Day 28 - August 19, 2013

All photos above are of the Rockies, 

in Southwest Wyoming.

Day twenty eight.  All is well.  Southwest Wyoming.

Much of today was spent traveling through the arid high deserts of parts of Idaho and Utah, before arriving in Southwest Wyoming late in the day.

The weather was hot (mid-90's) and dry much of the day, but at the end of the day there was a rare summer rain along I-84 after entering Wyoming.

Traffic has not been bad.  The Interstate speed limit in Idaho was/is 65 mph, while Utah and Wyoming have Interstate speed limits of up to 75 mph.

I passed parts of the what was the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail (dating from the early 1800's to about 1869).  It is difficult to imagine the difficulties faced by those brave souls that travel this route, and other routes west, in heavy wagons, pulled by oxen and draft horses, at best.  There are a number of museums and interpretive centers along my route of travel and I was fortunate enough to spend some time in one of these.

My day was long, starting early and finishing late, but not all of this was on the bike.  All parts were good.

Another good day.

Day 33 - August 24, 2013

Day thirty three.  All is well.  I returned home.

Today was the last day of a long journey, a trip for which I had prepared for many months.  I enjoyed today and the last thirty two days very much.

Another good day.

Day 32 - August 23, 2013

A view of the Arkansas River

Day 32.  All is well.  Overnight in Conway, Arkansas. 

Today was mostly spent riding the bike.  I stopped more frequently today, for shorter periods of time, than most days riding, in part because it was hot.  Traffic was heavier, and road construction was at many locations along my route.

This is my last night on the road before my I arrive from whence I came, a little over one month and over 8,000 miles ago.  I am not physically tired, but I am somehow mentally tired.  I paced myself from the beginning.  I knew from the onset that it was a long journey, with many miles and many days on the bike. The pace was correct for me.

I will add one more post tomorrow evening and end this blog.

All is well.

Day 31 - August 22, 2013

Although the trail is nearly two hundred years old the scarring of the earth in this 

area was so severe that there are still tracks visible in this low, often marshy ground. 

The scarring is more visible in person, but it is difficult to see in this photo.

Dodge City, Kansas, a re-created attraction that offers all of the 

stores along a historic Dodge City Main Street, to include the Long Branch Saloon....

. . . which still serves beer to those so inclined.  I had one.

Boot Hill was also re-created.

Day thirty one.  All is well.  Overnight Wichita, Kansas.

" . . . and for three hours the Arkansas was filled with the buffalo, crossing so fast that they could not stop to drink, they should be overwhelmed by the crowd thronging behind."  Matt Hill from On The Santa Fe Trail, a collection of Matt Hill's journal entries from his 1839 trip along the Santa Fe Trail.  

Some estimates place the total number of buffalo in North America in 1800 at 70 Million.  One herd just south of Dodge City, Kansas was estimated at 4 million.  By 1890 there were less than 1,000 buffalo left.

As I traveled today and yesterday, across the great grasslands of plains of Colorado and Kansas it was/is easy to see how this extensive land with the prairie grasses that covered it at that time could support the numbers estimated.  For many hundreds of miles, just in these two states alone, there were/are expansive grass lands.

As I traveled further east the amount of cultivation along the route increased, and the dry, brown grasses became less brown, and finally green, and trees began to appear more naturally.  Irrigation is still necessary for much of the crop land.  Sorghum is a major crop, and more abundant as the greening commenced, to feed the thousands upon thousands of cattle being "feed out" at the hundreds of feed lots across southeastern Colorado and Kansas.

Yesterday and today as I traveled in the open air on the bike, getting all of the smells up close and personal, I thought of a story attributed to a Texas rancher, that someone asked him, "What is that smell?".  In response the rancher took a prolonged and deep breath and said, "That is the smell of money".  Feed lots. There are thousands of cattle in these numerous lots across southeastern Colorado and much of Kansas. The smell of cattle feed lots permeates the air, and is stronger in areas where there are larger or numerous feed lots. The whole of the downtown area where I stayed last night in Lamar, Colorado had that smell. The name of the hotel was fittingly called The Cow Palace.

Dodge City, Kansas (pop. 27,340) is a city of legend and lore, made so in part by books, movies, and of course TV.  Marshall Matt Dillon, Doc Adams, and Miss Kitty existed only on TV, but Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, and other lesser names often attracted national media attention for their exploits, embellished by the writers of dime novels which were popular in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  In the later 1800's Dodge City was a frontier town, complete with cowboys with six guns, where the saloons were wide open saloons.  It was geographically located to attract a wide range of colorful individuals, and it did.

Wyatt Earp Boulevard is Dodge City's main thoroughfare, running right through the middle of town.  Dodge City is a modern small town, with the conveniences expected in a city of its size.  It is still a railroad town that traces its growth to the railroad center of its early days and the Santa Fe trail before that.  

There was too much to see for the limited time I set aside to be there.

Another good day.

Day 30 - August 21, 2013

This photo was representative of the view from the highway

most of today.  This is high prairie grassland, with some planted crops

and cattle grazing.  Most cattle are in feed lots. 

 A view of the many wind turbines along the route.

Kt Carson, Colorado.  Pop. 344.  The sign on the local museum

provides the distance to Denver and Kansas City.

A view of the road.  The road, as the flat open land, appears endless.

Another view showing a few of the wind turbines along my route of travel.

Day thirty.  All is well.  In southwest Colorado.

Today I followed secondary roads through Colorado, ending the day in Lamar, Colorado, which is approximately 30 miles west of the Kansas-Colorado state line on US 50.  US 50 tracks the Santa Fe Trail. In the early 1800's it was the connecting route from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico.  In the late 1800's the Union Pacific followed the same route, and later Highway US 50 did the same.

My travels today have been across high prairie grasslands.  This land was once covered by buffalo.  A history of the town of Kit Carson, Colorado includes the story of a Russian Archduke guided by General George Armstrong Custer killing a buffalo when the town was surrounded by buffalo.

Kit Carson, Colorado was founded in 1838, and took the name of the famous Kit Carson (He would live another 30 years from the founding.).  There is no record of Carson ever being in the town that still bears his name.  Since it was a railroad terminus for a brief time it was a wild place, with saloons, six guns, shootings, and even a lynching. Today it is a wide spot, with very few businesses, and not even a stop light.  It seemed interesting, the name was a curiosity, and they had a nice old depot for a museum...so I stopped.  This was my second visit to Kit Carson in the last four years, but my first time to find the museum open.  Bought a T-Shirt.

The elevation from my start of the day was just over 5,000 feet.  Lamar's elevation is 3,625, and it continues to drop as I travel east.

The land is semi-arid, and there is cultivation of the land, often with the assistance of irrigation.  There were/are very few small towns along the route, and only a couple of slow-down areas in the last two hundred miles. The photos included  represent most of the landscape, although there were a few areas of very low rolling hills.

I do not know the size of the wind turbines photographed, but they are huge.  A quick search showed that the average height for new wind turbines is 275' and the rotor diameter is 308' (Recall that a football field is 300'.)  One source said that a wind turbine that produces 2 MW of electricity cost $3-4 Million (I know ...a large range.) as an installed price.  There were hundreds of these along my route of travel today.  There were a few not turning, but nearly all were...clockwise.

And it was hot today.  Like yesterday.  Since this was a scheduled short day for me I missed the long ride in the hot sun....but I was there long enough.

Another good day.

Day 29 - August 20, 2013

Photos of the high deserts of Wyoming.  However, photos of Idaho, Utah, and Colorado, all of which I passed through look similar.  Those are snow fences you see in the photos.  The highest elevation posted where I crossed on I-80 was 8,323 feet.

Day twenty nine.  All is well.  Overnight in Colorado.

Most of the day was spent riding the bike, with most travel on the Interstate.  I tried some of the secondary roads, but the roads were/are bad (generally), and mostly the secondary roads did not go in the direction I wanted to go.  And, riding some of the non-interstate roads on a motorcycle can be treacherous, because the roads are often in a bad state of repair, and unpredictable.  

My only side trip today was a brief stop in Laramie, Wyoming (pop. 30,000) which is home of the University of Wyoming, both of which are at about 7,200 feet elevation.  The University of Wyoming has one of the neatest helmet logos of any college athletic programs, a cowboy on the back of a bucking mustang. Their student athletes are cowboys, or cowgirls, and they play football in a stadium with a wonderful name, War Memorial Stadium (which seats more than the population of Laramie).  Of course the opinion about the helmet logo is mine, but Sports Illustrated agreed.  In one of Sports Illustrated's many surveys they ranked UW's helmet logos number three.  UW plays Division I football, and that number three ranking is probably as high of a national ranking their football program (or any of the major programs) will ever get.  Just fact.

Laramie, Wyoming was famous for its lawlessness, dating back to its founding in 1868, when the Union Pacific Railroad used it as the end point (lasted 6 months) for their part of the building of the first transcontinental railroad.  The reputation was earned.  Although my visit was brief, and my search was briefer, I found nothing in the town that represented its history of books and movies fame. 

More than 48% of Wyoming is owned by the U.S. government.  Another 6% is owned by the state government.  It is the second lowest (behind Alaska) for population density, and last for total population at 576,000.  

The most populous city in Wyoming is Cheyenne, with 60,000 people.

The interstates on which I traveled today did not have a lot of traffic.  The speed limit was/is 75 mph.  Most cars and trucks were traveling at greater speeds.  The big trucks were not.  The truck drivers were for the most part struggling to get up the mountains, where there were mountains, and cautious of their speed on the descents. 

Tomorrow I am off the interstate.  I find it more interesting when not traveling on the interstate if it works out, but often it just does not.

Another good day.

Day 27 - August 18, 2013

All photos are of the Columbia River Gorge area, which stretches 80 miles as the 

Columbia River winds westward through the Cascade range, forming the boundary 

between the state of Washington to the north and Oregon to the south.

Day twenty seven.  All is well.  Southwest Oregon.

I have begun my return home.

It was the Missouri River that Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery navigated from St. Louis, Missouri to Great Falls, Montana, and back again.

It was the Columbia River that Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery navigated from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, and back again.  Going west the current made the men joyous, and they marveled at the swiftness as they recalled the struggles they had with a strong current going up the Missouri River.

My travels last month and today took me over land for large sections of the same countryside, while often overlooking the one of mighty rivers.

The Columbia is now dammed.  I saw two dams today.  But in many ways, the river and the surrounding terrain look the same as it did over two hundred years ago.

The Columbia River and the 80 miles of the Columbia Gorge are wondrous natural phenomena.

The countryside surrounding the Columbia for the first 75 miles from the west is a temperate rain forest, with 75-100 inches of rain per year.  After 75 miles the landscape becomes stark and arid, with barren lands, and mountains as high as 4,000 feet on both sides, and rainfall of 10-15 inches per year.

The ride was great, with my eyes taking in the expansive countryside all around me.

Another good day.