Back on the road for a while

Saturday, July 5th - Plan X - Nebraska, Wyoming and then into Colorado

Nicholas "channeling" Lincoln at the
Nebraska state capital

It has been a while since our last post.  We turned right from Livingston, MT and made it Custer SD.  We took a day to take in a few of the sights such as Mt. Rushmore, the Crazy Horse mountain sculpture and a dirt road bike ride through Custer State Park.  Then we headed east by south-east to central MO.

We spent a week in the area visiting Ted's mom and dad several times along with our other relatives.  Given our best assessment of the Ted's mom's situation, we decided we would take a meandering trip back to NM with our nephew.  Ted and Nicholas will return to MO in mid-July, or at least that is the current thought.

Without much of a real plan, we left Jefferson City, Mo around 10:30 and headed  west by northwest toward Nebraska. We drove to Lincoln to see the capital.   After a very quick look around (we arrived 4 minutes before closing) we continued west to Grande Island and Hall County Park for the night - a very nice county run park and campground.  Being Saturday of a holiday weekend we were glad to get the last RV spot and have the electricity to run the air conditioner all night since it was hot and muggy.

Sunday, July 6th - Bean "ear"... done swat.

Corn and more corn in the plains of Nebraska

Now that we have our driver back, we were up early to get a cooler start to biking.  As with last summer we planned to start off and have Nicholas follow us after his early morning run.  As we headed out of the park we saw a pair of wild turkeys with 8 to 10 babies.  What a nice way to start the morning.  Then it was nothing but flat, flat, hot, humid riding with only corn and soy bean fields.  We tried to break the monotony with "corny" jokes.  We rode the tandem for almost 40 miles and just before stopping, Beth scored a Nebraska license plate along the side the road!  Then Ted switched to the single and rode another 14 with Nicholas. Nicholas continued on alone for another 16.   Total riding for the day:   Nicholas 30.1, Beth 39.8 and Ted 53 miles.  We can officially check off Nebraska from our list of states where we have ridden the bike... July was NOT the best choice, but it is done.

If you have ever wondered where the Cabela's flagship store and corporate headquarters are located, we can answer that question for you.... Sydney, NE.  Yes, Sydney, NE, population 6800 is the headquarters for outdoor retailing giant, Cabela's, with sales over $2B/year.  Not quite Walmart and Bentonville, AR, but not bad for a little town in the middle of nowhere in western Nebraska.

After riding and lunch, it was back into the RV for the drive to Cheyenne, WY.  We stopped at WYO RV

Beth adds to the license plate collection

park about 12 miles east of Cheyenne for the night.

Monday, July 7th - Another day, another state capital
We got in another early morning 20 mile "out-and-back" ride while Nicholas did his run.  The ride was one we had looked for when we were riding across Kansas last summer.  We rode west toward Cheyenne into a pretty stiff head wind and on the return ride it was clear sailing at 30 mph with the tail wind from the west. That was the wind I had planned on last summer, but never materialized in Kansas.

Then it was on to the state capital in Cheyenne for a quick visit.  Between the trip last summer and this week, we have hit OR, ID, MT, CO, WY and NE.  Nicholas was adding them up the other day to see how many he have left to visit.  I think he has visited 15, so it will take a few more summers to complete that project. He really needs a trip to the east coast...

On the way to Rocky Mt. National Park west of Loveland, CO, we took care of mailing packages (Ted took off with Beth's mom's car keys), propane, groceries and gassing up before we headed into the mountains.  We checked into our campsite at Glacier Basin inside the national park, then decided we would ride back into Estes Park for dinner.  It was only 9 miles back to town, but it meant an 1800' climb back to our campsite.  Amazingly enough the ride back went pretty fast and everybody felt pretty good... the legs are starting to get back into shape!

Tuesday, July 8th - Back in the mountains and cool nights

Nicholas, Ted and Beth at Bear Lake

We had planned to do a quick ride to the end of the Bear Lake road, only 4 miles and about 800' of climbing and then head for the highest continuously paved section of road in the country, Highway 34 from Estes Park to Grand Lake, CO.  However, the mountains were socked in, so we did our short ride and then hiked to Mills Lake.  The clouds broke during our hike and the lake was gorgeous.  Then back to the RV and the drive to Grand Lake over Hwy 34.  The views along this road are spectacular as you ride the ridge of the mountain for about 10 miles at about 12,000'.  Beth and I rode this 2 years ago on the tandem, part of it in a hail storm.  My eyes were pretty well fixed on the road which has quite a few shear drops and no guard rails.  So it was nice to see it again!

We spent the night in an RV park in Grand Lake and plan to hang out here today with a short bike ride to keep the legs loose.  Tomorrow we plan to drive to Mt Evans, just west of Denver where Nicholas and Ted will tackle the highest paved road in North America, 14,265' above sea level.  We'll start at the Mt Evans National Wilderness Area road entrance and ride to the top from there... 14.4 miles and 3554' of climbing. Just like climbing Sandia Crest in ABQ, only 3500' higher from start to finish!

Mills Lake - Rocky Mountain National Park