the Apeironian

Heartland -> West Coast (almost)

I’ve been putting this off for a few days, so It’s going to be kind of long. I’ll try to keep the information to word count ratio as high as possible.

MONDAY

Left North Platte in 40 degrees armed with my new $1 Wal Mart long underwear top, headed towards Denver. The temperature failed to improve, and it started to drizzle. I was, as expected, freezing the the ol’ n*ts off. I reached Colorado, but the weather didn’t get any better. This caused me to belligerently increase my rate of travel (in the hope that the increased friction of the wind on my hands would cause them to warm up), with which Colorado’s finest were thoroughly and enthusiastically unimpressed. Luckily, the bucket of change I cashed in before I left more than paid for this little fiasco.

In retrospect, it turns out I rolled through Denver mere hours after they received about 9 inches of snow. I’m not sure where all of it went, because there was only a trace on the ground when I got there. In fact, it was in Denver that I finally started to thaw out a bit. From there I went south, and eventually made it to Trinidad, CO.

I walked around town, cruisin’ for some grub, and located a fairly righteous mexican restaurant, at which I procured an enormous beef and potato burrito (at the recommendation of the waiter). The establishment had a sauce hotness description page on their menu. I ordered it medium. It made me cry a little bit.

TUESDAY

Tuesday was the biggest total miles day. 563 miles from Trinidad CO to Flagstaff AZ. I don’t have a ton to report from this day, except that it got deliciously warmer as I headed south and west. Long day of riding.

WEDNESDAY

After droning down the highways for several days, and being within spitting distance from the west coast, I decided to treat myself to a more scenic and recreational riding experience. I headed south and west from Flagstaff towards Sedona. This brought me through Oak Creek Canyon, which is a beautiful red rock canyon, accessed by a ridiculous series of switchbacks that made for a challenging and intense ride. Here’s a little media:

Here’s the google map of the road heading down into the canyon. Yowza!

Here’s a couple panoramas from the top of the canyon:

From there I continued along 89A southwest through Cottonwood, Jerome, and Prescott. Here’s a google map of the road going down the mountain south of Jerome:

And the panorama from Jerome:

Needless to say, the riding yesterday was [explitive]ing SPECTACULAR! The mountain roads were incredible, challenging, and awesome.

After the mountains, I headed for I-10, which took me straight to Indio, where I eventually located my Uncle Terry’s place within the maze of gated community homogeneity. I wasn’t even off the bike before he handed me a chilled beverage, and happy hour subsequently ensued. Then we came back to his place, where we grilled steaks and hung out. His buddy Ken from Big Sky is also visiting. Separate incidents.

Today I’m taking it easy. Went for a run, hit the pool, and currently gearing up for some mexican food. Tomorrow I’m planning to swing over to visit Brian in Irvine, then on Saturday I’ll meet Evan and the dudes at Marina Del Rey (near Santa Monica). I’m a little worried about a tapping noise the bike engine is making – might end up having to check the valve clearances and the timing chain tension, but I hope not because that’s kind of a major deal, as I understand it.

Anyway, here’s a sampling of photos from this latest batch: