Likely the last Wyoming ride of 2010

September 26, 2010
Colorado, USA

Fort Collins, CO -- After experiencing yesterday's crowded mountain roads in Colorado, we chose southern Wyoming for today's ride. We learned on yesterday's color ride that this was free park weekend in Colorado. It was such a lovely weekend, just about everybody could be found in the high country where there is a park.

Long about noon, we rode out and headed north on scenic Hwy 287 to Laramie, WY. The ride was great and the weather darn near perfect. We stopped on the edge of town and browsed through Bart's Indoor Flea Market. Nope, didn't buy a thing, but we had fun looking. Later we browsed through Hastings Book Store, (again, didn't buy a thing) before grabbing a quick bite to eat at Shari's.

We found a bit of color near the Lincoln Rest stop where a giant bust of Lincoln towers over the highway and again near Vedauwood Road between Laramie and Cheyenne. Vedauwood refers to a group of rock outcroppings that can be seen from I-80. Vedauwood is said to be an Arapahoe term meaning earthborn or earthborn spirits. Some people refer to the area as Skull Rocks. Otherwise, northern Colorado and southern Wyoming are brown. Dry and brittle brown. We counted ourselves lucky that we did not see a spiral of smoke on the horizon all day.

Vedauwoo Rock Formations - Arapahoe meaning - Earthborn Spirits

The ride from Laramie to Cheyenne was breezy as they say in Wyoming. Breezy will not take your head off, but it will ruffle your feathers. Ha! As always lots of trucks were on I-80. We rode on through Cheyenne intending to take Hwy 85 south toward home. Normally this is a fun, no fuss ride. A few miles out of Cheyenne, we encountered road construction just after we crossed the border into Colorado. The road was down to bed rock for about nine miles the pavement ends signs indicated. We stopped just short of it (it looked really rough) and turned around agreeing that was no way to end our day. As a result, we crossed over to I-25 along Terry Ranch Road which runs east-west just south of I-80. We had never ridden it. We decided it will be a great crossover route when we ride or drive that way again. Hardly any traffic. Decent road.

We exited off of I-25 on the first paved country road (Buckeye Road) that we know of that would take us back to Fort Collins eventually, riding past farm and ranchlands and through tiny rural communities easing ourselves back home just before dusk.

Unless, we get lucky and have an extremely long Indian Summer, this is likely the last motorcycle trip into Wyoming. Soon the howling winds that presage the arrival of ol' man Winter will bedevil any travel north of our city limits signs.

Here is a quick slide show of today's ride (20 photos):