Fort Laramie, Wyoming (June 17 and 18, 2011)

We are back in Wyoming. The ride to Fort Laramie was fairly long (about 350 kilometers), as Alain had confused it with Laramie. What a surprise when we arrived in Fort Laramie! Whereas Laramie seems to be a very lively town, Fort Laramie is in the middle of the Wyoming plains and has about 300 inhabitants, no grocery store, no gas station, but 3 small restaurants and one camping located almost on the railway. It will turn out that there is a train whistling every half hour, day and night... But cheap, 10$ a night with WIFI...

We had decided to come to Fort Laramie as it had been described as the crossroads of the nation moving west...This was more than enticing for us. As America expanded westward, this outpost in the Wyoming wilderness played a crucial role in the transformation of the West, first as fur-trading center, then as military garrison. For over five decades, it was a landmark and way station for the cavalcade of trappers, traders, missionaries, emigrants, Pony Express riders,, and miners wending their way west. It was also an important staging point for the U.S. Armary in its dealings with the plains tribes displaced by migration and settlement.

On the Road Again to.... Mount Rushmore, South Dakota.

Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado (June 13-16, 2011)

We started running again. Chile and Argentina had not been good for our training, and today, no excuse... Wow ! Tough ! In Hawaii, we were running an hour almost every day and this time, we were just able to run about 35 minutes (and I had to stop a couple of times... it will be better tomorrow !)

Rocky Mountain National Park holds 72 named peaks above 12,000 feet of elevation. The first day we decided to ride the park from the southern east part on the Trail Ridge Scenic Road.

We discovered one scenery after the other. It's the middle of June and there is still a ton of snow at the top

 The elevation of the road is 12183 ft (3713 meters) at its highest point. We were told we need 2 hours to cross the park, but Alain and I took four hours to ride through the park and we didn't even reach the end. One interesting stop was the continental divide,

 which is the limit where rivers go to the Pacific and the others go to the Atlantic. At around 5 pm, we decided to turn back. This is the time when animals start going out and first,  we saw  mooses...

then elks.

The day was very windy, but nevertheless quite pleasant.

Today, we started our day by running, and no, it was not easier.. Everything hurts, but we feel good afterwards anyway. The plan is to run again tomorrow...

Our day in the park was great. We had prepared a picnic... and on our way to the picnic area, we were stopped on the road by Bighorn sheeps.

We had not seen any so far, so it was very pleasant.

We hiked a trail to a waterfall and while we were walking back, Alain turned around. To his astonishment, an elk was following us.

We were visibly in his way. Therefore, we moved to the side of the road and let him pass... He was hesitant, but in the end, he decided we were not dangerous...

...And on our way back to the camping, along the road, we had a few adult elks who were just taking it easy.

June 16 was spent taking our time and visiting Nederland. Nederland is a small village. By the way, the owner of the New Moon Bakery and Cafe, Monique, is great and the food is good!

One curiosity of thisvillage happens in March. See  Faces and Places section of our blog: The Story of the Frozen Dead Guy.

Tomorrow we are on the Road Again to...

Cripple Creek, Colorado (June 12, 2011)

Another day with blue sky. A good start for the day and we take our breakfast at the campground in the sun !

We have planned a short ride to Cripple Creek which is located at about 9400 feet. We start by visiting the Mollie Kathleen Gold Mine

, where we get to go 1000 feet underground. We climb into a cage

 (4 people and we are tight in there. You should really not be claustrophobic, as there is just room for the cage in the hole!) and start going down. It's dark and narrow ! Our guide goes through the different techniques of mining gold from 250 years ago, where they had to do everything by hand

 to the more recent techniques of drilling

using explosives . We walk through the galleries, see how they had to climb steep ladders and push heavy wagons around.

This mine has not been exploited since 1984, but in the town there is still one mine in activity.

We also visited the Pikes Peak Heritage Center as well as the District Museum. The main building of the museum, built in 1895, served as the Midland Terminal Railroad depot until 1949. Now, it's twelve rooms filled with fascinating displays of gold ore, mining equipment, Victorian period costums and furniture reminiscent of the exciting boom days of the famed gold mining district.

Cripple Creek is a village that seems to be inhabited by ghosts according to different testimonies along the years. However, one activity that seems to be predominant nowadays is the entertainment/game with the incredible number of casinos in town.

Tomorrow we are On the Road Again to... the Rocky Mountain National Park...

Royal Gorge Park and Pikes Peak, Colorado (June 9-11, 2011)

We have had better days. Two days ago, we decided to go visit the Royal Gorge Park. All the guides have noted this park to be worth visiting. In our opinion, it is very overrated and quite expensive (we paid $ 42 with a coupon of $ 8.00). It is a place where it might be interesting to go if you have kids, but when you are two adults, having a petting zoo, a so-called wild animal reserve and a reconstructed mining town is a little bit boring. Maybe we have seen too many beautiful things and are becoming difficult to please... That may be the case... The view from the bridge is pretty nevertheless.

After the visit to the park, we decided to ride on the Gold trail byway. However, the trail was not paved. After riding a few kilometers on it, I was not feeling that comfortable and told Alain I wanted to turn around. I know I have disappointed him this time, but the road was very narrow, winding and climbing. I was just wondering what to expect next and was concerned I would fall. In addition, I felt it was not a good day for me for riding. Some days, everything goes smoothly and other days, I can be tense on the bike. This was an off day for me and  just did not want to push my luck.

At the end of the day, we ended up in a KOA Campground in Colorado Springs. We would not recommend it. The tent site they allocated to us was extremely dusty. They had warned us that there were some landfill taking place very close to the tent sites. We just did not expect it to be that bad. We had trucks driving on a dirty road 15 feet behind our tent ! Just imagine the cloud of dust every time one drove by. We would have understood if the campground had been full, but this was not the case. They could have given us another site or offered a discount for the inconvenience. Nothing ! They do things ''by the book''. This is awful customer service ! KOA Campground are usually more expensive than other campgrounds, but they are always very clean, have WIFI, have a laundry room, and we think that they are the extra money. You get good value for your money ! We had an excellent KOA campground in Gunnison and Yosemite. Needless to say that both Alain and I were in a faul mood !

Therefore yesterday morning, we moved to another campground, quiet, much nicer. We set up, took a nap to compensate from the previous night and after decided to ride up Pikes Peak. Pikes Peak is situated at 14100 feet. It is not the highest mountain in the US, nor even Colorado. But it is arguably the most imposing high peak and probably the most famous. The view from the top is magnificent. However, another myth has been dissipated. When you talk to bikers, you get the feeling that Pikes Peak is a real difficult ride. We did not think so. Of course, there are not many guards on the side of the road, but the road is paved almost all the way and it is very wide. We are still happy to have been up there !

Today, we are NOT On the Road Again ! We need a day for catching up with the blog, doing the laundry, cleaning the motorcycles, reading our books, walking a little bit and just taking our time. A day for not visiting something new !
 
These are the cactus flowers we saw on the short walk of today...  Pretty, huh ?

Dinosaur Ntl Monument, Colorado Natl Monument and Black Canyon of the Gunnison, Colorado (June 4-8, 2011)

This is where we are now : Canyon City, Colorado.

We had said we would come back to Colorado and here we are.

We did not expect to come back this early, but weather being what it is up north, we may as well enjoy the good weather down south. Yes, the weather has turned around in this area and we are now very warm. Temperature reached 94 degrees fahrenheit today (34 degrees celsius). We visited the Dinosaur National Monument Park and expected to see big bones and fossils. Dinosaur National Monument takes its name from a remarkable deposit of fossil bones. Fossilized bones of crocodiles, turles and 10 species of dinosaurs have been brought to view by excavating river sediment in the 150-million-year-old Morrison formation. A little bit disappointing but a good day nevertheless of walking, motorbiking and enjoying the scenery all around.

Above is a juvenile dinosaur femur...

We spent the next 2 days in the Colorado National Monument and the Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Parks. They are both superbs but unfortunately, once we loaded the pictures on the computer we realized that the pictures don't reflect the reality. You cannot really see the depth of the canyons and the colours are not very good. Black Canyon is in particular magnificent with jaw dropping scenery. It is not very big, but should be absolutely seen if you come to this area of Colorado.

                                                       The independence monument

Colorado National Monument  preserves one of the great landscapes of the American West. It was created in 1911 thanks to the effort of John Otto.

The Black Canyon of the Gunnison is so deep, so sheer, and so narrow that very little sunlight can penetrate it. It was proclaimed a national monument in 1933 and a national Park in 1999.

We have seen many canyons during our travels, and each of them is very unique. Black Canyon of the Gunnison is made of hard rock uplited then cut through by fast-moving water. Yosemite is made of hard, river-cut rock later gouged by glaciers. Grand Canyon is made of soft, river-carved rock sculpted by erosion. They all have one thing in common though. Whenever you travel through them, you can listen to the surrounding silence, which may sometimes only be disturbed by the sound of a fly around you or by the sound of an eagle soaring way above your head. Every time, you find yourself speaking in a lower voice than usual, as you become part of the scenery.
When you travel the way we do for a long time, you talk and meet very many people on the way. It is one of our pleasure along the road, to discuss with all of them and share our experiences. Three days ago, we had met with Dave, a motorbike traveller from Australia and two days ago, we met a charming couple from West Liberty, Ohio. They are now retired and spend most of their time travelling around the United States. Hello Diana and George ! we hope you will keep travelling for a long time !

Tomorrow, we are On the Road Again...

Idaho, United States

... Three days ago, I finished my posting that saying that we were On the Road Again.... to Yellowstone National Park. Well, this was the intent.

After a comfortable night in Motel 8 in Bend, we rode up to Ontario, Oregon. Nothing special on the road. We stopped the following day in Boise to do some maintenance on Alain's bike. We met with Henry Louie, one of the owner of the BMW store. He is 83 years old and used to race motorcycles.

We are now in Idaho and honestly, neither Alain and I were expecting anything about this state. We would even have had a hard time positioning it on the United States map. Anyway, this has been a surprise, As Idaho has many scenic, historic and back country byways. We travelled through 3 of them starting with :

which takes youfrom Boise, through Idaho city to Lowman and ends in Stanley.

and we finally ended our scenic viewing with the Peaks to Craters Scenic Byway.

We had stopped last night in the city of Arco in a motel as we had decided that on our way to Yellowstone, we would stop to the Craters of the Moon National Monument.

After 2 great days of camping with a reasonable temperature, one more time today, we had snow on our way to the Craters of the Moon National Monument, and we... never made it. Too cold, too much snow... As I was riding my motorcycle through the snow this morning, I had to lift the glass of my helmet, but it was snowing so hard that it was hitting my face. I had to slow down to the first gear to be able to see... Fortunately, the visitor center of the park was opened and we took shelter for an hour or so. So this is alll we have seen of the Craters of the Moon National Monument !

So we have now decided to skip Yellowstone at least for the time being. In the end, we road over 520 kilometers today in the cold and wind... We are staying in a Motel 8 tonight in Evanston, Wyoming... Who would ever have thought we would Wyoming one day. For me, at least, it's cowboy country with the settlers and their wagons, in vast plains and buffalos and indians like below :

 In fact, these plains are high plateaus. I am not sure yet about the buffalos and indians, but will keep you posted if I see any.

By the way, today we met two wonderful ladies on a parking lot. They are travelling together in their van,  through the United States. Hello Aunt Pattie and Julie ! here you are :

Tomorrow, we are On the Road Again...