Advertisement
Published: August 8th 2007
Horse Shoe Park Overlook
Effie and I stopped for breakfast at the Horse Park Overlook.I participated in the Ridin’ the Rockies HOG Touring Rally that was held June 25-28, 2007. The plan for the week was to spend some time with my cousins before the rally started then take the long way home after the rally. I rode my 2005 833 Sportster from KC to the rally and back home. The following is a ride report of the ride. It is divided in to parts because of the pictures.
Tuesday 26 June 2007
Up at 5:30am, I am packed and on the road by 6am. The rally is moving from Ft. Collins to Breckenridge CO. The suggested route is through Rocky Mountain National Park. My goal is to get to Dieters’ Donuts before they are sold out of the great choices or they close for the day. After a brief stop for a Road Kill Safari picture - Drake- I get to Dieters in Estes Park about 7:30am. Getting a couple twists and a lunch box I head into the park. The lunch box offered a sandwich, chips and cookies all for $5 I believe. When choosing my sandwich for lunch there was only 3 left, 2 ham and 1 turkey. I am not
a real fan of Ham. So turkey and swiss it is.
I knew of an overlook to the Horseshoe Park in the RMNP (Rocky Mountain National Park) so that was my next destination. As I am driving through Estes Park there is Elk on the side of the road, so I stopped and took a picture. I continued on to the overlook and sat on the rocks to eat my breakfast. Another RTR traveler had stopped before me, he had the tripod out to take a picture of himself with his bike. When he was done we talked for awhile then he snapped a photo for me of Effie and I. My plan was to take my time going through the park. I was in no hurry. The benefit of traveling on your own is that you can stop as you like and where you like.
At one of the turn offs I saw an antique car, so I pulled over to talk. It was a 1914 Ford Model T. Still had the original motor. The owners, Bob Most and his wife, from Tampa FL had trailered it up to Denver and met with some other old cars.
Trail Ridge Road Scenic Byway
This is the trail that took us over the continental divide and toward Breckenridge. I traveled on several Scenic Byways in CO. They were all great. This couple was a day behind the group. They had started at Loveland, when a friend had helped them with a repair that had come up the previous day. In all the commotion of getting it fixed and back on the road, Bob had forgot to refill the extra water container. Now the Model-T was overheating as it tried to scale the contential divide. At this stop he was pouring water into the radiator from a little .5 liter water bottle, itwas not until later that I realized that I should have asked him if he needed more water. I had over a qt container with me. Kay, my cousin, had filled a gateraid bottle with ice water for me before I left Denver. I had drank it all on Monday but refilled it at the hotel before I left Tuesday morning. It and another smaller water bottle were in my saddlebags. He struggled to get the car to start. It was a crank start, I watched for a couple times, but knew I would not like the audience if I was him so I moved on. Up the road I found a pretty backdrop, so I pulled over to
1914 Model -T
Here is Bob Most babying his car up the hills. What a neat thing to see this bit of history in action. wait for him to come rolling around. About 10 minutes had passed when the Model-T comes clattering around the corner. I snap a picture and head on. At the next pull over he has once again pulled over. The radiator is leaking fluid, an obvious boil over. The pullover has a ranger/info hut but no water. So I asked him if he could use some more water. When I pulled out that qt I could see the relief on his face. I offered to beg water donations from the 1000 Harleys that are traveling thru the park, but he assured me that this was enough water and that as soon as he got over the pass he would not have a problem. I offered to send him the pics I took if he gave me an email address, so he wrote down his email. His wife was excited about getting the pics. [ I sent the pictures when I got back. It took a few days for a response, but Bob said thanks and informed me that the car was in Seattle, while they were back in Tampa. Seems next week they were going to be touring Alaska with the
car, again in a group. I told him I hoped he would not try the Haul Road with it and wished him luck I left and headed to the pass. After I got there I knew I had to make sure the car would make it so I turned around to go find it. It was flying down the hills and holding up traffic on the inclines. He pulled into the Alpine rest stop so I did also. As I am getting off the bike and getting out my passport books, to stamp inside, I see him carrying in an arm full of little water bottles to refill. I asked him if he was sure he didn’t want to keep my qt bottle to use. So he agreed it would be a big help and agreed to keep it. I told him I had to come back to make sure he would make it over the pass, he put his arm around my shoulder and called me a blessing. Wow, a blessing. I didn’t see them again.
About 11:30AM I pulled over into the Colorado river access picnic area to eat. I needed something to drink but didn’t think
of it until now. The sandwich was great just as I had suspected it would be. The 2 chocolate cookies were actually 1 cc and 1 raisin. The cookies were not that great. I like chewy, they were thick hard and very crunchy. As I am getting ready to leave a couple big RVs pull in, I had had the picnic area to myself. An older gentleman from one of the RVs stops me to talk. He is from Greeley CO. Family had come to visit and the group was spending the day at the park. None of the other family members had been there before. We talked for about a half hour. He was a fun guy.
The National Park was of course awesome. I have easily a hundred pictures beside the ones I took with Kay and Jackie. One of the first ones in the park, I am sure I was in the last half of the group to leave. After coming out I stopped to put on my raingear, I could see the storm on the other side of the hills coming up. I know that if I put on my gear it will not rain,
but if I don’t put on the gear I will be wet as a rat when I get to the hotel. I ended up with 3 other bikes on the way to the hotel.. After passing some great Kodak moments, I pulled over and let them go on. I never did hit rain. It sprinkled slightly when I got to the hotel. Days Inn. It was 2:30PM and the clerk tells me it will be another hour before the rooms are ready. I leave my stuff with the clerk and head to Wendy’s for a fascotia club combo, its been a long time since I had one. Bringing my food back to the hotel, I play on the hotels internet and eat. The room was not ready until 4pm. The computer sucks, so loaded with security that its hard to even log into email and it keeps locking up.
I spent about an hour exchanging travel stories with a guy from Atlanta. He was staying at the same Days Inn I was. We had visited many of the same places. It was a very interesting conversation. It is really neat to talk with another rider that puts on as
many miles. He had been on the Cabot Trail and we talked about that for quite awhile.
190 miles for the day but it took 8.5 hours to do it. Great day.
Part #1 of the trip can be found here:
07 Ridin' The Rockies HOG Tour - #1
Advertisement
Tot: 0.153s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 14; qc: 28; dbt: 0.087s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Rodney
non-member comment
Cool Story
Neat story! Looks like a lot of beautiful scenery up there.