Just Keep Pedaling: September 2015

This is Part 8 of an 8-part blog series chronicaling a 7-day road trip, during which we were able to achieve riding our bikes in 8 different states toward our goal of riding in all 50 states.

Links to all posts:

Day 1: South Dakota

Day 2: Montana

Day 3: Idaho

Day 4: Washington and Oregon

Day 5: Utah

Day 6: Wyoming and Colorado

Day 7: No rides or posts, just finished driving the rest of the way home.

The Grand Adventure concludes

Day 6, Afternoon:

After leaving Laramie, WY we drove on down I-80 to Cheyenne where we turned off onto I-25 towards Colorado.

Our destination was Firestone, CO to ride the Firestone Recreational Trail and knock out Colorado on our 50-state list. It is another Rail to Trail!

Harney Park was my chosen Trailhead to park. Seemed to be a lot of parties going on at the places I chose to park. This looked to be a birthday party.

The trail was a very nice wide cement surface.

The trail parallels busy Colorado Boulevard

and there were several stoplights we had to cross.

We rode south from the park hoping to get in a quick 5 miles

This trail is also part of what's called the Front Range Trail system.

Off in the distance you can see the Rockies

Doing What We Love and Doing It Together!

There was an area with some nesting boxes ........

and a kiosk dedicated to Bald Eagles along the trail.

Not sure if there were actually any eagles about, though.
(None pooped on our heads, if there were..... ~~H)

And, then, because "It's Always An Adventure with This Guy" ...............

the saga continued, as during the last mile as we were returning to our rental van, I heard a loud pop and felt the back of my seat give way. Luckily it did not completely break off, as that might have given me an unscheduled "Moon River" moment. :D Watch the video to see more about it. Luckily this was the final ride of our trip! Between my chain breaking in Idaho and the seat breaking in Colorado, one might think my bike is telling me I need to shed a few pounds!

We decided to drive on from Firestone to Hays, KS that night instead of our original plan to stay the night in Firestone. We were both anxious to get back home with some downtime to unwind from the trip.

And so, with the setting sun at our backs, we pointed the carriage east and started the long drive back to where the mortgage lives.

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This is Part 7 of an 8-part blog series chronicaling a 7-day road trip, during which we were able to achieve riding our bikes in 8 different states toward our goal of riding in all 50 states.

Links to all posts:

Day 1: South Dakota

Day 2: Montana

Day 3: Idaho

Day 4: Washington and Oregon

Day 5: Utah

Day 6: Wyoming and Colorado

Day 7: No rides or posts, just finished driving the rest of the way home.

The Grand Adventure continues

Day 6, Morning:

We got up early Sunday morning and headed east into the mountains outside Salt Lake City, passing Park City where many of the Olympic events were held back in 2002.

We continued to entertain ourselves on the long drive with gems like this one from the 80's on 8 channel on the satellite radio.

After long stretches of nothingness like this ......

and some neater rock formations like this.....

and lots and lots and lots of snow fence like this.....

we found ourselves finally reaching Wyoming!

..... where for some reason they don't want you throwing your dogs in the trash at the rest stop.

We found that the miles of nothingness only got worse in Wyoming. So we entertained ourselves with comical comments about the roadside venues like the Green River flowing from the Flaming Gorge requiring some heavy penicillin.

We somehow crossed the continental divide twice in matter of 30 miles. Don't know if we went through some sort of time vortex and Doctor Who zapped us or if we were just hallucinating!

No, we did not stop at Little America as we were afraid of the toxic waste emanating into the air from the Tronox chemical factories nearby. ("Tronox" just sounds kind of evil. ~~H) I was afraid the paint was going to peel off the van if we stayed too long. Just say yes to green energy, though..... ~~H

Finally we reached Laramie, our chosen ride in Wyoming! After some GPS rerouting we found the trailhead of the Laramie River Greenbelt Trail. More info here.

We parked in Optimist Park.

A large number of other vehicles were pulling into the parking lot at the same time we were. We wondered what we had gotten ourselves in the middle of. Large numbers of people dressed a bit fancier than we were piled out of these vehicles. It appears there was a group baptism happening in the river. We let them carry on with being washed in the blood of the lamb. We went on about our bike riding.

It was a nice paved trail that ran along the Laramie river, although in this picture it was kind of hard to see the river due to the vegetation they were letting grow up along it.

There was a brief stretch where we had to ride on the street through a quiet residential section, but the path was very well marked. I give kudos.

Here you can see a bridge going over the river that took you off to a little side trail.

Eventually we came to this loop which was donated by the Union Pacific railroad. It was a pretty area along the river where they had planted some trees.