Dad's House Dispatch

I’m trying to think of appropriate adjectives to describe yesterday’s ride.
 
“Delightful”?
 
Yes.
 
“Magnificent”? “Majestic”?
 
Those too.
 
“Deeply satisfying to the soul”?
 
Assuming I have such a thing, or something that passes for one, yes indeed.

Day 3

I departed late in the morning, both to give the higher elevations time to warm up a bit, and to write and publish my blog. I’ve been writing “Dispatches” from my points of travel for years, partly because I’m compelled to write, but definitely so I can more vividly reminisce on them in the future. More recently, I’ve tried to do them in a timelier manner, and distribute them more widely, because I’ve grown an audience of folks who ride vicariously through me.
 
I’m gratified by your interest, thank you!
 
As expected, getting out of Fort Collins was no fun. Lots of traffic, lots of construction. But once I turned up the Poudre it was all good. I pulled over next to the river, reconfigured my thermal management, and switched on my now de-randomized iPod.
 
At sub-freeway speeds, and with wake turbulence from other vehicles rare and short-lived, I rocked up Poudre Canyon to those six repeats of Joe Satriani’s Flying In A Blue Dream. While my ride wasn’t quite as aerobatic as the wonderful fanimation at the link provided, it was…close enough!
 
The sky had been overcast down on the plains, but the Poudre was in brilliant sunshine. As I gained elevation the temperature gradually dropped into the low 50s, and by the time I neared Cameron Pass the landscape was solidly blanketed in snow.
 
But even though all my riding outerwear is summer-weight I was perfectly comfortable thanks to Freeze-Out windproof long underwear (thanks Larry for the recommendation!) and my heated hand grips. And the road was in excellent condition, and clear and dry except for occasional meltwater and patches where I’m guessing sand rather than salt had been laid down for traction.
 
Near the pass I stopped for a break.

John at Cameron Pass

As I prepared to depart, I made an unpleasant discovery.

One of my earbud tips must have popped off when I’d removed my helmet, or maybe sometime later; but despite retracing my steps to the outhouse I never found it. I’m pretty good at finding little things like that – I’ve amazed myself more than once at my ability to spot, from a moving vehicle, sometimes tiny objects on the shoulder of the road that have been inadvertently jettisoned. But these tips are pretty much the same color as the aggregate in the parking area, and also pretty much the same color as the nearby snowbanks. It was windy and the tip might have blown a long way from wherever it first came loose; possibly even underneath a lip of melting snow.
 
So, my recently-perfected moto-tuneage was now over until I could acquire a replacement tip. I checked for a Bose outlet nearby, but the closest was in Loveland and I wasn’t going that direction at all.
 
Oh well. It occurred to me that although I now would not be able to listen to my favorite musicians while riding through these mountains, Therese does have a beautiful voice, and sings very well.

Therese and the Medicine Bow Mountains. North Park.

I crested the summit and continued across the snow-covered plain of the North Park, ringed by distant snow-covered mountains in every direction. It was magical. As many times as I’ve been to Colorado, it’s always been in the summer; this was by far the most snow I’ve ever seen there. But I really should come out and ski; especially since my sister likes to ski and Dad’s house is not even half an hour from Wolf Creek Pass, which the locals in Fort Collins had assured me is an excellent set of slopes.

Park Range. North Park.

At Walden I called Dad and let him know I was on my way, and hoped to be there by dark; we could plan on dinner at Three Barrels Brewery in Del Norte.
 
I headed south. I wasn’t putting any new lines on my map, but considering I’d never ridden these roads in this direction before, let alone in the snow, it was as if I was riding the territory for the first time. And the bugs were basically gone; my helmet visor remained blissfully transparent for unusually long stretches.
 
“Fast” is another appropriate adjective for the day’s ride. Until I got to Silverthorne, and especially before Muddy Pass, I had the road mostly to myself. Even though the scenery was spectacular I couldn’t afford to stop for pictures, or any other reason; I really did want to get done by dark and I knew that, like the previous two days, I’d spend the last bit of it staring into the westering sun.
 
I cruised up to Leadville…

From Leadville, CO.

…then down into the valley of the Arkansas River. To my right were more than a dozen awesome snow-covered “fourteeners” of the Sawatch Range, while along the river the brilliant yellow leaves of the cottonwoods provided the first serious autumn color I’d seen on the trip.
 
At Salida I checked that the Thai Mini Café was still open, and apparently doing good business; but I didn’t have time to stop.
 
As I gassed up the wind coming north from Poncha pass was stiff; a lady from Amsterdam (and more recently from Las Vegas…she said with a grimace) had just come from the sand dunes on the eastern edge of the San Luis Basin, and had narrowly avoided two massive storms there. But when I finally crested the pass and could see out into the basin it was obvious that any severe weather was now far to the south and east.
 
Aside from the return of bug-splatters with a vengeance (it was warm and crop harvesting was in full swing), I had a clear (and flat and straight) ride to Dad’s house. I rolled up with a few minutes of daylight to spare, stopping just short of his driveway to watch a gigantic full moon emerge from the clouds on the eastern horizon.