Adventure Motorcycle Blog

This morning we woke up, fired up some coffee, broke down camp, loaded the bikes and departed camp. It was 45 degrees so we both used our grip warmers. After traveling north on the trail system for a bit we came upon a old gravesite in the middle of nowhere. Of course we stopped and had to check it out. The oldest grave was from the mid 1800s. After that we made our way to Sargents, CO where we stopped for gas and lunch. When we pulled up there was a group of adventure bike riders taking a break from their journey. I believe they were riding the Trans America Trail which is a multi week coast to coast trail system. while there I ordered the elk meatloaf and it was excellent! After lunch we continued on the trail until we needed gas again and found ourselves at a Walmart in a town I can’t recall the name of. Matt needed a pair of cheap shoes since one fell off the bike somewhere and my water bladder sprung a leak so I needed to replace it. When we go to places like Walmart we usually go in one at a time while the other babysits the bikes. We don’t need a Garmin or other things walking away. Matt went in first and then I went. Apparently it started raining hard when I was in there but there wasn’t any lightning so we decided to press on with the trip versus wasting more time waiting it out. It was a cold rain so we put our visors down, put the grip heaters on high and headed out of town and jumped back on the trail system. The trail was a mix of mud and gravel with multiple switch backs in the beginning, but eventually straightened out and was all gravel. It was cold, wet and in some spots slick. There was a little sliding going on. We probably had this for 30 plus miles. All along the countryside were established ranches and then there were campers all over the hillsides for miles on end. The next stop was Salida. By this time we wanted to top off on gas, get something warm to drink, warm up for a bit and figure out where to camp for the night. This dot on the map is known for their Buffalo and of course we saw a ton of them outside of town. I ran into a guy that was an F15E strike eagle pilot so we chatted it up for a bit and turns out he was stationed in NC a few years after I was there and was even in the same squadron. While still at the gas station we dug out our winter riding gloves and put away our soaked leather gloves. Probably should have done that hours prior, but no biggie. Matt found a wild camping area quite a ways down the road so we set our gps units to the general area and headed out. Luckily the skies had cleared up by this point. We found ourselves on this sand/dirt path probably 6-7 feet wide full of twists, small jumps, dips. Etc., and stayed on that for quite awhile. We eventually left the trail and cut across the landscape until we found a spot we wanted to camp at. The views were just amazing and there wasn’t a vehicle or soul to be seen in any direction. There was another dirt bike that flew by after we arrived but that’s it. We unloaded the bikes, set everything up, took a ton of pics and then hung the bear bag a few hundred yards away. After that we crashed. My Garmin in reach said it was 44 degrees as a low.