Passes & Canyons Blog

I’m not certain, but this could be the last of these Examiner Resurrections. I’m about at the end of these pieces that I feel are good enough and timeless enough to be republished since the demise of Examiner.com, where I originally published them.

I stopped here to stretch my legs and found marijuana growing in profusion nearby.

Boredom Totally Lacking In Ride Across The Prairie

Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota are known as long, boring states that you just have to get across by a lot of travelers heading east or west, but it doesn’t have to be that way. If the journey is the destination, as motorcyclists so often like to say, these middle states are an enjoyable part of the ride.

I left Denver Monday morning in a rainstorm. In fact, by the time I got four blocks from my house I was drenched. Though the sky was threatening I figured I didn’t need to suit up yet as my first stop was to be for gas, and I’d see how the sky looked then. Four blocks later I was pulling under a shelter and putting on rain pants and jacket, but didn’t see the need for the glove and boot coverings that I have. But the rain just came down harder so by the time I reached the station my gloves were soaked through, worse than they’ve ever been soaked before.

At the station I carefully put everything on and, typical of Colorado, by the time I was ready to roll the storm was abating. By the time I made it out by the airport it was already time to start peeling things off. It was getting hot! And though the sky to the west looked like a boxer’s face after a title bout, to the east there was blue sky and sunshine.

I blasted northeast on I-76 to Sterling and then cut north on CO 113, to Sidney, NE, where I picked up U.S. 385. At Alliance I headed east on NE 2, which my map indicated was “scenic.” These terms are relative such that a scenic road in Nebraska would probably not be rated such in Colorado, but you take what you can get. The point was that in my first two days all I did was cross the prairie and it was a very interesting ride. Once I got past Alliance it was all new and all of it was different and beautiful in its own way. I never once wished I could just get beyond this horrid stretch of nothing.

From Alliance I could take the road north out of town, past Carhenge, and that was the shorter, most direct route, but it was also straight. If I headed east on NE 2 there was a squiggle on the map with lakes on both sides that looked to hold promise. That was NE 250 and it delivered on that promise. Who knew western Nebraska had so many curves?

This brought me out to U.S. 20 at Rushville, an east-west road that quickly took me to Gordon, where I spent my first night with some Motorcycle Travel Network (MTN) people. Ray and Shirley are also Christian Motorcyclist Association (CMA) members and Ray made a point of telling me that the $15 gratuity I gave him per the MTN protocols would go to the CMA’s fund raised each year to promote its missionary work overseas.

In the morning I headed east on 20 as far as Valentine and then got onto NE 12 to stay as close to the Nebraska-South Dakota border as possible. Approaching Valentine I was doubtful of signs I saw that described Valentine as a “vacation paradise” but the buttes above the Niobrara River formed beautiful topological features and I could see that if hunting and fishing and horseback riding were what you like to do on vacation, this could indeed be a paradise.

Quickly crossing the river on NE 12 and ascending the butte I saw a turn-out to an overlook, so even though it was about 3/4 mile of loose gravel, and my Kawasaki Concours hates gravel, I took it and the view was fantastic. There was also a lone buffalo just grazing right there, close enough to make me nervous. But I didn’t provoke him and he just watched me nonchalantly and we got along fine.

I finally crossed into South Dakota at the town of Niobrara and then zig-zagged my way north and east to Sioux Falls where I had arranged to stay with a friend from high school who I had not seen in more than 40 years. We had a lot of catching up to do and I think we both found that the other really hadn’t changed all the much in all those years. Let’s not wait to get together again so long next time.

Today it’s on to the Minneapolis area, with a brief side-trip down into the corner of Iowa. Vintage Motorcycle Days, I’m on my way, but it’s an indirect route.

Biker Quote for Today

The fact that I’m a biker doesn’t make me a different kinda Christian, but the fact that I’m a Christian makes me a different kinda biker. — Dano Janowski