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Tourer
Posts: 460
Centennial, CO | Heading to Albuquerque on Friday afternoon. Curious if anyone is riding there or will be there this weekend???
Will be there from Sat. morning until Sunday morning then back home. |
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Tourer
Posts: 460
Centennial, CO | Great time...but cold as hell during our ride south...
We planned to leave early on Friday. Turns out we left early (IN THE EVENING)! We got out at 6:30 headed south from Denver Metro through Trinidad and over Raton pass into Santa Fe and finally ABQ. I was motorin fast at some points trying to get there quicker than the 1:30 time the GPS said when first took off. Well, we got about 65 or 70 miles and the S.O. had to stop. Her right hip was cramping up so bad that we had to drop into a place for a while. About an hour. This made our arrival time closer to 2:30. Bummer!
Leaving Denver, our first higher elevation is Monument. At about 7800 feet its not bad during the summer. But drops the ambient temp to around 10 less than the other elevations along I-25 at that latitude. When we crested Monument it was 45 degrees (indicated on the dash) so I am guessing it was closer to 43 or so given that the therm on the dash runs a bit high on my bike.
Booked it down to Raton pass and it was down to 38 indicated. OUCH! Yeah, thank God for heated grips and seat. My full face helmet works great. Anyone thought of heating element for those? Heh heh! We have heated everything else. Why not the helmet?
Flying through some places on the highway at 95+, we managed to pull in at 2:30 with one stop for dinner (as mentioned above) and another stop for fuel. I can say that driving fast doesn't take enough time off the bike trip to make it worthwhile. Yes, I saved 30 minutes. But I was tiiiiiired when I got in from all the hard driving. I decided to slow it down from now on even if I am going to end up 30 or more minutes late.
Got back up at 6am (crashed out at 3:15...2 plus hours for sleep...youch!) for the fiesta. Wow...THAT was COOOL! I had a great time and snapped close to 800 pics and shot about 45 mins. of video that morning. The GF and I went to the ABQ zoo later in the day and had a great time. Nice zoo...a little small but VERY nice. Animals are super close. I have close ups of animals I never thought I would be able to get. I know I can't get them here in Denver as close with my 200mm zoom.
We crashed out around 11pm and back up earlier this time (5 hours of sleep...not bad...but still tired from the night before) to assure the first ascensions were caught. Turns out that the breeze was high enough that many balloons bagged the day. Still got a lot of great pics.
Headed to breakfast following and hit the road at 12:30. GPS said home at 7. Well, that was going to be fine. But we met up with a buddy in ABQ and planned to ride back with him. His peanut tank (3.4 usable 1 reserve) got him about 120 miles before a stop. Well, that means we were stopping every 100 to fuel him up. UGH! That added an hour to our drive. We stopped at one place for 45 minutes for some grub and headed on. We pull into north Pueblo and see the clouds rolling in. I put on my cold weather gear and the GF put on her rain gear (as she said, "just in case" . NO rain...but TONS of fog. Not enough to slow anyone down...but still...
I should have mentioned, Raton pass at 5:30pm is beautiful this time of year. Tons of color. No pics though. No time!
Rolling through the springs I keyed up the CB looking for weather reports coming out of Denver. NICE! I got a couple of trucks that were coming south and said it was clear (no rain...but cloudy and cold). Again, great to have heated grips and seats.
We rolled into Denver at 8:45 (at the house) with 47 degrees indicated. Yep...it was off like I expected. The house gear showed it to be 41. Brrrr....
All in all, a very worthwhile quick trip. But I will NOT do it again on the bike unless I am GUARANTEED to ride during the day. I also made another decision during this trip. Regardless, 45 is my lower limit. I can do 35...but not unless I MUST!
Edited by ElroyJ 2009-10-07 3:31 PM
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Cruiser
Posts: 175
Colorado | Where are the photos? |
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Tourer
Posts: 460
Centennial, CO | Will post some when I get to work on Monday. Easier from work... |
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Cruiser
Posts: 143
Sparta, WI | Thanks for the story Elroy. It is getting colder here in Wisconsin and even snowed some last night. |
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Cruiser
Posts: 175
Colorado | I was hoping to see the photos today... |
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Tourer
Posts: 460
Centennial, CO | Here are some pics...Finally...
We hit the show at 7am the first day, then off to the zoo and some pics from the second day at 6am... |
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Tourer
Posts: 460
Centennial, CO | OK...my DA can't figure out how to put links in here before I click submit...
Lets try it again...if this doesn't work, I will post a link to the album itself...
http://s581.photobucket.com/albums/ss260/ElroyJ_Vision/Balloons%20a...
Edited by ElroyJ 2009-10-14 6:31 PM
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OT - Balloon Festival
