A day two years ago riding north to south through Colorado left a lingering desire to return and see more, so two weeks ago Saturday, my brother John and I gassed up the motorcycles to hit the road back to the Centennial State. Highway 20 through the North Cascades had opened two days earlier, and as it is the preferred route to Okanogan County, away we went.

The trip was my first opportunity to make a lengthy evaluation of the modification I had made to the power connection for my heated gear, and although it worked well, I believe having sacrificed separate control over the gloves and jacket in favor of a single plug will have to be reversed. I have a four‐pin connector on hand to use to replace the Powerlet outlet and will likely be doing some new fabrication work this summer.

Dinner the first night was pizza served up by The Tamarack in Republic, Washington. We ordered an excess, which got packed in the saddlebag for lunch the next day.

As we were securing the bikes out front, a group of about 20 Job Corps volunteers strolled in the door ahead of us. They had a reservation, and their order monopolized the ovens, so we had a chance to watch the street life in downtown Republic for a while as we waited for our meal. There was quite a party going on next door at the Republic Brewing Company, but most interesting were the teenagers making a spectacle of themselves across the street. I suspect I am glad I am not 15 years old and living in a small town.

After a night in the tents at Curlew Lake and a wake‐up call by the Canada geese, we were on the road early with an eye on Montana. In Colville, we took our eyes off Montana long enough for a latté at Ritzes, and again later on the shoulder of the road alongside Lake Pend Oreille for leftover Tamarack Pizza, but otherwise we let the road slip steadily under our wheels as we followed Highway 200 along the Clark Fork toward Missoula.

A train passed on the rails down the embankment leading to the lake as we ate our lunch. Within a few minutes, three youngsters in swim suits and carrying wet towels popped up out of the weeds from the direction of the lake onto the shoulder of the road, then crossed the highway and up a gravel drive. I find it difficult to imagine one of today’s urban helicopter parents letting the kids wander across a state highway and a railroad track in order to go swimming in the fifth deepest lake in the United States — but then that is just my imagination, I suppose.

We had dinner Sunday in Potomac, Montana. The Garmin said it was the Potomac Restaurant and Bar, but the sign on the front said it was Cully’s Bar and Grill. Judging from online real estate listings, the property changed hands in the last year or two (here is the location). In any case, despite its rough exterior appearance, inside was a decent‐looking restaurant filled with drunk locals and a few tourists. The food was … unexceptional.

Forty miles up the road from Potomac is Salmon Lake State Park, which is where we pitched the tents for the night. A beautiful place we had to ourselves except for the camp host. And the mosquitoes.

Fueled next morning by a very good latté and toasted bagel at the counter of General Mercantile in Helena, Montana, Monday saw us through Yellowstone National Park and into the Grand Tetons.

On our trip this way two years ago, we stumbled upon a Thai restaurant in Jackson, Wyoming, that had become the focus of our appetites the closer we got on this day. We found it without trouble, only to discover a sign posted on its door reading, Closed for the season, will be back in mid‐May. Hello? It was May 14; how much more proximate to mid‐May was it likely to get?

Disappointed but intent on having dinner, we found El Abuelito just a few blocks down the street and tucked in to a meal of tasty Mexican food.

Tuesday morning after packing up in Gros Ventre campground, I managed to first flood the engine on the Yamaha and then discharge the battery trying to start it. Two things: pushing a 500 pound motorcycle at 6,565 feet above sea level loaded with 50 pounds of gear followed by your brother on it as he pops the clutch trying to compression start the engine is not going to last long; and NAPA Auto Parts in Jackson, Wyoming, carries jumper cables.

Bagels were to become a breakfast theme for the trip, helped by our stop that morning at Pearl Street Bagels on our way toward the flat, hot, and boring stretch of the ride that would take us out of Wyoming and into Utah and Colorado.

Midday, we pulled off Highway 191 at Sand Spring (a.k.a. The Middle of Nowhere) to read the historical marker and inspect the surrounding shrubbery. The location was along the Oregon Trail, and it was really quite something to see the ruts from the wagons very plainly etched in the dirt. The settling of the American West in the nineteenth century was the largest voluntary migration in human history; according to the marker, estimates are that up to 300 wagons passed through Sand Spring each day at the trail’s peak of use.

As he was touring the shrubbery, John stumbled across the bones of a medium‐sized mammal. Using some gaffer’s tape, he attached the skull to the rear fender of his bike and rode through three states using it as a supplement to his gremlin bell. But only after naming it Al.

We had a Mexican dinner in Clark, Colorado. I unfortunately did not note the name of the restaurant at the time and cannot find mention of it online, or would be happy to give credit, as it was a large, clean establishment that served a good meal. A hot shower at the main campground in Yampa River State Park was a pleasant end to the day’s ride.

We got suitably caffeinated at Amante Coffee in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, for Wednesday’s push to Pikes Peak.

I had not looked carefully enough at the map to realize that our route for the day included Vail, and I was astonished to find myself on Interstate 70 running right down the middle of the place. I have always conjured up a notion of Vail as separated from the quotidian world in an arcadian valley, and although I can certainly understand why people want to live there (it is gorgeous scenery), it was really amusing to learn that my fantasy version was so unlike reality. Vail is just a big strip mall bracketing a freeway, probably with some art galleries and the occasional Italian supercar in the Arby’s drive‐thru thrown in.

We pulled off the road in Manitou Springs to fold our maps into new positions, and as we were standing there shooting the breeze, I watched my bike tip over as the kickstand sank into the soft soil of the parking lot. I have always looked askance at the kickstand cups one sees for sale, but after the bike sustained $500 in cosmetic damage as it bounced off the Colorado dirt, I may be changing my opinion. God. Dammit.

Pikes Peak was amazing. The $12 toll to drive to the top is worth it at twice the amount just for bragging rights, and again because it is an awesome trip. The guy at the gate collecting the toll was great; he suggested going non‐stop to the top first because the weather was threatening to close in (which would have obscured the view), and then stop on the way down to linger over photo opportunities. As it turned out, the weather remained fine, but his helpfulness was welcome and was an excellent reminder that we were riding to a point in the Rocky Mountains over 14,000 feet above sea level.

We were leaning over the railing at the observation area at road’s end when we spotted a cog railroad, which it turns out opened in 1891. I am betting riding a cog railroad to the top of Pikes Peak would compete with riding a motorcycle to the top for getting one’s money’s worth, but I was tickled to have made the trip on my Yamaha.

Dinner Wednesday night was at Coyote Cantina in Buena Vista, Colorado, then down the road a few miles to the Ruby Mountain campground in the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area. The campground was yet another we had entirely to ourselves, but situated as it is on the shore of the Arkansas River, I am sure it gets crowded once the kids are out of school each year.

After a most excellent ride up and over Monarch Pass, Thursday morning’s latté and bagel were courtesy of Mochas in Gunnison, Colorado. The bagel was good enough that we bought some of their sandwiches to have for lunch later in the day, which we ate in a lovely park alongside Highway 50.

We were sitting in the shade on the porch of the grocery store in Naturita, Colorado, that afternoon, drinking our favorite cold sodas, when a fellow on a BMW GS 1200 pulled up from the opposite direction. He was two days out of Sacramento, headed for Telluride. I do not know what it is about BMWs and their riders, but I could not spot a single dead bug on the guy or his bike. John and I, on the other hand, looked as if we and our bikes had been covered with them like peanut butter out of a jar.

Dinner Thursday was at Rib City Grill in Fruita, Colorado. The ribs were my‐tee‐fine, and the chocolate cream pie dessert was not bad either. After belching politely more than once, we left for Highline Lake State Park, where hot showers and a great sunset awaited.

Friday morning we were glad to find the Main Street Coffee House in Rangely, Colorado, which produced yet another example of an unexpectedly satisfying morning’s hot beverage in what had become a series of them covering virtually the entire trip. It was time thereafter to point in the direction of home, as we had completed our clockwise lap of western Colorado and had jobs to return to on Monday.

Heading north that morning from Flaming Gorge, we could see the weather changing on our horizon. As we reached Interstate 80 near Green River, Wyoming, en route to Evanston, the skies opened up. Rain, hail, wind blowing everything sideways, dark and ominous clouds, trucks spraying water in thick sheets. Nasty and not fun. We holed up in a rest area for an hour, eating lunch and waiting for the worst of it to pass, then exited Wyoming in the direction of Bear Lake. By the time we crossed into Idaho, we had driven out from under the clouds.

Tres Hermanos in American Falls, Idaho, and an excellent night’s sleep at Massacre Rocks State Park prepared us for the trip’s longest day by mileage to come.

I am reasonably certain that despite the many car camping outings throughout the Pacific Northwest our family undertook as we were growing up, we never made it to Highway 93 in eastern Idaho, and I had not ever covered that ground as an adult. The fact that there is a place called Craters of the Moon anchoring its southern end and that the U.S. government squirreled itself away in that part of the country after the Second World War to develop its nuclear capabilities¹ suggests that it is barren and unappealing. The only fatal nuclear accident in the United States occurred in the area in 1961. I was picturing tumbleweeds.

Then the map came out, and the other half of the story became apparent.

Highway 93 drives itself over the toes of the Bitterroot Mountains. When it is not doing that, it is winding its way through three or four other ranges that help comprise the Rockies. And just before one reaches Missoula, it intersects with Highway 12 and the Lolo Pass, and sweet FSM is that a one‐of‐a‐kind experience. I loved the ride through Idaho on Saturday and was ready to turn around and do it again as soon as we crossed the Snake River.

By prior arrangement, Bill kept an eye on our progress via SPOT and drove from Pullman to join us in Clarkston, Washington, for dinner at Tomato Brothers. He then followed us over to Hells Gate State Park, where we pitched tents and spent the evening catching up.

Sunday involved the trip across familiar territory to home, 300‐some miles away. We stopped in the town where our birth certificates were signed for lunch at a place we had never eaten, where, to our amusement, we discovered on the wall among the many decorative items a black and white photo appearing to have been taken in the 1950s of a group of women seated at a banquet table, one of whom would later become our aunt.

And that was it. Through the rain blanketing the Puget Sound region to the comfort of home that throughout the 4,112‐mile trip had never been far from mind.