We stayed for almost twenty minutes eating our snacks and wandering up and down the creek. We had no cell service, which made Rayden sad because she really wanted to video call her mom or dad. Finally it was time to get moving. Temperatures had continued to climb and it was now over 80°.
We finished the Guanella Pass Road all the way to Highway 285 then turned left towards Denver. Both of us were getting pretty hungry so we stopped after 20 minutes to figure out what was nearby. We rode to a couple of sandwich shops and to a burger place but they were all closed. Eventually we settled on a Mexican restaurant that had a pretty full parking lot. I usually avoid off-the-wall places with empty parking lots so this was a good sign.
They didn't have a lunch menu and all of their main entrees were $20 or more so we decided just to order a la carte. We each got two chicken enchiladas. They weren't the best I've ever had but they weren't terrible either. The final bill was only $22 so I really couldn't complain.
By the time we finished eating and got back on the bike, the temperatures were up near 90°. I really thought long and hard about our return route. I wanted to stay as high and cool as we possibly could but every way I could think of left us with half an hour to an hour of driving out on the plains in the heat.
Eventually I decided to take us down through Deckers then try to take the road over to Salida, which would leave us about a half an hour of Highway 105, which can get pretty hot. The added benefit is that Deckers has a restaurant that serves ice cream.
We turned south at Pine Junction, right by the restaurant we ate lunch at yesterday. It was still in the high 80s but wasn't too bad. The first 20 miles of the road towards Deckers is filled with small towns and cabins so the speed limit is often 30 mph, which can make for some slow riding. But eventually we got past all of that and the speed limit picked up to fifty-five.
We also gained just a little bit of elevation and the combination of cooler air and faster riding made it feel a lot more comfortable. As we approached Deckers we descend off the hillsides and the temperature shot up to 92. We pulled into the restaurant and saw not a single car in the parking lot. It wasn't that the restaurant is bad. It just wasn't open, which was very disappointing. There's also a liquor store here but the only thing they serve that I might want is ice so we didn't go in there.
We turn northwest on Highway 67, planning to go to Sedalia via a little five-mile dirt cutoff. We got about 10 miles up the road just to find out that the road is closed. There was a 20-mile dirt detour we could have taken but I had no desire to ride 20 miles of dirt so we turned around. Back at Decker's we turned south towards Woodland Park.
The temperature kept climbing and soon it was 94°. I pulled over to a little parking area in the shade and we got out to drink some water and cool off for a bit. Woodland Park isn't my favorite place for restaurants but they do have a McDonald's and McDonald's does serve ice cream so we decided to go there. As we got close to Woodland the temperature started dropping. Soon it was down to 81°. I have no idea why Deckers was so hot and Woodland Park was so cool but thank heavens it was!
We pulled into the McDonald's and ordered ice cream then sat in the cool air and enjoyed it for half an hour.
By now we were both very ready to be home and to get out of the heat. We started down Highway 83, which again is not my favorite road because of just how much traffic it gets. In fact about four years ago while riding with two friends, we got rear-ended on this road because of the traffic and inattentive drivers. I stayed in the right lane and kept a pretty good gap around me. Then we even took the Green Mountain Falls Cut-Off to avoid more of the road.
Then I took the Manitou Springs exit and we drove through Garden of the Gods. I could ride Garden of the Gods every day of the year and not get tired of it. I always go through here on my way back from Woodland Park and it didn't disappoint.
We took side roads and then Woodman Road back to Rayden's house. She was very happy to get off the bike and give her dad a big hug. Her mom was still in Milwaukee on a business trip. After we got her stuff off, I got back on the bike for the five-minute ride to my house. I was also very happy to give my wife a big hug and then to go take a nap.
