The day started, briefly, at the real crack of dawn, with Bill's departure.



I got up, briefly, just to film the occasion, then went back to bed. Sorry for the 'morning voice', I think I may have been down a few IQ points as well. With a short good-bye Bill left for his home in BC, I left for bed.

Rising again around 0900 I found it to be ******* rain, not heavy but persistent. US NOAA Doppler radar for the continent showed a large system moving from SE to NW over my location.

That was a weather system solved by going back to bed and allowing nature to take her course. Things looked better at 1030 so I arose and leisurely packed things up leaving prior to 1100, in the rain. I elected not to put on my rain suit.



I headed south and east on hwy 189 as I thought that would be roughly diagonal through the current weather system and it sorta was. I only had to ride through the rain for about 20 minutes. On the Ping, Doink, Twack rain intensity scale it never exceed a healthy Doink. My lack of rain suit didn't really affect me, my gloves got wet very quickly. That is kinda odd, they take maybe 15 minutes to get soaked through but 24 - 36 hours to dry.

I did find my new helmet, which has been steadily getting less and less on the skull crushing scale, somehow funnelled the rain water that hit it to a convergence point where it drained down the back of my neck. I found if I tilted my head slightly forward and to the right the flow stopped. I can't image iiCON not testing the helmet in a wind tunnel with water. I will chalk it up to the combination of rain intensity and wind direction before I pass judgement.

I ended up on the Interstate, which normally I avoid, but when you need to log some miles quickly, it is the best way to go. Once up to the standard 85 MPH Interstate speed I quickly drove out of the rain and things looked good on the horizon.



Personally I think 'merica is circling the drain, in previous years wars made 'merica strong but she has been weakened by them since the Vietnam era. That being said, it is great country to drive in. It never ceases to amaze me how it is possible to drive on deserted country roads across most of her territory while the population corridors suffer gridlock. If traffic everywhere was like the interstates surrounding population centres I would never come here, but if you plot your route carefully, and rely on intuition and luck you can drive empty roads.

I spent about an hour in Utah cutting the NorthEast corner, which by my measure is about enough of that state, then passed into Colorado. Keeping to the lightly traffic'ed 189 southbound I rode to Grand Junction. The town was named for the convergence of 2 major railways, or the 'grand' junction.

Highway 139 south of Dinosaur, CO included a mountain pass of 8268 feet. Every year on my road trip when in central 'merica my bike starts to run like a cheap alarm clock and then it hits me, my fuel injection is based on Edmonton';s altitude of about 2400 feet. Anything above 5000' really makes The Rocket run rough. There was a mountain pass recently that was at 10640 feet, it was running like a 1959 Volkswagen at that time.

139 was a pretty spectacular road, devoid of traffic and busted to ****, but pretty fun.



Pulled into Grand Junction, CO in the late afternoon and found a traditional walk out mo'tel. A quick trip to the grocery store across the street yielded a spinach salad and some watermelon, and some beers. It is a funny progression that in my youth the trifecta was the gas station, the bar and the m'otel. Now that I am 50 the trifecta is a m'otel, a grocery store and a pharmacy. Ha!

Day 5
Kemmerer, WY to Grand Junction, CO
500 kms