Rules of the Road

Rule Number One:  If the map says gravel, it means washboard.  The map should also read NO RV's!!!

Most Coloradoans will be flying down the washboard road  in their four wheel drive vehicle, but for Teragram, max speed is 7 mph.  Even then, the entire cabin will be shaking and rattling like a jackhammer.  The 33 miles from Cripple Creek to Florence took close to four hours.  The scenery of Phantom Canyon is beyond description, with the road following an old rail line to the gold camps, complete with tunnels and shelf road turns without guardrails. (first time I understood what shelf road means: it's a tiny shelf on the end of a moutain).  For the passenger, the trip is either sheer pleasure or torture.  Depends on the tolerance for the feeling of falling over the cliff.  For me, more torture than pleasure.  I love amusement park rides, but they last 30 seconds, not three hours.

At the end of this drive, I made the not so brilliant plan to drive two more hours to Villa Grove Hotsprings, reachable by a 7 mile washboard road.  In the morning, Carl said he was about to drive his last washboard out of there.  He said that while I was clinging to the armrest for my life, he was visualizing all the repairs he was going to have to make from the shaking and rattling.

Rule Number Two:    Don't listen to the weather report.  It will freak you out.  If you are driving across Kansas and listen to reports of twisters, you still won't be any wiser.  Do you know what county you are driving through anyway?

When I listen to weather reports while traveling, I cannot wrap my head around the phenomena.  Hearing that a mudslide closed a highway I just traveled, or that there are rocks on the road somewhere just jingles my peace of mind without providing an alternative plan of action.  We drove through Cache la Poudre Wilderness right after it opened when the High Park wildfire was finally contained.  Two days later it rained and the burn scar turned into a black coal mud slide bigger than the ashes of all the chimneys in the Midwest the morning after Christmas.   Try driving into that.  I'd rather have a hurricane any day.  With a hurricane, I know it is coming for a week.  There's no surprise attack of a flash flood or flash fire with a hurricane.

Worrying about something over which we have no control is pointless. The best solution to the weather is to get up early and do what we want to do.  If it doesn't rain in the afternoon, we have a bonus time to do something else.  Like drive into a sandstorm.

Rule Number Three:  Easy is relative

When a hike is marked easy, my Texas mind thinks strolling in flipflops.  Not so in Colorado.  Easy means hiking boots and poles.  Easy means boulders in the path are no more than 24 inches high.  Easy means I will change elevation, at least 600 feet, during the hike.  Easy means being prepared to spend the night if necessary.  Moderate means I will have to chin up to get past a waterfall.  Strenuous, I'm not sure, since I would never ever consider strenuous.  Handicapped accessible is still universal.  Except at 10,000 feet, even handicapped is relative. 


But I can't go wrong if I prepare to the max and enjoy the views.  Colorado hikes are built for looks, not for speed.

Rule Number Four:  No middle ground.  Colorado is either a thrill ride or a mind numbing.


Most days I am gripping the door handle as Teragram careens around the mountain roads.  Occasionally, it is the opposite, talking Carl into staying awake through the San Luis Valley, akin to driving the San Joaquin Valley in California, sans artichokes.  


The draw to this valley includes three hot springs, The Great Sand Dunes, and a bike ride we flatlanders crave.  At the Sand Dunes is a ride advertised as flat and without traffic, stretching from the Visitor Center to the San Luis Wildlife refuge.  26 miles if we do the whole ride.  Flat, like Katy  rides with elevation.

With this view, there is nothing to do but pedal and count.  3 cattle guards.  17 passenger vehicles.  3 Rv's.  1 cattle trailer.  18 material haulers, all of them blowing me off the road and only the 18th one feeling the need to honk at me (I think the rider who said no traffic rode on a weekend without the material haulers).

Zero wildlife.

I recorded my best bike speed ever.  The ride gained about 400 feet over 8 miles, and on the return it was slightly downhill.  My speed averaged over 12 mph for the first time in my life.   Flatlander at 7500 feet, bring it on! I have grown lungs!

Rule Number Five:  put the cheap bike in the back.

Luckily, this is where Carl put the bike I am riding, which is worth about 10% of the value of his bike.  When he backed into the utility box, it bent the frame of my bike beyond repair but only totaled one of his rims.  His frame is fine.  Which is a good thing, considering how hard it is to find a titanium bike repair facility.  When he bent it a year ago he shipped it to Portland, where the shop seemed to be out of business when the bike go there, so he had to ship it back home. Then we took it to Chattanooga.  It's not an easy bike to fix and it is too valuable to throw away.

Carl is bummed.  I'm bummed that I wasn't spotting for him.  But in the end, it's just a bike.  I was considering getting my own bike that fit me this fall anyway.   My tour de France training has ended for the season, however.  


Rule Number Six:  depend on the kindness of strangers.

In five years as nomads, we have never had a mechanical breakdown till 60 miles into Poudre Canyon.  A belt shredded and took out the transmission coolant line with it.  We were disabled miles from nowhere.  Cache la Poudre  is a designated wilderness.  What a canyon. Within the depth of the canyon walls, there's no cell service.  


A good Samaritan fisherman stopped to help.  He took me to a call box down the canyon and waited for me to call AAA.   I considered calling AA too, but realized I really would want a drink when this was over and this was no time for abstinence.




Dave, I hope you are reading out there.  Thank you for your random act of kindness.