Excursions pour la Journee avec Gaston

Hate it when that happens!!

"Show me the honey"

On the left, spring honey. On the right, summer honey. We didn't get much light honey this year.

Sweet!

I think we told ya, the light honey we got from you is outstanding!!!!!

Geometricians don't know nuthin about my soul.




Hang in there little brother. I went to NC 208 to meet some friends to commiserate the loss of our riding friends.







I merged this trip into a trip to Lexington, KY, where Layla is studying digital electronic circuits. I got up pretty early on Sunday morning and got headed in that direction. For being 4 lane, US 25E is a nice road.







I got the tour of Lexington and UK. Nice place. They name streets for horses out there.




Interstate 75 is scary. :eek1 Kentucky people drive fast, and they are put in their place by Indiana and Michigan people. Holy smokes.

I got off the interstate at Richmond, KY. You have to go several miles off of the interstate to get a map. Nice town.




I took KY 52 eastward. At first it is 4 lane until you come to the town of Ravenna. Then things get interesting. Past Irvine, this is an awesome road.





And the temperature went from 90 to 80.




I then followed the Middle Fok of the Kentucky River up through Shoulderblade and on into Buckhorn. Buckhorn has a log cathedral.




KY 2022 is like the Little Shepherd Trail but not for tourists. I definitely got a sense of where I went over the ridge from the Kentucky River. Mine operations monitor CB channel 3 although on 2022 it doesn't look like there is any active mining. I worked my way down to 421 about 40 miles out of Harlan. I was weaving between raindrops.





I had a dry run over Black Mountain but then got pummeled right outside of Pennington Gap. Elk Knob Elementary School is going to have water in the basement tomorrow.





Panoramic view from the top of Powell Mountain.








Not much going on here today.



I had a car free run from Holston Lake to Mountain City. My ass hurt a lot. Down Old 421, Mast Gap, 194, Hickory Nut Gap, 181, to the house.

Peace.

Laughing about that joke at BYOB with you was one of the funnest moments I've had in a while.

You're a good laugher.

I noticed that we use the same hand gestures while delivering the punchline.

I'm not as observant as you, I guess.

Now I'm cracking up about Kirk's review of the Water Wheel Inn.

Picture of Slaty Fork reminds me of our MTB adventure there with you some 20 years ago. That was some good riding.

Will that be enough to hold you over until school starts?

Mmmmmaybe.

i'm so sorry , but 1923turkish hack team will be attack this site . I complained to the you

We can ride when it's wet or when it gets wetter.

In spite of having made plans for this trip months ago, getting ready had a certain feel of spontaneity to it. Our refigerator stopped working the day before we left. Thank goodness it didn't quit a day later! I didn't have my truck ready to roll until 5:30 the day before. When we awoke at 5 the next morning, it was in the middle of a severe thunderstorm, and the power went out. I said, "If there's a tree across the neighborhood entrance, that's it. We're staying home." No kidding, our egress from the neighborhood was blocked by a tree. We could have gotten past the tree, but there were wires in it, so we used the neighbor's driveway.

Then drive like hell.




This is NOT going to help us stay awake, and I'll never feel the same about white bread again.




Note the grease stains on the box.




Layla once again found the sweet spot in a Kansas wheatfield to snooze. We woke up and got to Denver around 9:30. Breakfast burritos at Tijuana Tacos.

This point of the narrative introduces some friends we haven't seen in almost 20 years and some friends we have never seen because they weren't alive in 1996. Arapaho is an inmate here and hopefully will add details I may forget. We went to their house in Frisco and caught up on old times and new. We were slightly hung over from the ride so we did a nice walk to Rainbow Lake.

I got up the next morning and assembled bicycles and then headed out on the DRZ to Georgia Pass. Nice ride for a random side road. No pictures as I forgot the camera because I was in such a hurry.

I got back for an awesome breakfast and we got our stuff ready for a bike ride. Pigtails and helmets. These guys rock!





At 9000+ feet, we are sucking wind.




Layla used to pilot one of these bad boys.




A quick stop for some souvenirs.




Our objective.





No, wait, we still have ground to cover. Sugar Lips mini donuts does most of its business selling zipline tickets, but they will whip up a fresh batch for you.




Good thing Copper Mountain is uphill from the house. We had to weave in and out of raindrops on the way back.




OK, now that we're acclimated to the altitude, it's time to head up even higher for a more remote location. We'll need supplies up there because the store is far away.




Arapaho got his work out of the way and rolled out his 525. We rode into a nasty storm that soaked us on the way up.




The view from the porch. The cloud shows here were superlative.




Here is a gratuitous motorcycle shot from the next day's ride.

arapaho and I got a relatively early start and headed up Humbug Hill, which offers this nice view of French Gulch.




The downside of Humbug led us over to the road up to Georgia Pass.




We then headed out for Glacier Peak. My guide explained to me that this road would become a non-motorized route in the near future.

We're going where?





If I'm not mistaken, the peak in the background is Glacier Peak.










That climb up onto the shoulder there was pretty tough.





Insert wheezing sound effect here.




My guide.




We then turned back for Georgia Pass to head down to Jefferson.







We made a brief stop in Jefferson before heading up one of the forks of the South Platte and Webster Pass.





This is beginning to look interesting.








Just as things got really interesting, we met two jeep vehicles coming down the road, and there was not enough room for me to let them by. I had to turn around and fnd a bit of an alcove and lean my bike in there and then find one for myself a little farther down the hill.







We were keeping out eye on this thunderstorm blowing up the valley.




While we were sitting at the top, a really strong wind began to blow at our backs, pushing the storm back down the valley away from us.


From the top, Radical Hill looks pretty tough and scary. We went over the pass and came to the split in the road and decided that we could always turn around if we didn't like the look of things. It was pretty tough, but we made it. In fact, araphaho made this final climb look easy. I had to push a bit. Insert wheezing sound effect again.





We were greeted by some jeepers and these guys.








We did another short out and back before dropping back down a really fun road into the Swan Valley.





I think we got about 80 miles in for the day. Just amazing. Thanks to arapaho for the guidance and company.

love it!