41. The Fast Colorado Trip

One summer we planned a group vacation ride to Colorado. Starting out, there were seven couples in all. We always looked forward to this type of trip. But, as the saying goes, the best laid plans of mice and men...

First off, two couples cancelled a couple of weeks before the departure date due to work demands. No big deal, we’d miss them but we still had five couples. Oops, did I say five? For a moment there we did, but then, another couple had to cancel for illness in the family. Again, no biggie. A smaller, more manageable group would actually be more efficient. Four couples left. Just the right size for entering restaurants for quick service. We can still do this.

But the damage is not yet done. Another couple backs out because of more family illness. Now we’re down to three couples; Gary and Judy T, along with Wayne and Pat will go with us. Well, they are all superb traveling companions and we’ve ridden lots of miles with them. Good folks to ride the river with.

Monday morning before the departure time on Friday afternoon sees the final cruelty strike. I too, must cancel out because of work issues! This snowballs because Wayne and Pat then dropped out thinking Gary and Judy T were bailing too.


Damnation! What evil is being visited upon our small, round, heads? How can everybody cancel out on a great trip like this? What about all the pre trip publicity we wrote about in the Intercom Newsletter leading up to this trip?

Departure time came. Went. Nobody left. We all felt so sorry for ourselves. This surely would have been a great trip.

After a couple of weeks, Judy and I started putting together “The Intercom” which was the name of our monthly newsletter. What would have been a great trip report left a huge gaping hole in our little publication.

As I sat there suffering from writer’s block, it came to me in a flash that I should go ahead and write up a trip report any way! I would use what is called poetic license and fabricate a fantastic trip! So, what follows is the story that was printed in the monthly newsletter.

Bill and Terry, accompanied by their wives, decided to go to Neosho Honda in Neosho, Missouri on Saturday morning since the trip was cancelled. While there, they traded bikes as they had offers they couldn’t refuse. Also they learned that their reason for cancelling the trip was rescheduled so suddenly they were free to go!

Plus they had brand new bikes to ride on the long awaited trip. They called us and excitedly told us the double dose of good news; brand new bikes and the trip was on again for them!

We had good news of our own. My planning meetings scheduled for the next week had also been rescheduled. I too was suddenly free to go! So now we are three couples and four bikes. We called Gary and Carolyn, Carl and Carol, and Hugh and Carol. Since they had cancelled because most of us had cancelled, they were only too happy to load up and leave out right away. So the only ones missing are Gary and Judy T who we could not reach on the phone.

Bill and Terry said they knew a short cut from Neosho, Missouri to Colorado Springs, Colorado. Great! We’ll all meet up at the Silver Saddle Motel in Manitou Springs tomorrow. (for those who live in Topeka, look at the map. Short cut? Impossible!)

Gary and Carolyn, who owned the Bakery and Deli of Ah’s (pun on Oz, get it?) said they had planned a surprise for us and left a few hours earlier than the rest of the gang. Said they would meet us at the campsite at Dillon Lake. (I just realized how many Gary’s and Carol’s we have in our group)

Blessed with great weather, we high tailed it to WaKeeney, Kansas for our first night. Getting an early start the next morning, we made it to Manitou Springs to find Bill and Terry waiting for us. We looked at the beautiful new bikes and congratulated them on moving up. Early next morning we left for Dillon Lake.

We arrived there in mid afternoon to find Carolyn busy baking bread, pies and twice baked potatoes in rented ovens. So...this was the big surprise she had planned. No, not quite all; Gary had set out long fishing lines in the lake and caught many, many, Rainbow trout. Boy, were we going to eat good tonight!

Next morning there was a heavy frost and ice rimmed the water glasses we had left out. Carol, who is always cold, went into Dillon to buy a warm coat. Hugh went along with Carl and Carol to buy a warm hat to keep his head warm. What bargains they found.

Carol bought a splendid muskrat coat and Hugh picked up a raccoon hat with ear flaps and a tail for his head. Every one was really having a good time on this trip. While there, Carol struck up a conversation with a nice fellow that was in the store. She talked quite a while before she suddenly took a hard look at him He turned out to be; Robert Redford!! His own self!

He was on a new BMW and was accompanied by a really pretty girl named Elise, who was some kind of French film star, whatever that means. Bob and Elise followed them back to our camp and had supper with us. He had brought along several bottles of high dollar white wine to go with our trout and homemade bread supper.

Allowing our supper to settle, we chatted around the camp fire for a while and when Bob and Elise left for Aspen, they invited us up to his place in Aspen. Hey, would we turn down an invitation from the Sundance Kid? Not likely.

But the next morning dawned cool and gray, with light rain falling. We made slow time crossing Independence Pass which was so foggy visibility was reduced to less than 200 feet. We eased on down to Aspen and made our way to Bob’s place where he welcomed us in. We crowded around his huge fireplace trying to dry out and warm up.

A faint smell began to permeate the room. As we began getting warmer, the source was tracked down to Carol’s muskrat coat. After a while, it became unbearable and was taken outside. We had a nice brunch, talked with Elise and Bob for a while and then had to get headed on down to South Pass for the night.

As we crossed Slumgullion Pass, the rain hit us again. This is not a great day, but at least most of the places we stop for gas and snacks have big fireplaces which means that Carol’s coat is getting ranker by the hour.

After being thrown out of a restaurant, Carol is gettin’ more than a little testy about her coat now. No matter; soon enough, we’re on our way crossing South Pass and heading down to Salida for our last night in Colorado. Fortunately, we camp at Texas Creek on this night and Carol’s coat is not mentioned again.

Up early next day and we’re on our way before 0700. We roll into the little town of Trinidad about three hours later and descend upon a Wendy’s that has just set up the noon buffet tables. Have you ever been so fatigued that your hands are like clumsy softballs? Try riding a motorcycle for 5 hours in cool weather on sharp twisted roads and see if they don’t cramp up something bad.

With this impaired fine motor control of fingers, we made a hell of a mess of the salad and hot food bar. It looked like a pack of rats had run through. We felt bad about the mess, but there wasn’t much we could do about it. We also decorated our shirts with food particles and left Wendy’s somewhat embarrassed.

Next stop; Garden City, Kansas. We’ll stay overnight here and make it home tomorrow. We stayed at the Wheatlands Motel and trashed that restaurant as well. Damn, we sure were messy. Tomorrow will be warm and still with mostly straight roads so the fumble fingers should go away.

By 1630, we were home. Bill and Terry rode ahead as some of their accessories for their new bikes should be in and they couldn’t wait to put on all the lights, bells, and whistles. This was a good break in ride for those two bikes.

Carol parted company with her muskrat coat as the smell was really fierce and intense by now; not unlike a wet dog. It was warm enough to where she wasn’t cold any more anyway.

But, Hugh kept his raccoon cap. Seemed he would rather let his gourd get wet than to mess up his new headgear.

Gary and Carolyn headed for their bakery to see if the vacation staff had broken anything.

Judy and I went home to write up the trip report. Thus ended the story of the fast Colorado Trip. Or...did it?

The aftermath of this story had some unforeseen amusing effects. You may recall that Gary and Judy T were among the original group that were going on this ride. We had tried to contact them to see if they wanted to go along with our fictitious ride, but could not reach them.

There was an excellent reason why we couldn’t reach them. They had ridden out to Colorado and crossed the passes we only wrote about!!! They were the only ones who actually went, but sad to say they were not even mentioned in the story! They were somewhat miffed, to say the least!

But the couple that was really offended was Wayne and Pat. Wayne checked his mail that fateful day and brought the newsletter in to read with his supper. As he read about our trip to Colorado, he got real mad, stopped reading, and threw the newsletter away. He really thought we had all left without them.

Next day, Pat retrieved the newsletter and read the whole wacky story, laughing like hell when she realized what we had done and how Wayne had been taken in. Best of all, we didn’t disappoint those folks who fell for this fiction and really thought we had a great trip.

Unintended consequences. Hey, sometimes less is more!!