Last day in Denver.....

We woke this morning to another sunshiny Denver day!  We moseyed down to the restaurant to meet Bill, Sue, and Ron for breakfast. They were already there waiting for us.  The waitress came by to give us coffee and water and she called Ron "Brian"!  I thought I may have just heard her wrong.  She was quite chatty and fun and called Ron "Brian" about 5 more times!  Bahahahaha!  We all just went along with it!  We opted for the breakfast buffet again since it was so yummy the day before.  I didn't partake in the evil jalapeño-laden sausage gravy this time.  No way!  Poor Bill came back with some on his plate.  (We don't call him "Just Plain Bill" for nothing!)  I warned him!  He took a bite anyway.  His reaction?  He reminded me of Tom Hanks in "Big" when he ate the caviar at the party!  HAHAAHAAAAHAhaaaa!!!!  The stuff was all over his bacon and potatoes so he had to scrap the whole plate and get a new one. He also made sure to have our waitress pass along to the chef that it was waaaay too spicy.  

We formulated a riding plan over breakfast and our fun, chatty waitress gave us her input.  We opted to head through Boulder and on into Estes Park. She told us that the Elk were close to their "bugling" days. They "bugle" during rut and we may get lucky enough to hear them!  She also said they have the right of way on the roads.  (Like I would challenge an Elk!). She said that you have to stop and let them cross.  Like a magical crosswalk!  No serving around them or you get a big fine!  

So on we went!  Estes Park was beautiful!  It's home to the Stanley Hotel...from "The Shining". (I have not seen that movie!  For real!)  I even saw Elk for the first time ever!  

The ride up and back was amazing!  Great weather, too.  Lots of motorcycles out and about!  I snapped a few good shots!  

After a beautiful day of riding we returned to the hotel to get cleaned up.  We had plans to meet our friends Kelly and Jay for dinner!  And Sue's high school pal was joining us too!  We met up at a place called The Hornet. 

PHENOMENAL food!  Small world time.....Bill & Sue bought Kelly's family's house in Solon!  And Kelly went to school with Sue's younger sister!  And that night was the first time they met!  Between all us gals it was like old Solon night!  Tom & Jay talked cop stuff and swapped stories. Jay had some pretty crazy tales to tell.  Unfortunately we had to call it an early night.  We had to get back to the hotel with enough time to do laundry before going to bed!  

We rode back to the hotel and gathered our dirty stuff.  We hung out by the pool while the washing machine was doing it's thing. Check out this sign by the pool.....

BAHAHAHAAAAAAhahaaaa!  Too funny!  I can only imagined what happened to prompt them to put this up!

After doing 2 loads, Tom & I head back up in the elevator with arms full of folded clothes.  A young guy gets on with us and eyes up what we're carrying. "Are you guys staying here long?" he asks!  I can imagine that it looks like we're living in this hotel with all these folded clothes!  We explained that we're on a motorcycle trip for over 2 weeks so we have to do laundry when we can!  

I gotta apologize....I'm a day behind!  We left Denver this morning and had an AMAZING ride through the Rockies and into Moab, Utah.  

I'll write more about today and tomorrow...tomorrow!  

Stay tuned!

Saturday in the Mile High City

Saturday morning in Denver!  We awoke to a beautiful sunny day!  It was nice to look out the hotel room window and not see corn!  Unfortunately, we have a view of Mile High Stadium. 

The hotel restaurant has an awesome breakfast buffet!  The even have sausage gravy and biscuits!!!!  Unfortunately, they loaded the sausage gravy with jalapeños!  Wow!  Surprise!!!!  That's just mean!

After filling our bellies we saddled up to do some exploring.  We headed up to Central City and Blackhawk.  What a beautiful ride!  I had the ol' GoPro camera going to catch some great video!  We stopped along the way to don our jackets and I'm glad we did! 

...jacket stop...

As we were heading up I kept seeing signs for a beer fest in Central City!  They even had painted the lanes on the road every few hundred feet.  "Lager" with an arrow pointing up the road, then "IPA" with an arrow, etc...  Pretty funny!  Hooray!  Beer fest!  Boo! I cannot indulge because of motorcycle!

We arrived in Central City with it's tight, hilly, twisty streets.  What a cool little town!  It reminds me a lot of Deadwood, both the terrain and the cool old buildings. As the signs promised, they had a beer fest going on!  They had the Main Street closed off for the vendor tents.  I was sad that I could not partake. I love beer tasting events!  

Ron thought they were giving away free samples!  He stood in line at one of the tents and was surprised when they asked him for money!  Hahahaaha!  We were hungry so we made our way over to the Dostal Alley Bar, where we split a pizza and I had one of their house-made brews. Some kind of summer ale.  Not bad!  While we were waiting for our pizza Tom & I occupied ourselves with some bartop video poker. Tom was playing Deuces wild and ended up hitting 4 Deuces!  Hooray!  He ended up playing it down to $265!  When he went to cash out.....QUARTERS!   Bahahahaha!  Old school! He drained the machine and had to wait for the bartender/waitress to refill it.  If course by this time it was starting to rain outside and we wanted to get going and make our way back down the mountain!  Ron left ahead of us to meet up with some buddies at a biker bar.  After finally getting our loot and a fresh cup of coffee for Bill, we saddled up to head on down. 

By this time the rain picked up quite a bit.  Bah. It was a cold rain with big raindrops. My glasses were starting to fog so I was having a hard time seeing. Bah again!  Finally the rain eased up a little and I remembered to turn on the GoPro again.  I think I got even better footage on the return trip. Rain, sun, tunnels, river, more rain, lightning, more sun.....  Finally the weather settled on "sun"!  At the base of the mountain we split off from Bill & Sue.  They headed back to the hotel and we set off to find Ron.  By this time I was hot out again!  Amazing weather out here!

We met up with Ron and his pals at a place called Piper Inn Bar. Lots of nice bikes were parked outside. They had 2 outdoor patios in front.  One allowed smoking, the other did not.  Pretty cool!  We stayed and chatted for a bit with Ron's pals and then had to say goodbye.  But not before one of his friends spilled his drink in my lap!  Gaaaaa!!!!  And I finally had just dried off after our soggy ride!  Crap!  

We had an uneventful ride back to our hotel to get showered and changed. Tom, Ron, and I were heading to Ted's Montana Grill to catch up with the other Terwilligers, Tom & Dawn.  Bill & Sue had plans to catch up with one of Sue's high school pals at a Celtic song & dance show in Arvada, so we parted ways for the day.  

The restaurant was walking distance from the hotel.  Hooray!  It's in a really neat section of downtown Denver.  It kind of reminds me of East 4th on steroids!  It was great seeing Tom & Dawn again.  And the food at this place was fantastic!  I had a buffalo filet that melted in my mouth!  After eating and chatting, Tom & Dawn had to leave to head to a birthday party. We took some pix before saying goodbye, of course!  

Tom, Ron, and I wandered around looking for someplace to stop in and grab a drink.  Most of the places were too high-end for my state of mind and attire.  When you're traveling by bike, it's hard to get fancy!  Tom consulted the trusty Yelp app and it told him there was an Irish pub on the next street over called Nallen's Irish Pub.  Perfect!  We headed over there, got carded, (yay!) and got the last available table right by the font window!  Yay!  People watching!  The Broncos had a pre-season game at home that had just finished so the crowd was really picking up.  Lots of young people...I felt old but didn't really care!  The bar was perfect for us. Loud and a little bit gritty. I had Guinness and Red Breast Irish Whiskey, of course!  

 Red Breast is delightful!  

After having a couple rounds of those while watching the post-football crowd, we decided to mosey on back to the hotel.   Our plans for Sunday were more riding, dinner with the Beliveaus, and laundry.  It's been a crazy week and I needed some sleep!  

Stay tuned for Sunday's happenings!

I've met crazy, and she drives a white Ford Taurus with Wyoming plates

Up again bright and early in York Nebraska!  Ok...maybe not so bright at 5am. I'm not as bushy-tailed as yesterday. Didn't sleep as well in the double bed. King sized beds make for much better sleep!  At least we didn't have noisy neighbors at this stop!  Today's breakfast was a thousand times better than yesterdays!  I had scrambled eggs, bacon, and oatmeal!  There were bananas too!  Bonus!  No pilots at this stop!  I grabbed a banana for the road.  Today we head for Denver. 3 nights there!  Hooray!  Our pal Ron has been out in the area for a few weeks and he's anxiously awaiting our arrival!  He's been calling Bill sometimes 4 times a day!  He'll hook up with us and ride with us for however long he feels. Last time he left us in New Mexico to head back to CLE solo.  We've already made plans to catch up with the other Terwilligers and the Beliveaus somewhere on Saturday night. I can't wait to get there!

After packing the bikes and pulling out, the first thing we see is a rainbow!  A DOUBLE rainbow!  

It's gonna be a great day!  The weather was cool and drizzly.....hooray!  Remember, kidz....cool weather is GOOD!  If it comes with some drizzle then so be it!

There's not much to look at in Nebraska other than corn.  Then cows.  Cows make me smile every time!  I saw one licking another one's face and it reminded me of my Gunther and Sam! I love how they walk single file while relocating from one point in the pasture to another!  Cow train!  Another random like.....I like how turkey vultures sit with their wings crooked out at their sides.....like they're airing out their pits!  I saw some of them too!

(Not my pic!  I found it on the interwebs for an example!)

We made a gas stop in Lexington, Nebraska and found the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles there!  Holy cow!  This place was amazing!!!!  Tons of tanks, jeeps, ambulances....even a couple helicopters....from all eras in our military's history!  They had other stuff too....bombs, helmets, uniforms, etc....  Very cool place!  

After moseying about and taking some pix, we were on the road again!

The ride was going awesome, great weather, and I was just thinking how courteous all the drivers were being......when it happened.  Crazy happened!  A few seconds of terrifying mayhem!  

Here's my perspective.....

We were in the passing lane, about to pass a girl white Ford Taurus with Wyoming plates.  As Tom is next to her she starts drifting into his lane.  WTF?  Is she on her phone?  That's usually the case.  Tom gets by her and as I start to pass I look to see what's distracting her from driving properly. Hmmm.  no phone, no newspaper...nothing out of the ordinary.  Maybe she was changing a radio station or something.  I'm ALMOST past her when she accelerates and comes into my lane at me!!!!  Excuse the language here.....HOLY SHIT THIS BITCH IS TRYING TO KILL ME!!!!  I hammer the throttle to get the Hell away from her.  At this point Tom sees what's going on and gets back behind her while she's chasing me. She backs off and I see Bill & Tom behind me.....crazy lady then makes a quick exit at the next ramp, flipping me off as she did so! ...thank God she exited!  Thank God the exit ramp was RIGHT THERE!  I'm not sure how much longer that insanity could've ensued without one of us getting killed.  WHAT WAS HER PROBLEM???  Does she hate motorcycles?  Did she just get dumped by her biker boyfriend?  We will never know. I truly have never been so freaked out in my life.  Luckily there was a fork in the road about 6 miles west of there.  80 to Cheyenne and 76 to Denver.  Unless those Wyoming plates were heading to Denver for some reason instead of Chyenne I was relieved to know that we had seen the last of her. Whew!

Toms viewpoint and version of the event was even more exciting.  His version involved protecting us by fixing to give crazy lady a dose of lead poisoning!  Perhaps that's why she made a hasty exit.  The 2 vehicles behind us got quite a show. The occupants of both vehicles gave Tom a "thumbs up" as they went by!

Luckily the rest of the journey was uneventful!  

We stopped for lunch  in eastern Colorado (Sedgewick) at a little diner called Lucy's Place.  

Eastern Colorado can be a challenging ride with high temps and strong winds, so I know better than to eat a huge lunch and risk food coma later down the road. Tom and I each order a side salad and we split a buffalo burger.  It was perfect!  Bill, on the other hand, ordered a hot open-faced roast beef sammich and mashed potatoes.  All smothered with gravy!  It looked delish but "goodnight Bill" we all said!  

We saddled up and hit the road for our last stretch of road for the day.  One more gas stop and then Denver!

As we approached the big city, we can see some serious rain coming off the mountains.  Great, we'll probably get DRENCHED just as we're coming up on our exit, right?  See it here, to the right?

Luckily that was not the case and we arrived dry.  Well, sweaty but not rain-soaked!  

As we were getting unpacked and showered our pal Ron arrived!  Hooray!

We hitched a ride from a private driver and went out to eat at the Highlander Tavern.  Another "Triple D" stop!  

The owners and staff were super nice and the food was delish!  Especially the Tavern Tots!  Those are their version of tater tots, except they push the potatoes through a ricer and add cheese.  They're fluffy and delightful!  I highly recommend this place if you're ever in Denver!  I noticed our server had a beautiful floral sleeve.  (Tattoo lingo for you plain-skinned folks!)  Amongst her florals was a Rocky Mountain Columbine, the Colorado state flower.  I have one on my shoulder so I showed her mine and we admired each other's artwork!   Pretty cool!  I've never met another person with a Columbine tattoo!  I'm sure they're out there but this is the first time meeting one!

After dinner we stopped for drinks at a bar next door, then called our ride back to the hotel, where we turned in VERY early!  It was a long day and my body is still on Cleveland time!

Stay tuned for more! 

On to Husker Country.....

I woke in Attawan Illinois bright-eyed and bushy-tailed!  This was a miracle because although we turned in early Wednesday night, our neighbors in the room next door did not.  And the walls in that hotel were paper thin.  I could hear them talking. I could hear their TV as if it were in our room.  I could hear the guy making this strange cough-sneeze-gag sound every few minutes.  Like a giant cat coughing up a hairball.  "AROUGHAK"! They left the room a couple times too and of course let the door SLAM behind them.  Thank God I packed earplugs, right?  Didn't matter....could hear everything right through them.  This went on until at least 1:30 am.  Our alarm went off at 5.  Bah.  We made it a point to converse very loudly whilst packing to leave this morning!   Buahahahaa!!!!

I made sure to wear strong socks today!  I wore weak socks yesterday.  They failed me from the time I put 'em on....all balled up under the arches of my feet!  Every gas stop....unzip the boots and pull up the socks!  How do they fall when I'm not walking?!?!  It drove me CRAZY!!!!!  

We wandered down to the free continental breakfast.  Best Westerns' breakfast blow compared to Hampton Inns' breakfasts!  Bill gave the poor kid that worked there a hard time...joking around...saying "you promised us a Continental and you only gave us a Lincoln"!  I don't think he had a clue as to what Bill was talking about!  Bahahahaha!!!!  At the table next to us were some folks from Canada.  Of course we struck up conversation with them!  We converse with EVERYONE!   Bill asked what brought them to Illinois.  They're farmers!  They said they were just cruising around here checking out crops! It turns out there were 4 of them.  One of them owned 19,000 acres up in Canada!  We got to talking about satellite driven combines and how you still need some manual labor.  "Yes!  Strong backs with weak minds!  They're tough to find anymore!" said one of them!  Bahahahahaaa!!!  One asked what part of Ohio we're from.  "Cleveland" we said!  "Oh!", he replied.  "You're right across the lake from us!! We're in London, Ontario!"  I told them I'd wave across the lake to them when I got home!  We said farewell to our new Canadian friends, loaded up the bikes, and hit the road again!  

The weather today was PERFECT!  It started out cool and overcast, we even got rained on a little here and there when we started off.  No problem!  I'd rather be rained on than roasted! I was very comfortable in my leather for the first 150 or 200 miles.  I was all ready to takes some pix of the Mighty Mississippi River and the "welcome to Iowa" sign but my jacket was zipped because of the rain....may cameras were under the jacket...and the damn river snuck up on me!  (I missed the "welcome to Illinois" sign yesterday due to the extraordinary amount of truck traffic there!)  The sun came out right about the same time the wind turbines appeared.  I LOVE wind turbines!  Especially when there's a whole bunch of 'em.  Wind farms. There's something ethereal about them!  I have some cool video I'd love to attach here if I could figure out how!

Here's a half-assed pic instead...

Our plan for lunch was Starsky's in Omaha, Nebraska.  They have AWESOME "pig wings"  They look like HUGE chicken wings but they're actually pork shanks....smoked and sauced!   We stopped there last year at the suggestion of "Man Vs. Food"!  Nebraska is a helmet state but Starsky's is off the eastern-most exit so we figured we'd take a chance and go lid-less to our destination.

So we get off at our exit and get behind another bike waiting at the red light at the end of the ramp.  We pulled up behind him and waited. And waited.  And waited...Yeah.  We weren't gonna trip the light.  Damn!  The bike in front of us turned left on red....we pulled up and waited some more....finally I saw a break in traffic and said "LET'S GO! LET'S GO!"  Weeeeeee!  No helmets, turning left on red....such rebels we are!!!!!  Add that to yesterday's adventure of going around the toll gate!  Yeeeehaw!   (I hope I still have a job when I get back home!)  

We made it to Starsky's without Johnny Law catching up with us!  But guess whaat?  They WEREN'T OPEN YET!   Gaaaaaaa!!!!  

Luckily they have TWO locations!  The other WAS open.  We hopped back on the bikes...donned those stupid helmets, motored on to the next exit, and dined on delightful pig wings and corn nuggets!  (Bill & Sue opted for burgers.  And a fresh cup of coffee!)  

Backtrack a ittle....last year when we were coming up on Starsky's, "Lido Shuffle" was on my iPod shuffle and I was singing it at the top of my lungs, as I always do!  I was thinking "how cool would it be if Lido Shuffle came on my ipod again as we were riding to Starsky's?"  Well....it didn't.  But......When we got to the 2nd Starsky's...what song did I hear coming from a radio in the kitchen?  YES!!!!!  Lido Shuffle!!!!!  True story!  How often do you hear that song?!?!  Why can't I make money off my psychic abilities!?!?!?!  Stuff like this happens to me way too often!

The rest of the ride went smoothly!  The whole day was pretty awesome!  We found our hotel in York, Nebraska....surrounded by corn...shocking!  We found some halfway decent food at a bar & grill up the road.  Too bad we were just a little too early for the oil wrestling that was slated to start at 8 pm!  Bahahaha!!!  

We returned to our Hampton Inn, used the pool & hot tub for a bit, then returned to our rooms where I now sit typing this!  It's time for some shut-eye now!  I leave you with a beautiful Nebraska sunset!  See ya'll in Denver tomorrow!

Hanging out in the Land of Lincoln!

Hi kidz!  I'm back!!!!!  

We woke up bright and early at 5 am today! After re-packing a little (my Bluetooth speaker got left behind...it was the straw that broke the Carmel's back!) we did a last-minute clean up of the house and we were ready to hit the road!  After loading the bikes and saying tearful good-byes to my furry boys were were off!  

We met up with our pals Bill & Sue for breakfast at the Bob Evans....yummo!!!!!  After filling our bellies and filling our gas tanks we hit the road.....westbound!!!!

I wish I had some fun stories about today's happenings.....especially the scenery, but it IS western Ohio, Indiana and Illinois we're talking about here!  Turnpike, no less!  BLAH!

The day was pretty uneventful!  Tom mapped out an excellent lunch spot in Elkhart, Indiana called the Five Star Dive Bar!  

Great food and friendly service!  Tom amazed Bill by playing the TouchTunes juke box from his phone! Gotta love technology!!!  Everyone there was most friendly and welcoming!  The old-timer sitting at the bar commented several times about how much he liked our bikes!  When we got ready to roll after lunch, Bill borrowed one of Sue's head-wrap thingies......they both looked more ready for the ski slopes than the highway!  HAHAAHAAAAHAhaaaa!

There was a little excitement when the western-most toll plaza in Indiana let Tom go through on his EZ-Pass but locked me & Bill out! After determining the EZ-Pass was not so EZ there, Bill & I rode around the gate!  I hope I don't have any warrants out for my arrest now!  I've NEVER had a problem with that thing!  What the Hell?!??! The most excitement is always the I-80 & 94 area just east of Chicago in the Gary, Indiana area!  I HATE riding through there!  Holy trucks, Batman!!!!  

After escaping from the craziness of eastern Illinois traffic, we found ourselves amongst the corn. And more corn. Pretty boring! I was hoping to see some bad cows amongst the corn!  Sigh. No bad cows today...

Our stop for the night is in a town called Annawan, Illinois. There's NOTHING around here but corn! We're at a Best Western that looks and smells brand new!  In fact, there wasn't a listing on Yelp yet....so I made one so I can "check in"!

We took a quick dip in the refreshing pool and then ordered pizza delivery. We sat outside and ate while we chatted with a guy from Louisiana who is here doing railroad work. Poor guy will be here in Annawan for a few weeks before work takes him to Peoria!  His girlfriend back home scopes out all the good eats for him on his travels though in the Yelp and the Google!  Nice guy!  Nice chat!

Well, we're all turning in early tonight!  We plan on a 5 AM wake again. Ugh!

Over all it was a pleasant day!  Decent weather, nothing too bad in the traffic department, bikes humming along just fine!

Hopefully tomorrow will bring more excitement. But we're talking Nebraska so I wouldn't hold my breat if I were you!  

Talk to ya soon!

Calm Anticipation

Well, the time is almost here!  I think I'm pretty much ready, although I'm sure I'll be running around frantically in the morning...I always do!  I'm SHOCKED at how quickly I packed and how light my bag is!  Not bursting at the seams like every other road trip. I think I finally really packed light! I hope we get a chance to do laundry on the road.  Either that or I'll be a very lonely person by the time we hit Nashville!  PeeeeYew!!!!! 

 We're meeting our pals Bill & Sue for breakfast at 7 am, so it's gonna be an early night for us.  Right now we're just chillin' with the boy.  Man, am I gonna miss him. I'm sure there will be a couple tears shed in the morning!  I love my boy!  He will be in good hands, though. My pal Candace loves him and his kitty brothers like they were her own!

On a side note, the forecast for our first stop in Annawan, Illinois is 91°!  Ugh!  Lets pray for some cool temps and dry weather the rest of the way!  Tom and I sure got lucky last year in the weather department when we did this similar route! (except Vegas...hotter than balls in Vegas!)
By the way....here's this year's route....CLE, Illinois, Nebraska, Denver, Moab UT, Durango CO, Taos, NM, Amarillo, TX, Arkansas, Memphis, Nashville, and the back home!  We'll be visiting lots of friends along the way! The other Terwilligers, the Beliveaus, hopefully the Tvrdiks, our old pal Kristin in NM, and of course EVERYONE in Nashville!  We'll be catching the Megadeth/Maiden show in Nashville and our pal Jim's coming in from CLE to see it too!  My pal Mike from CLE will be there Saturday night, and hopefully my friend David from Indiana will make the trip that weekend too!  Also, i get to catch the Browns home opener with my Middle Tennessee Browns Backers pals!  hooray!!!  We'll be picking up our pal Ron in Colorado.....who knows how long he'll ride with us!  And our pals Bill & Robin will be riding down from CLE to meet us in Nashville!  I'm gonna need a vacation when we get back!  Whew!

Alright kids.  I'll TRY to blog every day!  

And I'll leave you with a parting shot of the handsome one!

See ya in Illinois!!!

MB

Gearing up to go again!

Hi Kidz!  We last left you when we got home from our big adventure on the road trip to Vegas.  Well, we're gettin' ready to do it again!  Not all the way to Vegas this time, but Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and a bunch of other foreign lands!

                         

Right now I'm just trying to remember how to work my way around this BlogSpot thing!  This is a test run, so to speak!  Testing, testing...is this thing on?!?!?!  Isn't the dog in the picture above most handsome?

OK, I've just determined that I may need to drag my wireless keyboard across the country!  Sure makes typing quicker for these long-winded thomes!

Alright.  Test run over & out!