Sunday, June 14, 2009

2 rides in 1, a move and a possible job?

June is already looking to be a really busy month for me. I had another job interview. If I do get this job it won’t start for at while though. Coincidently, it was two streets away from a job interview I had in February. Either way, it’s really close to where I live now and having been out of a job for almost a full year (on the 27th it will be a year) I really need some income - bad!

But lets not forget that at the end of the month I have to move out of the house I’m renting. The owners of the house are coming back, so I can’t simply renew the lease, I have to be out of here and find another place to live and not having employment at the moment has definitely added to the challenge of finding an affordable a place to live. I do have a back up plan in case I don’t get this job and I can’t find a place to live. Basically I’m thinking of putting all my stuff in storage, packing up the ST3 and taking off to tour around the Pacific Northwest for the summer. And as much as this backup plan appeals to me and I‘d love to live on the road for a few months and explore new places, the money is gone and finding a job and a place to live is really what I need to do.

But the focus for June is sport-touring! I’ve been planning a 9 day long ride to Utah with Dalton and just found out that my friend Sandy was hoping to ride out to Colorado to attend the ST.N national bike meet which is going to be in Gunnison, CO this year. I was originally planning to ride out to Gunnison for the meet, spend one night there and ride back home the next day since I had an even larger trip already in the works so I didn‘t need to spend any more days riding around Gunnison since Dalton and I are planning on riding some of those roads around Gunnison on our way to and from Utah.

Sandy’s vacation was approved and now we’re also planning a week long ride around Colorado. Sandy hasn’t seen too much of Colorado, on the 10 day ride we did in 2006 we mostly rode around Utah, New Mexico ad Arizona. The one day we did spend riding through Colorado on our trip, we mostly rode highway 50 but it was a miserable day. It rained the entire day and it was cold.

So I’m actually excited to ride around Colorado again even though I live here now. Some of those roads I haven’t been on since my trip in 2004 and 2006.


The 1,200 miles route for the trip with Sandy

Now, the trick is to figure out two separate routes that don’t duplicate too much of the riding, although there are some roads I’d like to hit twice since they are that good!



The 2,225 mile route for the trip with Dalton

So it looks like I will have two motorcycle trips this month and I will be riding a total of 14 days. But the weird thing is, I will not be able to come home in between the trips, the two trips will actually overlap by one day. So once I leave the house, I’ll be gone for two weeks and I’m leaving the laptop behind on this trip. So no posts from the road on this trip.

As far as riding, the ST3 got out on two occasions this month. On Saturday, June 6th I rode up to Estes Park and took the long way back home via highway 36 through Lyons and Longmont, 100 miles total. Unfortunately I was supposed to be attending a group ride that day, and I had even made a route of 300 miles for the group. But since life has been a bit hectic lately, I ended up leaving the house late and I was unable to catch up to the group on 34 on the way to Estes Park. Traffic was just horrific and I couldn’t pass the many RV’s that were going 25MPH in a 45MPh zone. When I knew there was no way of catching up with the group, I decided to head home. I had tons of things to do and I had already started packing for the move at the end of the month. I only had another week to pack and finalize stuff before the two trips started.


June 6 -ST3 taking a break on Highway 36 just east of Estes Park

Today morning I rode the ST3 down toward Denver to meet Dalton for breakfast in Thornton so he could give me a print out of the route I e-mailed him the other day for our trip (I have no working printer at home at the moment) and to go over last minute trip stuff since who knows if my cell phone will work on the ride with Sandy. The plan is for Dalton to meet up with Sandy and I next Saturday at the designated campsite. He also wanted to run his bike all packed up for the trip, since this will be the first long trip for his VFR, which he just bought a few months ago.


June 14 - Last minute trip details in Thornton with Dalton, he took these pre-trip ride pics


BTW, breakfast at The Egg and I was really good but I didn't have my camera

In a few hours Sandy is actually arriving at my house. She had already called me this morning from Nebraska and said she will definitely be in Fort Collins tonight. She was supposed to arrive tomorrow, but has been making really good time riding from Chicago on the interstates. So even though we were supposed to leave for Gunnison on Tuesday, now that she will be in Colorado a whole day early, we might want to try and leave tomorrow or at least do a day ride.

No comments:

Post a Comment