Saturday Wyoming Ride

September 27, 2008
Fort Collins, CO

About mid-morning we hopped on The Ride with a loose bearing of heading north-west in mind. We thought it might be a fine day for a ride up the Poudre Canyon or maybe Wyoming. As we suited up we noted that the day was somewhat overcast. Clear skies was the forecast. We were thinking the weather man missed on his predictions. We took them along, but chose not to wear our leather jackets, a fact we somewhat regretted a few miles out as the morning stayed gray and chilly.

Poudre Canyon is a ride up in elevation so we opted for Laramie which is also a ride up in elevation but it is also across flat lands. We got weak sunshine and a southerly wind on our backs about halfway to Laramie, but it was a nice ride.

Just inside the city limits is an indoor flea market called Bart's, so we stopped to stretch our legs and look through the booths. Tim found a Marcrest plate in remarkable condition for our collection. They wrapped it well and we slipped it into one of the saddle bags and cushioned it with the bike's dust cover. It made the trip home in one piece.

We were hungry! So we rode the streets of town, looking the restaurants over, filled up with gas and rode back to a restaurant called Shari's situated on 3rd Street in the same parking lot as the Hastings book store where we sheltered a few weeks back during a downpour. Neither one of us ever remember seeing it. We were delighted with the food and the coffee at Shari's which we discovered is a chain restaurant in the northwest. We both had a bowl of baked potato soup - very good! then, Tim had a colossal burger (man was it!) and I had chicken and dumplings.

After lunch, we took a look at the clouds building over the valley we just came through and decided against going back the way we came. We know all too well how quickly the skies can change in Wyoming. We rode east on I-80 to Cheyenne. That southerly wind that was on our backs the trip up was now a stout broadside wind. The gusts nearly took our heads off time and again. The few pics I took along the way didn't turn out well, too much wind to hold your hand up and steady.

By the time we reached Cheyenne, we were ready for a rest and a stretch of the legs and another sip of coffee. We had coffee in a thermos in the saddle bags so we stopped at Holliday Park. There, we were delighted to see hundreds of Canadian geese around the little lake. There was a large domestic gray goose and several domestic white geese and ducks as well. We fed the geese animal crackers, which is the only snack we had with us suitable for them.

A couple of miles on down the road we found Maverick Motorsports, the local Harley-Davidson dealership and some. We stopped to browse the bikes and the clothing. Tim bought a throttle rest to go on The Ride. Afterwards, we decided the wind might not be as bad on Hwy 85 as on I-25 going home so that's the route we took. Basically doing the trip the way we had a few weeks ago, only in reverse. We stopped one more time in Ault to stretch our legs and rolled into Fort Collins about 5 pm.

We spent the evening on the patio with a beer and a fire in the chiminea, talking about the fun we had on our ride today.

Total mileage = 196 miles.