Inspiration.
That’s what I’m looking for, it’s what I need. 50+ hours per week, I work for Cisco. When I’m not sitting at my desk or visiting with a partner, I’m usually thinking about them. I’ve been on vacation now for 3 days and they still find their way into my thoughts. In the big picture does it really matter? When my story has been told, what will my children and grand children remember about me? He was a hard worker? He provided for us, but was never around? He never truly connected with me? These are the things I think about. 50 years from now when my grand children have their own and they see this picture of me, I hope they remember that I tried to live life to it’s fullest.[simage=30,320,n,right,]
Inspiration. I did find some today. I found it out there on a back road, riding a motorcycle in God’s creation. He showed me just how small I am. The mountains, the rivers, the plains, the colors, the smells, the wind in my face, the rain stinging my cheeks, the cold freezing my hands, and the creatures in the wild all worked together to wake me up.[simage=31,320,n,left,] To show me that there is so much more to life than what I’ve been doing the last 10 years. I thanked him for the beautiful woman riding with me, I thanked him for my beautiful children and their spouses, I thanked him for my parents and grandparents who’ve helped me along the way to become the man I am. I thanked him for the family and friends he continues to bless me with. Everyone needs a wake up call now and then. I’m glad I finally got mine. How will this change me? I’m not sure, but hopefully you will see it next time I see you.
Today we rode roughly 150 miles from Ouray, Co to Moab, UT. Great ride and I’ll catch you up after we talk about Los Alamos, NM to Ouray. We ate breakfast at a coffee shop next door to the Blue Window Bistro from the night before. It was some of the best Chorizo I’ve ever had. The coffee was pretty good as well. You can’t go wrong with a local place. I’ll take one over IHop any day of the week. We headed back down the twisty mountain road and then headed north. 45 – 55 mph for the next two hours due to tribal lands. Ok, I get it. I go slow in my neighborhood, so no reason to speed through yours. But when it’s a 4 lane road that’s 25 miles long, straight, and no neighborhoods let me go 65, OK? No it’s not OK and I didn’t do that, but I sure wanted to. Our route took us through Chama, NM so we stopped and checked it out. We went into a cafe called the Rail-yard or something similar. I felt like it was a tourist place, but they fixed me a passable green chile cheeseburger. I started to take a picture of it, but noticed someone griping about food pictures on facebook a couple of days ago, so decided to forgo it. From there it was more of West Texas type terrain. Lots of open fields and scrub. We stopped in Pagosa Springs, CO for gas and continued to Durango. We had gotten small taste of what was in store for us just north of Chama as we entered Colorado. The trees we varying shades of yellow, red, and green. Once we cleared Durango (as painful as Santa Fe) we were treated to extreme colors of fall. We were talking about how beautiful it all is and I realized I’ve never truly seen the colors of fall. This is something I definitely want to see more of. [simage=32,320,n,right,]At times on the “Million Dollar Highway” if felt like we were gliding through a kaleidoscope. The trees were arched over the road and the colors were breathtaking. But enough of this touchy feely stuff! The road was awesome and commanded respect. As we started climbing toward Silverton, I kept going slower and slower. The temp was in the low 40′s, I was freezing and there was no place to pull off! The sheer drops off the side of the road made me want to ride the center line, but on the blind turns I had to venture over to the ride side of the lane. Why you might ask? Because there were plenty of people on this road who believed they were expert drivers. They were so good, that when they went into a tight hairpin turn on the side of a mountain, they came over the center stripe into my lane! I’ve never seen so many wannabe drivers. Regardless, we got to a viewing area with a nice parking lot and pulled over a few miles from Silverton. We finally got to put on some hoodies under our leathers and warm up a bit. While I was arranging my gear, another fellow on a Harley rode up. He had been planning on riding to Silverton, but got so cold that he was turning back. We were watching what looked like a pretty nice snow storm on the top of the mountains we could see. Phyllis and I got back on the road with our hoodies and leathers on and the cold wasn’t quite so bad. We rode into Ouray just before dark and after a nice dinner, settled in for the night.
This morning, we rode into town to get her some breakfast. We spoke to a guy who said the snow was on it’s way, so decided that we needed to get out as quickly as possible. On the ride into Ouray, I had been so focused on the road that I really didn’t get to enjoy the scenery. On our way out, we went past Telluride and there was plenty to be seen. The fall colors along with the added white snow on the peaks really made for some scenic riding. Once we made the pass and the peaks were out of sight, it was more high plains for awhile. Then we started getting into the canyons and lot’s of signs stating that the area we were in was “open grazing”. Nice. We were headed for the CO/UT border and the road I took was rough in spots, but also had spots that were fixed. The problem with the new patchs of road, is that they had a nice layer of mud on them as well. We dealt with that for about 50 miles as we made our way to the bottom of Paradox Valley. Of course once you make it to the bottom, you have to work your way back up and out. Back and forth around the sides of the cliffs to get over the pass. Repeat to get down. We stopped at the bottom and took a picture of the Welcome sign. We milled around a bit and then headed for the red rocks of Utah. We had been riding for maybe 30 seconds and Phyllis let me know that she had dropped the camera on the road. Its a little worse for wear, but still works! We rode through La Sal before picking up 191 into Moab. We checked into the hotel, went for some lunch and a walk on main street before coming back to the hotel. Phyllis needed a nap and it’s raining in Moab.