Day 10: Wee Shits

May 31, 2019

Day 10 of the 2019 Prefrontal Tour is dedicated to the wee shits...

The storm we dodged hung there all night, pummeling that pass like an angry troll daring us to cross the bridge again.  By morning it was gone and we could see all of the mountains, although as usual it's sometimes hard to tell where the snowy mountains end and the clouds begin.

We left Montrose and passed through the beautiful town of Delta, with its orchards and vineyards, and of course a marijuana dispensary with a creative name, this time the "Delta Dab and Doobie".

Probably because of the orchards and all of the blossoms I noticed an uptick in the bugs hitting the windshield, mostly bees.  Snoopy 2 has seen more insect impacts than her namesake, but to her credit she's carrying far fewer dump duck droppings.  After all this time and miles, sad to say, I still haven't seen more than a couple of butterflies.

It's no secret that dad drove so slow the bugs splattered on the back window of the pickup.  But this apple fell far from the tree, rolled downhill into a fast running stream, and ended up in a different county altogether.  Just after Delta we pulled up to a red light and waited for a minute, then just as we were pulling away I looked in the rearview and I could see my shadow making double-time trying to catch up.  It would have to do better than that...

Superluminal travel aside, we had a fantastic day and covered a ton of elevation, ECM's working hard to adjust as we covered more than a vertical mile, more than once.  We hit the amazing Black Canyon of the Gunnison and took a ton of photos.  At that height it still had the smell of deer season, with chipmunks earning their stripes racing across the road in front of the bikes, and the new limon leaves of the aspens hinting at a golden blaze come autumn.

One does not simply "go a little wide" in the Black Canyon.  I haven't figured out the formula these westerners use for deciding where to put guard rails yet, but it doesn't take into account the consequences of a motorcycle "coming in hot".  If you go a little wide, your carcass when it finally comes to rest will be a little wider, a little longer, a lot lower, and a lot flatter than when it first launched off the turn.  That road is an asphalt snake that darts inside into the mountain "wee!"... and then carves an outside turn of sharp rocks and atmosphere "shit!"...  Do that a hundred times, and you'll have a case of the wee shits.

The bike ticked over all sixes on the odometer as we rode up Gunnison River Canyon, pulling into town at high noon, the town's initial standing several hundred feet high on the hillside above the town as is their custom out west.  But a large capital "W"?!  The waitress at the "W Cafe" said it stood for "west", but west of what she couldn't say.

We took a jaunt up to Crested Butte, a cool little ski town, dodging another snow storm along the way, then back to Gunnison and on to Salida over Monarch Pass, an amazing drive this time with sunshine and views for a hundred miles.  Susan and I visited Salida during the winter, but weren't able to make it over Monarch Pass due to all the snow.

Thanks for following along with the Tour, and stay tuned for even more fun and excitement!  Until next time.  Onward and upward!