Rangely

Rangely, CO

The old man is an early riser, for sure. He was out loading me up for the day’s ride long before dawn. I was parked just the way we like it, right outside his motel room door. The fluorescent lights overhead lit the place up good. Turns out a major rail line is just on the other side of Sunset Strip. Trains kept us company all night long. Maybe that’s why he was up so early. At any rate, he threw a leg over, fired me up, and we slowly putted through downtown Mountain Home. Not a lot going on there at 4:45 AM. Still, it was nice to be back on the road. We made the right turn onto I-84 and the reality of the situation set it. It was dark. Really dark. There was supposed to be a moon out and it probably was. But thick cloud cover blocked any light. In this part of Idaho, there weren’t any other lights to be seen. None. Like I said, pitch dark.

It’s spooky driving down the road with nothing in view but the section of pavement where my awesome array of lights shine. The air was warm and damp and added to a sense of foreboding. What little traffic there was gave us clues to where the road might be going. That first half hour was pretty tense, all right. The Rider was really happy to see the first signs of daylight, delayed by those cloudy skies.

Next up on the MMPAA 12 menu, bugs. All you can eat bugs. By our first fuel stop, I was covered with ‘em. Old Danny Boy’s new helmet was fully splattered; my windshield was pretty well covered solid, as were my front fender, forks, and lights. Yuck!

But not to worry, the rain washed a lot of that off by the time we landed here in Rangely, CO. Yes, rain. It started midmorning and kept coming most of the day. Not Oregon rain, thank God. It was Utah rain . . . lots of space between drops. At 80 degrees, the road barely got wet. Still, it was enough to wash off some bug guts and keep ODB’s face shield nicely speckled. He stopped under an overpass and put on his raingear. Though he really didn’t need it to stay dry, he was glad he had it on to keep him warm as we topped an 8,000-ft pass. Up there it was barely 60 degrees.

 Utah, land of extremes. We went past homes near Park City that were way off the “excessive” charts. Not too far down the road were Indian reservations so destitute they looked to be . . . well, fourth world.

We did travel some fine roads through wide open spaces. Like I said before, we were up as high as 8,000 feet. We passed though many basins and valleys with lakes or rivers running through. Hundreds of vacant farms and ranches along the way, some ancient, some looked to still be inhabitable.

It was good to get off the freeway and onto state highways. That didn’t happen until late in the day. ODB had to adjust his driving style to two-lane mode. Those roads take more patience. ODB has never been long on that stuff. I keep telling him to just relax and enjoy the slower pace. He said he would relax and enjoy the slower pace as soon as he got around the camper pulling a fishing boat in front of him doing 51 in a 65. Life with ODB is not easy.

Tomorrow we ride “one of the most dangerous roads in America,” Hwy 550, aka The Million Dollar Highway.

This from Wikipedia on the subject:

Though the entire stretch has been called the Million Dollar Highway, it is really the twelve miles south of Ouray through the Uncompahgre Gorge to the summit of Red Mountain Pass which gains the highway its name. This stretch through the gorge is challenging and potentially hazardous to drive; it is characterized by steep cliffs, narrow lanes, and a lack of guardrails; the ascent of Red Mountain Pass is marked with a number of hairpin curves used to gain elevation, and again, narrow lanes for traffic—many cut directly into the sides of mountains. During this ascent, the remains of the Idarado Mine are visible. Travel south from Ouray to Silverton allows drivers to hug the inside of curves; travel north from Silverton to Ouray perches drivers on the vertiginous outside edge of the highway. (Actually, it's the other way around. We're southbound and will be in the outside lane.) Large RVs travel in both directions, which add a degree of excitement (or danger) to people in cars. (Not to mention motorcycles.)

The origin of the name Million Dollar Highway is disputed. There are several legends, though, including that it cost a million dollars a mile to build in the 1920s, and that its fill dirt contains a million dollars in gold ore.

I told ODB to get some rest tonight. He’s going to need it.

(Google Map Update)