New Object of Desire!

Since acquiring my 'scoot', back in May, I've been bitten by the two wheel bug really, no, REALLY bad!

We love exploring downtown with the scoots without having to worry about parking(both spaces and cost), as we can park them anywhere you park a regular bicycle. 90+MPG helps too and has us both using our car/truck a lot less. In fact, I've gone from filling the Subaru up weekly to once every 2 or 3 weeks (that will change once the snow starts to fly). And, while Laura needs the f-250 to transport the horse around, it's just not practical around downtown.

But, I have a need, a need to go 2 wheeling up into the mountains, on those twisty roads and on the freeways! The scoots, even though they'll do 55-60, just are not meant for serious highway travel.

So, I've got my eye on one of these:

It's the 2009 f 650 GS; A 'dual sport' bike meant for urban commuting and 'light' off road use like dirt and fire roads that are so prevalent up in the mountains!

I don't have a lot of experience with 'real' motorcycles, so I'm taking a basic rider course the 3rd week of September to give me the basic info I need to get started and to get my motorcycle endorsement on my driver license.

So, I need to start saving my pennies. Hopefully, I can get this by next spring. Now the real question....How do I get a rack like the one below??



-Rich-

On top of the World....

....at least as close as I've ever been!

One day after getting the stitches out and being cleared by the doctor, we had scheduled to go up to Salida and bike the Continental Divide, also known as the Monarch Crest trail!

We really love Salida, in the banana belt of the mountains, the weather always seems to be fabulous there! We found these great little cabins along the Arkansas river to stay. The activities around the area are endless; superb biking, hiking, horse back riding, rafting, hot springs and unique little restaurants. We went up with our friends David and Aliza.

The girls dropped us off at the top of Monarch Pass where our adventure would begin. The girls had their own plans....



...they rented ATV's to ride some of the very same trail we were going to ride but we had nearly 30 miles to go before we would meet up with them!


We started at 11,300', but our goal was 12,600; So the trail started out with a 3.5 mile climb to get us to the summit! I've gotten a lot better at climbing at altitude in the past year, but still have a lot of trouble over 10,000'. This is only the second time I have ridden my bike at this elevation. The views all around us were amazing! Here is David making his way towards the summit.


Almost there! That peak just to my left at 12,600'. The landscape up that high isn't much more then granite. The sun was intensely hot but we had a very cold stiff wind I guess had to be over 20 mph! We spent the next 12 miles going in and out of the treeline between 10,000 and 12,000 feet. The terrain kept changing from the open, rocky area you see here to dense, twisty forest with pine needle lined trail. It for a fantastic bike ride with a little bit of everything thrown in to keep you on your toes!

Here is a poorly drawn graphic of our general path in and out of the treeline as we made our way back down from the summit.



We made our decent along, and sometimes in, the Silver creek. Near the end of the ride, a blazing fast 5 mile 4X4 road(I saw 32 mph on the computer) back into town, we ran into these 2 crazy girls on quads!

We knew they would riding some of the same trail, but we never figured we'd actually run into them out there!

The girls' had a blast on the quads and they were glad they chose the non guided tour so they go where they wanted....as fast as they wanted :)




We finished the day with a fabulous dinner at the Laughing Ladies in downtown Salida, and a long hot tub. This was my first big epic ride, nearly 5 hours, since we moved here....and I can't wait to do another one!

-Rich-

Lame!

There has not been a lot to post lately! A few days before the DNC started here, I took a pretty serious spill over the handlebars of my mountain bike, cutting open my left shin. The gash was big enough to lay your thumb into, and a little longer then the typical thumb(I'll spare you any pictures)!

Besides the 18 stitches in my shin, I had a huge egg sized knot on my calf, behind the cut,(from the bike crashing down on top of me I'm sure) that made it nearly impossible to walk for 5 days.

So, the labor day holiday was a pretty quite one around here. We did manage to 'scoot' downtown to the Taste of Colorado for some tasty treats and good music! We were treated to a free concert by John Waite (Babies in the 70's, solo artist 80's, Bad English 90's).

Now that the stitches are out, it's time to get back at it and do some things to blog about ;)

Rich

Is it Time for Change?

It was a long, crazy and amazing day! I got the pictures' uploaded, but have too much going on right now to do a full write up. In the meantime, you can go to our smugmug site and view the pictures.

rolo2point0.smugmug.com

Either Laura or I will get you the full write up soon! I'll say this; The energy in the stadium was amazing...

I think change is in the air!

Rich

From DNC

Greetings from the security line at Invesco Field for Barack Obama's
acceptance speech!

We were not lucky enough to win the ticket lottery, but it's good to
have relatives in high places ;)

I'll bet the line is a mile long. More as we get in!

sent from Rich's iPhone

UPDATE- We got through the line in about an hour and half. The cell networks were pretty much overloaded and all the signals mixing around the stadium from the media made any updates impossible. The mood and energy in the stadium was unbelievable!

Look for an update once I sort through and post some pictures. Rich

Long time, no update

Yes, we've been lame with our updates, so I'll have to put a few events into one blog.

About two weeks ago we had so much fun at Beaver Creek that we took our friends David & Aliza up there. Aliza & I went on an "advanced" horseback trail ride. The advanced part meant that we loped (went faster than usual) and did some steep terrain. The boys took their bikes for some chairlift mountain biking, but only got 2 runs in before a thunderstorm closed the lifts. Here's a picture of David's bike riding the chairlift:














Last weekend Rich went on a bike ride and I went to Lafayette to chase cows. Little Horse does pretty well at anything I toss at her, but she REALLY loves cows! I work on walking her around them so she doesn't always think she has to run after them. But if my heels just brush her sides (or I even think about going faster), she's off like a racehorse and I'm hanging on because she'll turn on a dime to keep with a cow.

Last week we finally got to do something I've been wanting to do since we moved here....go to Water World!!! We thought we'd wait until Labor Day last summer, to avoid the crowds, but they closed on Labor Day! So this time we went after most schools had started, but before the park closed. We read up on tips on my favorite review site, Yelp. We learned to bring water shoes to avoid our feet getting torn up on the cement. They got torn up anyway, but we had fun. It was a beautiful, 80 degree sunny day. There were all kinds of rides and hardly any lines. We spent about 4 hours there, including lunch, then came home and took naps. These things take a lot out of us!

We were going to do the Monster Scooter Ride, sponsored by a local scooter store today, but it's been in the low 50's and raining since Thursday night, so the ride was cancelled. We're loving the cool temps, but we're getting a little tired of all the rain. It hasn't rained this much since April of last year. The news said we've gotten more rain than we have for April-July....combined! Guess the dry spell is over.

Below I've posted some pics from our day at Water World:






-Laura

Impromptu Weekend Getaway -or-

Rich Can Ride a Horse too!

Last weekend it hit 101 both Saturday and Sunday in downtown Denver. Laura and I wanted to escape the heat, so we drove up to Beaver Creek ski area. Neither one of us had ever been to Beaver Creek in the summer. We'd only been there in the winter for skiing.


The place looks a lot different in the summer. The lifts were running hikers and bikers up to the top. Man, I wished I had brought my bike! We're talking about going back next weekend with some friends to do some downhill biking! This time, however, we came to ride horses. After hanging out in the village during the day, we decided to do an early evening dinner at Beano's Cabin.



During ski season, you take a horse drawn sleigh up the mountain to the cabin. Today we were taking a 45 minute horse ride up to the top where a fabulous dinner awaited us. Laura had been to Beano's, on a family ski trip, quite a few years ago. So, she knew we were in for a great meal!

The plan was to spend Saturday night in Eagle (WAY less expensive then staying in BC!) and get an early start, Sunday morning, to the 4 Eagle Ranch, where we were going to do a cattle drive.

Laura, myself and our "wrangler" Hannah had the job of finding the cattle herd (somewhere out on 500+ acres) and getting the group of 50 head back to the ranch where they would be checked out.

It took us about an hour to find the herd up on top of a mesa sunning themselves. Most were laying down and not too happy to see us! Our first priority was to get them all up and headed into the general direction of the ranch.

Hannah is supervising me grouping the herd together!

Below, is my view from the cockpit as I trot the stragglers to keep up with the rest of the herd.

Laura guides the herd towards a watering hole, before moving them towards the ranch.

Hannah got this shot of us as we waited for the herd to get their drinks in before making our final push to the holding pen.

The cattle drive was a great experience! With Laura's help(remember, she took a herding clinic back in June) I almost looked like I knew what I was doing. She used plates and salt and pepper shakers, back at Beano's, to demonstrate how to approach the herd and individual cattle to get them to move the way you want. The tips worked like a charm too!

Stay tuned for downhill mountain biking from Beaver Creek, next weekend.

-Rich-