Sunday shopping ride

November 7, 2010
Colorado, USA

Fort Collins, CO -- Today the skies were looking a bit iffy and the forecast didn't sound much better. The days are getting chilly and the weather temperamental. We wanted a longer ride than yesterday. So, we decided to roll out about mid-morning and see how far we could get. We took ourselves a couple of towns over to Aunt Alice's Restaurant in Longmont. This is one of our favorite places for breakfast. You can get a good ol' country-style breakfast served up in generous portions at a reasonable price and the coffee is good and hot.

As we rolled up on Aunt Alice's, the wind had kicked up good and it looked like a healthy storm was sliding over the mountains. A couple of flurries whizzed by our noses as we decided breakfast was likely as far as we would get today.

After breakfast, the clouds had indeed slid over the mountains but other than a little more wind they were not doing much more than spitting on us. We decided to ride a little further south and see what the skies looked like beyond the edge of town. We could see a patch of blue on the horizon toward Denver and nothing but ominous black toward home. We decided to make for Denver and maybe the storm would blow on through before we made the return trip this afternoon. As it turns out, that was a good decision.

Riding toward a patch of blue sky
Yikes! Glad we left that bit of business behind us.

The ride to the north end of a Denver suburb was windy and perhaps a bit colder than when we started out. We spent the afternoon roaming through a favorite Christmas craft show, picking up a couple of gifts. Funny. We bought a fairly large piece of seasonal art (with glass) and as the artist was wrapping it for us, it occurred to us almost simultaneously - we are on the Harley. Ha! The artist looked at us rather oddly (can't imagine why) and said her husband could deliver it next week in Fort Collins, if we couldn't get it home on the motorcycle. Of course, the art was too large for the saddle bags or the tour pack. I don't know what we were thinking - ha! We managed to cushion it with our rain gear and strapped it down with the cargo net on top of the tour pack rack. It made it home in perfect condition, despite rough railroad crossings and high winds. I would have a photo of it except I failed to get the camera out of the tour pack before we strapped it all down.

The weather had cleared out by the time we headed home. It was a chilly ride home, but not unbearable. Our riding days are numbered here in Northern Colorado so we count this one as a good day.