US-89. Return Trip Day 3. "Rocky Mountain National Park"

Sunday, July 24th, 2016.  The goal is to ride from Crawford, Nebraska to Rocky National Park in Colorado, which is about 275 miles.

I get up early, take a shower and I am on the road by 7:00 am.  I want to beat the winds, but it was not long before the winds kicked up around 10:00 am.  The roads are empty as I headed South towards Scotts Bluff. Unexpectedly, the ride is rather cold and I had to get my cold weather gloves out to stay warm.  Crawford had many hills and trees, and was rather beautiful.  The landscape now gives way to the flat lands. 

I stop in Scotts Bluff for a second breakfast and as I am coming back to the bike a guy in a pickup truck stops and asked questions about the bike. He wants to know if the bike was comfortable for long rides. I tell him it was since I had modified the bike just for that purpose.

I arrive at the visitor center at Scotts Bluff National Memorial and ride the step and scenic road to the top of the bluff through the 3 tunnels. The views are great and I can see why this point was such a navigation tool for the early settlers crossing the country.

I leave Scotts Bluff  get on the main I-80.  I try using the navigation app on the iPhone once again, after it really messed me up in Salt Lake city.  The app screws up once again. The app tells me to exit the highway and then immediately go back up the on ramp on the other side.  The app for some crazy reason thinks that the ramp was the “fastest” way, even faster than the 80 miles per hour by staying on the highway.  I double checked the setting for the fast route that very morning. I can never trust the app again.

I made good time until I hit the city of Estes Park in Colorado. I can not believe how busy the town is. I get caught in a 30 minute bumper to bumper traffic jam in the town. The town of Estes park is the pits. Traffic jams, stores, building and many people walking the streets  The canyons in Estes Park terrify me to the is day. In 1976, on the way to college, Phil my room mate and I came though the canyon just after a terrible flood where many people were trapped in the canyon and died. The 1976 flood is recorded as the worst on record.

Once in the Rocky Mountain National Park the road is still bumper to bumper but manageable.  The road ascends to 12,000 feet in the Alpine, where Elk stand by the edge of the road. People are stopping their cars and taking pictures of the Elk. At one point the road is backed up 2 miles while people take pictures. The tundra is much like what I saw on the bear tooth highway, except this time it did not sleet on me.

I descend on the highway and stop at the Timber Creek Campsite where I am lucky enough to get one of the last campsites. I really believe that if I had come 15 minutes later then I would have been out of luck getting a site. I take the site next to the dumpster. I hope Mr. bear will not be too aggressive.  I re-hydrate some Louisiana beans and they are actually really good.

The sun goes down early behind the mountains and the campground is immediately cold. As I am sit writing, there is a family of four just next to me just finished dinner. The daughter gets out her guitar and starts playing classical and other great sounding music.  She is quite good. Then a few minutes she starts whistling along with the music. I am pretty good at whistling, but she was really good. I would say that if she is a 10 at whistling, then I am a 2. 

I finish making my blog notes and I am standing next to the bike just admiring the mountings. The girl stops playing the guitar and comes up to me and asks me if she was bothering me.  I tell her “no, quite the contrary. I really enjoyed the concert in the park while I was writing.” She introduces herself as Maria and asks if I am  writing a novel. I tell her that I was just creating some notes for my blog.  We talk for about an hour. At one point her dad comes over and I talked to him for a good bit. 

Maria tells me that she had just graduated from high school in Austin Texas, but instead of going immediately to college, Maria has decided to live with a family in Spain for year. She said the family in Spain does not speak any English and her Spanish is very limited.  We talked about school and what she might want to do when she got back. Maria also tells me that the songs she was playing on her guitar were her own compositions. I was really impressed with her curiosity and zest for life.