Last night I met a couple from Hinton northbound on a Harley. We chatted casually as we waited in line to check in at the Mo'tel. They spoke glowingly of Hwy 550 and since I was on Hwy 50 already and it was going in the right direction I decided to take it.

550 cuts through the rugged San Juan mountains in eastern Colorado between Montrose and Durango, about 100 miles. This is maybe the toughest 100 miles I have ever ridden. It was incredibly twisty with a top posted limit of 35 MPH. The sides were sheer drop-offs with no guard rails. There were many switchbacks, some with posted speed limits of 5 MPH. Big rigs were on the road doing half a mile an hour as they crept and felt their way up and down the mountain passes.



I was behind one guy pulling a flat deck who had to hang his ass off a cliff to get his trailer to come around. Deliveries to the mountain towns like Ridgeway or Ouray must come with danger pay! I rode with 5 Harley guys for awhile, the lead guy had an old bike with serious ape hanger handle bars, I mean his hands were above his head! Ape hangers are notoriously hard to steer, but he bent that bike into those switchbacks fearlessly, foot pegs scraping and sparking every time.

Eventually I let them gain some distance on me, even my fancy Bose noise cancellation headphones couldn't drown out those V-Twin Evo's. As a quick aside you may be interested to know that Harley 'patented' their unique sound. The sound is created by the engine firing through 240 degrees of crank rotation. The crank rotates 360 degrees but only gets a power impulse at 120 & 240 degrees. At 0/360 also known as top dead centre (TDC) there is nothing (but a counterweight). This is what creates the unique sound, the pause. It is also what makes them shake as the motor is not balanced.

They patented it, but they really didn't have to, no one else wants to purposefully design an unbalanced motor. Take my Triumph Rocket III motor; 3 cylinders, fires through 120 degrees of crank rotation. 360 degrees divided by 3 = 120. Result balanced motor! The more cylinders you have the better, Jaguar V12 = 30 degrees of crank rotation. Bugatti Veyron W16 = 22.5 degrees of rotation. Rolls Royce 18 cylinder aircraft engine = 20 degrees. You get the idea.

Even Japanese metric cruisers, such as my venerable 1988 Intruder, while also a V-Twin was designed to fire through 180 degrees of crank rotation, still makes the desired potato potato potato sound, but is a balanced design.

Anyway, I digress. Once we cleared the pass we got down to some straight line highway for awhile and I put the hammer down to make up some time. I quickly caught the 'Hogs' and passed them in one fell swoop. Ape hanger guy gave me the 'nod' when I blew past him so I apparently made the cut.

I have driven the Fort Collins-Denver-Colorado Springs corridor on I-25 before and that was an experience I was glad not to repeat. The route I was on, while certainly not attaining Interstate speeds, was much calmer. I will repeat this numerous times throughout this blog but it is amazing how much of America can be traversed on nearly empty roads.

The roads are so sparsely traffic'ed at times that when we do approach an urban center and the traffic increases I kinda feel offended. Hey bud, get off my road, I was enjoying the solace. Also when the roads fill with cars you find out how terrible 'merican drivers are. No clue on signal use, shoulder checks, merging (ha, merging, thats a good one!) I have been merged onto so many times on single lane highways it doesn't even bother me anymore.

So I popped out of the San Juan mountains in mid afternoon and stopped in the town of Durango for a sit rep. That is situation report. As I pulled the helmet from my sweaty head I noticed I had, without trying, parked in front of 2/3rds of a trifecta. The Lonely Lane Mo'tel (or something to that effect) and Joe's Smoky BBQ (or something to that effect) right next to each other.

Well, had I driven far enough? Maybe 400 kms, but they were tough kms! I decided yes! I popped in to inquire about a room and while there was availability they wanted $175.00! I think not! I asked what was up and Durango is a mountain resort town with many lakes nearby, that's what they charge. I moved on.

About an hour out in a town called Pagosa Springs there was a Mo'tel 6 next to a Concoco next to a Sonic. The m'otel sign was advertising 1 person; $44.50. It was the Trifecta! It satisfied my own strict criteria! It fulfilled all of my short term needs. It was perfect.

I kept going.

I cannot explain why I do that. I make my own rules, I set my own expectations and then I don't follow my own guidelines. I always think that I can do better. My daughter has taught me the term FOMO. Fear Of Missing Out. It is a disorder that I suffer from. Even when I get what I want, I want better. Gotta learn to settle sometimes!

I took a small hwy 160 eastbound and that eventually turned south crossing into New Mexico. About 10 miles into NM we also crossed the continental divide. The divide separates the water basins of the Pacific and Atlantic oceans, stated more clearly water on each side of the demarcation line drains into its respective ocean.

While we are talking about oceans, I have yet another rant! I know you came here looking to regaled with tales of derring-do from a road warrior but when I have an audience..............

As I have said so many times, I have driven 1000's of miles of deserted roads and while I recognize that alot of it is sided by farmland or grazing land there is also ALOT of land not being utilized for anything.

A little bit of research showed that there about about 70 000 windmills in the US today, each producing about 6 million KW a year. In 2013 about 100 new mills were erected each month. (Source: US Energy Commission). Mills current supply about 2.5% of US power needs. They need to step this up big time! They need to carpet bomb all that empty land with tens of thousands of wind farms.

Same with solar panels. As we drove through the Tetons there was this mountain with a huge flat side facing south. As I looked at it I imagined it swathed in solar panels. The continental USA is 3.806 million square miles. It receives about 9 billion kilowatt hours of solar energy every hour. Except at night, yeah I get it, there are some variables.

The USA would need slightly less than 2000 square miles of solar panels to completely satisfy the nations electrical needs for peak usage in 2013. You could put that in some lonely corner of New Mexico and no one would be inconvenienced. Yes it might compromise the mating grounds of the spotted back lizard or the ruby throated grasshopper but isn't that better than grandma dying from heat exhaustion in Philadelphia due to rolling brown-outs shutting off her AC?

Almost done. California, constantly crying about water levels and power levels. I saw a show about the drought cycle of the US SouthWest, it runs 600 years. When we started populating SoCal in the late 1700's it had already peaked, around 1600. It has been in freefall ever since and we are prolly close to its bottom, and it's gonna get worse before it gets better!

So California, you got no water and you got no power..................but you got an ocean and you got vast tracts of unused windy land. Go to the Sierra's and lather them generously with windmills and solar panels to power, wait for it, desalination plants drawing water from the, nearly, limitless supply of the Pacific Ocean. I can't be the only one to think of this? No doubt it is a costly process, but the scale required to make a difference would sure pull that price down.

OK, I am done now. I will go back on my medications!

So I am southbound now on a class of road I have started calling US Goat Trails (USGT). Little two lane divided roads, no shoulders winding their way through prime windmill and solar pa..........OK, sorry. Waiting for the meds to kick in!

USGT 64 on the map shows a smattering of small towns any which of can contain the Trifecta, and it is time. The sun is hard to the right. I am headed to Santa Fe and will eventually hit and cross I-25. But I am in the lodging doldrums, the Horse Latitudes of mo'tels. I stop in town after town but cannot find the mo'tel row that is usually at the outskirts of the towns. I keep going, mostly because I have no choice, gotta find a pillow for my head.

I pass through the urban area of Santa Fe briefly driving on an Interstate, eyes peeled for the friendly blue signs that say "lodging' and have the logos of the mo'tels and the exit number to take. I see none. WTF.com over? Before I know it I am back in deserted solar panel land. It is the golden hour now, the sun has set and the light is just right for wedding photos and beach selfies.

It is also the time the deer start jumping across the road. It is also the time the bugs start to congregate over the road to absorb the remaining heat. I am pinning my hopes and dreams on a mark on the map called Clines Corners. The bug impacts are incredible. It gets dark enough that I have to take my sunglasses off. In the amount of time that my visor is up to pull my shades I take bug hits in both eyes and have to drive blind for about 15 seconds til they clear.

I pull into CC right as all light fades only to find the sole business in that town (its not a town but an intersection) is a gas station/restaurant that is shuttered for the night. I turn on to I-40 eastbound and hope for the best.

I am breaking all of my own rules now. I try to never drive at night because: 1) You can't see anything, like scenery I mean. 2) Our roads become bug and critter roads at night as they come for the heat that was absorbed during the day. 3) It is easy to make navigation errors.

So I put a semi doing 85 MPH about 100 yards ahead of me as a cow-catcher and settled in for a drive in pitch dark. 'mericans could use a lesson in high beam use as well! It was about 80 miles to Santa Rosa, we did it in about an hour. I was actually starting to get cold! Well, maybe tepid.

Again I drive the whole length of Santa Rosa exits (3) without seeing the lodging signs, but I can go no further, I am done, I am all used up. I pull into the center median and drive through the emergency vehicle lane so I can turn around. I drive back westbound and after the 3rd exit comes and goes yet again I see a sign for ABVI. It doesn't mean anything to me at first, but something, at an instinctual level, yanks me into the exit at the last minute.

I am in a poorly lit industrial park driving on a busted to **** road. While I am pondering my choices I come around a bend and there it is, the jewel on the prairie; America's Best Value Inn! Yeah, next to a Conoco no less! In the middle of fuggin nowhere! The room is $50 and has a 65" plasma TV bolted to the wall.

I immediately phone my loverly wife BuBu. I text her every time I stop, kinda so she is along for the ride. She is following along at home on a map. The last few times I stopped I didn't have cell coverage so I had been out of contact since late afternoon, when I told her I was stopping soon, so I knew she'd be worried. She was relieved to hear my voice, and we talked for some time.

And now the moral of the story: I knew a restaurant was out of the question and I asked about pizza delivery, but the desk clerk said they close at 2100. It was almost 2130. So gas station food it was. Granted over the years the quality of GS food has increased dramatically. Trips in the 90's with my friend Rob often ended with a bag of GS popcorn.

So I went to the Conoco, found some carrot sticks and some sandwiches, and a six pack of medicinal libations. When I went to the cashier he was dealing with a young man who was 0.17 cents short for his 2 candy bars, but he was tapped. The cashier, a heavily tat-tooed Latino man let him go on the shortage. My purchases came to 19.83 and I let him keep the change so his cash would balance. He didn't understand what I meant at first then when he got it, his features softened and we shared a laugh.

The long trip through the dark had a purpose after all.

Day 6
Grand Junction, CO to Santa Rosa, NM
800 kms