Examiner Resurrection: Rain On The Motorcycle Trip — Great!
OFMC takes a break.
Sometimes the best thing that can happen to a motorcycle trip is a rain storm.
The OFMC is off on its annual summer trip and today we rode out of Meeker, CO, on our way to Kamas, UT. Yesterday was blazing hot and today it was mercifully overcast. We cruised west on US 40 and the sky was threatening but mostly it was an “Oh my god!” day.
West on US 40 is the standard route through these parts but a little west of Duchesne we headed north on a road we’d never seen before, Utah 208. A 10-mile jog hooked us up to Utah 35, which took us up over Wolf Creek Pass and down, ultimately, to Kamas. This is not the famous Wolf Creek Pass that runs from South Fork to Pagosa Springs in Colorado, but it’s an amazingly beautiful pass just the same. And the secret is that it has not been paved for all that long, so it’s almost unknown. I wish I had pictures to show you but when you’re traveling with eight other guys they don’t take to stopping every half mile or so so you can shoot a picture.
But I’m not here to talk about the pass anyway. It’s Utah 208 that I have in mind.
We turned north off US 40 after dodging rain for hours. Every time it looked like we were headed straight for some big storm cloud it just slipped on by us. But we turned north on Utah 208 and there was the biggest, stormiest cloud in the sky directly in front of us. Shall we stop now and put on rain gear?
The guys in the lead didn’t stop so on we cruised. And the sky got blacker, and the blackness drew nearer. A pull-off came into view and the turn signals came on. Time for rain suits.
The funny thing is, this is Utah, where, as in Colorado, single clouds move across the sky dumping buckets of rain on everything below and leaving the rest of the world completely dry. By the time two-thirds of us had our rain pants on, one of the guys who didn’t announced that “I don’t think we’re going to need rain gear.” We looked and this black cloud had already moved substantially to the east and the area we were heading for was not looking all that bad.
“Let’s just sit here a while and we won’t need to suit up at all.”
We looked around. We were in a beautiful spot on a road where there were almost zero cars going either direction. And just then a cloud came over so were weren’t even roasting in the sun as we had been when we stopped. We broke out some cold beer and kicked back.
This turned out to be one of the best stops of the day. We stayed there for probably 45 minutes just relaxing, stretching, and enjoying the solitude and beauty. And we don’t make any apologies for the beer, either. We each had one 12-oz can and, as I said, we were there for 45 minutes. It was just one of those spontaneous moments that make trips such as this a joy. Friends out in some gorgeous country, on our bikes, taking it easy . . . it doesn’t get any better than this.
And we never would have stopped if it hadn’t been for the rain. As it was, when we pulled out we missed the cloud entirely and we continued up over Wolf Creek Pass and were just awed by the beauty. I love my motorcycle. It makes moments like this possible.
Biker Quote for Today
“Damn, buying that motorcycle was a bad investment.” Said no one ever.
Tags: bikers take a break
