The Great Plains

I left the rest stop in the morning at about 7:30. The weather throughout the trip so far had been rainless. That's hard to beat, but what really makes good weather on the Great Plains is a lack of wind. The biggest wind that I had encountered was under 10mph. But I still had Kansas and Colorado to cross. I kept my fingers crossed.
In general the skies looked good to the west, but there was a pesky dark cloud out there about 50 to 75 miles away. The hwy first headed toward the cloud, then it would change as to miss the cloud, then back again.
I stopped in Salina, Kansas for a buck burger lunch. The rain hit while I was inside watching the weather channel on the TV. It sure enough showed a thin rain band right over Salina. When I went back out to the bike, it had about a dozen raindrops on it, and there were only clear skies to the west.....and still no wind. I was leading a charmed life.
On and on I droned. I took this picture which represents the scenery from Illinois to Denver. :D


I'd done 775 miles yesterday, and had 600 to do today to catch up on my miles. I was due at LD Walkers home this evening on the eastern edge of the Sangre de Cristo Mtn range near Westcliffe Co.
There's not much to say about todays route. I got into a zone and ticked off the miles. I called LD from somewhere to warn him and his wife, Anne, that it looked like I'd be there about 6pm.
Some 15 miles before his place, I came around a corner to find a couple cars parked with their drivers, out on the road, looking up. Well, I'll be darned, there was a herd of big horned mtn sheep about 100 feet from the road.
I pulled off and watched for a while. There were 3 or 4 cute young one jumping from rock to rock. The rest were just nibbling on bushes and not at all concerned with us. I watched and took pictures for 5 minutes or so. I'd never seen a 15 strong group of goat in the states before.




LD lives in a nice house at 9300 ft that has deer all over the place. I saw 6 deer on the way to meet LD. It was good to see LD and Anne.....oh and to get off that bike for a while. :clap
I got cleaned up before dinner. Anne put out a roast beef dinner with sweet corn and a salad. I really appreciated that as my diet had consisted mostly of noodles and burgers and granola bars.
After dinner I hooked up to LD's wifi and caught up again....and later there was a nice bed with a feather blanket.
Did you hear the one about, how do you get down off an elephant? You don't get down off an elephant, you get down off a duck. :D
We all visited in the morning. I only had to do 250 miles to the eastern edge of Colorado today. I wanted to test ride a couple of LD's bike. He has a V65 Sabre, a couple KLR 250s, and a DR650. I wanted to ride his DR to compare with my own DR350.

That was a very clean Honda Sabre......I have a couple of those at home. Well not so clean, maybe. Don't get me wrong. The Gold Wing was doing an admirable job of taking me home while it got 40mpg...... but I missed the power of the big Sabre. LD's Sabre reminded me of what I was missing. :cry
So we took the bikes out for an hours ride. I really enjoyed riding his bikes that morning, but time was getting away from me. I needed to get on the road..... I had to tear myself away from these good friends. I was on the road by 11am on the way to Paradox Co.